A few years ago I found out officially that I have a dairy allergy.  Literal tears streamed down my face when I learned I'd have to stop eating things like yogurt, butter, and my beloved cheese.  

After I got over the period of mourning, I began looking for alternatives.  And for my morning coffee, I eventually turned to oat milk.  While I loved it, one short glance at the ingredients list made me search for ways to make my own.

I quickly discovered how easy – and totally inexpensive – it is.  

Wanna give it a try for yourself?  Check out my tips and tricks below.

Ingredients:

2 cups organic old-fashioned oats

8 cups water

that's it!

What you'll need:

a large saucepan

a medium bowl

a fine-mesh strainer

18in x 18in piece of cheesecloth

1 metal tablespoon

2 large, wide-mouth mason jars

lids for the jars

a blender

The whole process is pretty easy.  To begin, gather all of your equipment and ingredients.  If you don't have cheesecloth, you can use a (clean) tee shirt or pantyhose.  They're basically the same, though I like the durability of cheesecloth best.

Put the oats into the blender, then add the water.  Blend for roughly 30 seconds.  

One thing about working with oats – they can get overworked (just like the rest of us).  Keep that in mind throughout the process.  Why does this matter?  Because by nature oats are slimy.  And the more you futz around with them, the slimier the oat milk will be.  

After the oats and water have blended together, you'll need to strain out the excess oats.  To do this, place the fine-mesh strainer inside the medium bowl and pour the whole mixture from the blender into the strainer/bowl.

Once it's all been poured into the strainer, take the strainer out of the bowl and, using the spoon, start to move the clumped-up oats around inside the strainer to help the liquid oat milk drain into the bowl. 

You'll be left with a bunch of mushed oats that you can either throw into your compost or find other uses for (such as putting the oat blob into a muslin sack and using it for your personal oat bath).

With your bowl filled with your oat milk, rinse off the strainer and place it inside the larger saucepan.  Grab your cheesecloth and line the inside of the strainer with it.  

Once that's set up, slowly pour your oat milk into the cheesecloth-lined strainer for the second straining.  This helps to get out even more particles.

Carefully gather the edges of the cheesecloth and create a kind of sack with it.  Remember, it's filled with oat milk still so proceed with caution.  Lift up that cheesecloth sack and help the oat milk drain completely from it. 

Here's another place it can get overworked, so try to not overly squeeze the milk from the cheesecloth.  Help it along, but don't force the issue because it'll turn into a slimy mess.

After the milk has drained from the cheesecloth sack, put the bowl aside and, using your fingers or the spoon, remove the remaining oat material from the cheesecloth. 

A nice use for these leftover oats is a face mask because the texture is pretty smooth and gooey.  If you're into it, put these little leftover oat bits into a small container and refrigerate until you're ready to use them.  However, don't wait too long, because it'll get all sorts of yuck after a couple of days.

But I digress…

Rinse off your cheesecloth and set aside to dry.  You can definitely reuse this multiple times, so clean off the oats well.

Finally, place your mason jars into the sink (trust me on this) and carefully pour the milk into the jars. 

There's always a bit of thicker oat residue at the bottom of the pan, so you can either add that to the oat milk or dump it.

Put the lids on your jars, close completely, rinse off the jars, and then put them in the fridge.  

When you're ready to use the oat milk, be sure to carefully shake the jar to help mix it all up.  Since there aren't any artificial binders in this, separation naturally occurs.  No biggie.

Ways to tweak:

If you're a fan of flavoring, you can totally add in cinnamon, vanilla, or whatever flavor profile you'd like while making this.  Experiment with the amounts and at what point in the process you add the spices to the oats.  (Do you do it while it's blending?  Do you add it to the jars and then pour the milk over the spices?  Lots of options and combinations.)

While this might seem like it's a complicated process, it's really not.  Once you get in there and play with it, you'll see it's super easy. 


Cheers!