When I mentioned that I was working on a homemade milk post many of you asked for a low-cost and nut-free homemade milk recipe. I decided to put myself to the challenge. Homemade Oat Milk, it is!
First, I’ll show you how I made it with step-by-step photos and at the end of my post I’ll share my thoughts on flavour, price, texture, and overall pros and cons.
You will also need a blender (any blender should work as we don’t need to blend the oats super smooth), a fine sieve, a large bowl, a small bowl, and measuring spoons/cup. I haven’t tried this oat milk with cheesecloth or a nut milk bag yet, but if anyone does please leave a comment and let us know how it goes.
Homemade Oat Milk
Yield
3 cups
Prep time
Cook time
0 minutes
Total time
Ingredients
- 1 cup steel-cut oats
- 3 cups filtered water
- 1.5-2 tbsp pure maple syrup (or other liquid sweetener or pitted dates), to taste
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- scant 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt (enhances flavour)
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (optional, but nice)
Directions
- Rinse and drain 1 cup of steel-cut oats. [I’ve heard you can also use oat groats.} Place oats into a bowl and cover with water. Soak for around 20 minutes. You can soak longer (even overnight) if desired.
- After soaking, rinse and drain the oats very well. This step is very important because you want to rinse off any of the oat slime that has occurred from soaking. Yes, oat slime is a thing...it happens.
- Scoop oats into your blender and add 3 cups water. I prefer using 3 cups of water as opposed to 4 cups because it yields a creamier/thicker milk. Feel free to add more water if you wish, just know the more water you add the thinner your milk will be.
- Cover with lid and turn the blender on a low speed, increasing the speed gradually, and blend at the highest speed for about 8-10 seconds only. You don’t need to completely pulverize the oats.
- Place a fine sieve over a large bowl and pour the oat milk very slowly into the sieve. You might have to do this in a couple batches depending on the size of your sieve.
- With a spoon, gently push down on the oat pulp so the milk flows through. This helps push the milk into the bowl, leaving the oat pulp behind in the sieve.
- Scoop the oat pulp into a small bowl and set aside. Clean out your blender and sieve with a good rinse of water until no pulp residue remains.
- Place sieve over top of your blender and pour the milk in once again and strain.
- Rinse out the bowl and sieve once again. Strain the milk through the sieve into the bowl (optional). If you don’t want to strain again, simply add in your mix-ins and blend on low.
- I whisked in 1.5 tbsp maple syrup, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt (enhances sweetness), and 1/4 tsp cinnamon. These mix-ins turn your oat milk from bland to hmm-this-could-be-decent-when-cold.
- I strained my milk one last time into a clean blender. Then I poured the milk from the blender into a clean mason jar for storage in the fridge.
Tip:
Notes: This should last in the fridge in a sealed container/jar for 4-5 days. Use it in smoothies, oatmeal, cereal, baking, or drink it straight. If you want to use it in a savoury recipe, you can omit the sweetener, vanilla, and cinnamon. Homemade milk does separate (remember there are no added emulsifiers!), so be sure to give your milk a very good shake (or stir) before using. No biggie. A little non-dairy milkshake never hurt anyone. I just don’t want you to be alarmed when you see the heavier ingredients sitting at the bottom of the jar.
This should last in the fridge in a sealed container/jar for 4-5 days. Use it in smoothies, oatmeal, cereal, baking, or drink it straight. If you want to use it in a savoury recipe, you can omit the sweetener, vanilla, and cinnamon.
Don’t let all the step-by-step photos fool you into thinking this is lengthy to make – it takes just 5 minutes once your oats are soaked.
Step 4:
Step 5:
Step 6:
Step 8:
As you can see in the bottom left photo, straining twice gets even more pulp out yielding a smoother milk. I usually strain it 3 times or so, but it’s not necessary if you are time-crunched.
Step 9:
Step 10:
Step 11: I strained my milk one last time into a clean blender. Then I poured the milk from the blender into a clean mason jar for storage in the fridge.
Taste Report:
The flavour of this oat milk is much like I expected; it tastes like oats. Shocking, I know. The biggest challenge I had when testing this recipe was getting it creamy enough. I tried 1/2 cups steel-cut oats with 4 cups water and then 3/4 cups steel-cut oats with 3 cups water. I found both end results to be too watery. Using 1 cup of steel-cut oats to 3 cups of water was my favourite ratio (so far). If you play around with the recipe, I’d love to hear your versions too.
Keeping in mind that this homemade milk is free of emulsifiers and thickeners, I was fairly impressed with the texture. Is it just like store-bought milk? Of course not, but I do think it’s a decent option with a clean ingredient list. It’s much easier on the wallet too!
PROS:
- Very low cost (a batch using steel-cut oats cost me about 50 cents – or less if you can get a deal on oats)
- Nut-free so good for those with allergies
- Quick to make
- You don’t need a nut milk bag or cheesecloth
- Clean up was easy, even with all the spilling I seem to do…
- Decent, but not mind-blowing, flavour
CONS:
- Not as creamy compared to homemade almond milk
- Slightly watery (although this is improved when using 3 cups water instead of 4)
All in all, I feel that the pros outweigh the cons with this homemade oat milk. It’s so cheap to make and that is a huge plus for me. I personally don’t drink much milk by the glass so I think this will be just fine when added to cereal, smoothies, oatmeal, etc. But so far, I’ve been sipping the jar straight from the fridge, letting out satisfied mmm’s and dribbling milk down the front of my shirt. Eric, as always, is quite confident he married a weirdo.
Update: I tried the milk with some Nature’s Path cereal and it tasted a bit like cinnamon toast crunch, probably thanks to the cinnamon in the milk. yummy!
I also made a trial using cooked steel-cut oats and the milk turned out super slimy. I didn’t rinse the oats after cooking, but maybe I should have? I’m going to stick with the non-cooked method.
Odds are that some of you won’t like this milk at all, but it’s also likely that some of you will really enjoy it and appreciate this as a cheap, at-home alternative to the store-bought stuff. I’m quite anxious to see what you think and I welcome your feedback in the comments!
What can you do with the leftover oat pulp? I suggest saving it and mixing it into oatmeal and smoothies. If you have a dehydrator, I assume you could also dehydrate the pulp and then pulverize it in a blender to make flour. If anyone has any other ideas, leave ‘em below.
Have you ever made homemade oat milk or tried a store-bought version? Do you make your own milks at home? If so, what’s your favourite recipe?
Catching up in this series? See: Vegan How To: Introduction (Why this series?), Part 1: How To Make The Transition, Part 2: Replacing Dairy
I purchased a carton of oat milk (Pacific Foods brand) from a health fooid store. I heated it up to make Golden Milk, aka Turmeric milk. I enjoyed the oat milk a lot that I decided to google on how to make your own. A lot of people make their oat milk with rolled oats and water, but recommend you cannot heat it or it will get thick and unpleasant for drinking. I did not experience that with a Pacific Foods brand. My question is, has anyone heated up this milk from this particular recipe? If so, can you tell whether it heated well?
I just made a fresh batch of this oat milk because I wanted some hot cocoa…used it with my square of chocolate in the microwave…didn’t get thick or icky…stayed the way I made it. :)
I have been trying different oat milk recipes and they all turn out slimy.
I mix my milk before drinking it and there is always a residue on the bottom.
I thought that you could heat up oat milk, the slime happens when I heat it up.
Hi I made this, or something like it yesterday. I did not throw away the soak water (I didn’t want to lose any good nutrients – maybe that was a bit precious?!) but used it instead to blend the oats. Then I strained through a sieve, put the pulp aside, and strained a second time through a cheesecloth which collected the fine grains, and I understood, then, what you meant by oat ‘slime’! As we aren’t to give birds bread, but oats these days I put the slime out for the birds and used the set-aside pulp to make porridge. By adding 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, I didn’t need to add sugar/sweetener (I’m off sugar at the moment). a dash of the oat milk helped to loosen it up a bit, and I topped it with soy-kefir. It was very nice, so thank you for the recipe idea.
Not good…. I’ve found 3 cups actually would’ve yielded a very thin milk, I thought this was the case and so gradually added the water. 2 cups was more than enough! Maybe personal preference, but I don’t think so. Thanks for the idea though.
Thanks for your feedback Stephen!
Can I put nutritional yeast in my homemade oatmilk?
It would make it taste cheesy, salty, and savory. Is that what you are looking for?
I made this pretty much as directed using only 2 dates and 1/2 Tablespoon of maple syrup. Using steel cut oats, discarding the soaking water and then THOROUGHLY rinsing, really helped cut down on the “oat slime” I experienced wtih another recipe. I put mine in a nut milk bag and it turned out great. I like the 3:1 ratio. Thanks for posting this.
Hey Lisa, I’m so glad this worked so well for you. I agree that thoroughly rinsing is so helpful. :)
Just love this recipe! So easy to make. I freeze it, too and it turns out great once thawed for making my hot millett cereals. Tastes great and what a relief to find this recipe as I no longer can drink the ones from the stores due to an allergy to a common additive they use. I tried soaking oats for 20 mins. and overnight and found no real difference in taste or texture. I don’t even strain as many times as recommended and it still works out! Thanks so much for this excellent recipe!
Just made Oat Mylk as it’s expensive at the store and not that great. I like Oat Milk as I find it the closest to real milk in taste. I used Organic Oat Groats (perhaps 1/2 cup) – soaked them overnight. Rinsed these really well with a strainer. Put them in the blender with 1 1/2 (distilled) cups water, good dash of vanilla essence and 2 pitted dates. Put them in the Vitamix blender and blended a good while. Put some cheese cloth over a strainer, which was put over a small-ish glass bowl in sink. Poured this well-blended milk over the cheesecloth/strainer. Squeezed out cheesecloth into the mylk and voila! Great mylk/milk!!
I just made this!
I soaked it for a couple of hours since I read a comment that time doesn’t make a lot of difference. Rinsed it, but not TOO thoroughly since I hoped a small amount of “slime” would make it a bit creamy, and not too thin. In the blender I added the salt, maple syrup and I also added a bit of coconut oil (since the best tasting store brands have it in them!) and some shredded dried coconut. Mixed it, strained it, and and, and again… and a couple of times more. It was a little slimy and tasted quite strong, but my simple solution was to add more water until it was perfect! I haven’t tried the original recipe but I really like the creamyness that the hint of coconut and oil added. I immediately made a cup of hot chocolate and it is amazing and rich in flavour! Thank you so much for this recipe!
Thanks for your review…I love your tweaks! :)
By the way, I have been willing to make this for a while now, but today it happens to be World Plant Milk day, so it was the ideal moment! :)
Does the soaking process happen in or outside of the refrigerator?
It’s really up to you! I usually just soak on the counter whenever I’m soaking grains, nuts/seeds, or beans :)
You need to put a bit of oil in! It tastes just like the shop one then. I only add salt and oil and strain it through the nutmilk bag and it’s always perfect!
Oh great tip, thanks! Which kind of oil do you use?
I made some delicious crackers with the pulp. 1 cup oat pulp, 1 cup barley meal, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup cooking oil, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp soda, 1T everything bagel seasoning (Trader Joes). Make a stiff dough, roll it out then chill in the freezer; cut out crackers and bake at 375/30 minutes
Hey Leslie, that’s so cool! I love your idea of using the pulp for crackers…thanks for sharing!
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I make it exactly as written and it tastes great cold. Then I put it in my coffee and heat it a bit and it turns thick and undrinkable. I’ve read these reviews where people say it doesn’t happen for them. I’ve tried both rolled and steel cut oats but it happens with both. I really enjoy oat milk but if I can’t put it in my coffee, I can’t use it all before it goes bad and it’s too time consuming to make every day. Any suggestions?
Hey Tina, Oh that’s a bummer for sure! I’m not sure as I don’t think I’ve tried it in coffee yet. I have found in the past that homemade nut milks separate in coffee and aren’t great in hot drinks (that’s why all the store-bought ones have emulsifiers). If anyone has any tips for adding this to coffee or tea I would love to hear them too!
I found a recipe in an older book that called for sprouted oats. So I soaked and sprouted for a day, .75 cups of oat groats. Then I blended them with 2.5 cups of H2O. But I didn’t rinse the “goop” off and it was pretty slimy, alright. I strained it through 2 layers of nut milk bag. Next time I think I’ll sprout them for 2 days (at least). What I made was pretty good and made a very THICK hot chocolate. What I liked about it was that it was actually white when combined with the cacao and carob, whereas almond milk just DISAPPEARS. I think I might also add some oil to it next time, because milk contains fat. Fun. I think oats are healthier than nuts, so that’s why I want to figure out a really good way to make oat milk. What is the best recipe posted yet? There are SO many comments, and only so many hours in a day, so can someone tell me the “best yet”? Thank you !
Oat milk is my absolute favorite drink! I spend so much money on Oatley chocolate (it’s like a milk shake it’s so delicious) and their vanilla too. I can’t wait to try your recipe! I’m nursing and trying to increase my volume with oats so I have been drinking and eating a lot of oats, and I still love the oat milk. So anyone questioning oat milk taste and it’s worthiness, please do yourself a favor and try it!
I hope you enjoy the oat milk if you try it :) Oatley chocolate sounds delicious! I don’t think I have seen that brand near me
Made this, 2 minutes ago and I love it. I used steel cut oats that I had soaking overnight (President’s choice Blue menu). I didn’t have any dates or maple syrup, so I used a small amount of homemade simple syrup. I will be making this all the time now, can’t wait to try it with cereal and dairy free hot chocolate!
Thanks!
This recipe really worked for me and the “milk” has turned out to be really tasty – very satisfying for a first attempt. Ironically, we really enjoy it in porridge…
I used Irish Jumbo oats, and 2 dessert spoons of maple syrup – sweet enough. I used a nut milk bag that has extremely fine nylon mesh and this was a real time saver – I only needed to do 2 strains.
Thanks for a great recipe and I look forward to trying some more!
Thanks for sharing Peter! So glad it worked out well for you. I love it in porridge too ;)
Tried to make a latte using my oat milk (made the same way as you) but it turned into slime… Is there a way to stop this happening?
Hey Beth, In my experience, homemade oat milk will always be a bit slimy (I have tested it a ton of different ways!!)…if I land on a better method I will be sure to share. I’ve found recently that rolled oats as opposed to steel cut produce a slightly less slimy outcome…also blending for a short amount of time too.
love this! and i will compost the leftover oats! woohoo can’t wait to try. (p.s. i don’t have the means to compost myself, so i joined a pickup service. check out your area to see if something like this is available to you too! it’s too cool, they provide you with a bucket, pick up your stuff, and turn it into compost for urban farms and gardens in the city- which in this case in Philadelphia. awesome! :) ).