Make your own hazelnut milk: It’s that easy

Hazelnut milk is a vegan alternative to cow’s milk that is becoming increasingly common on supermarket shelves. But you can also easily make the nutty plant milk yourself. Here is a recipe for hazelnut milk, showing you step by step how to make a delicious vegan milk from hazelnuts and a few other ingredients.

Make hazelnut milk yourself: The most important things in a nutshell

Hazelnut milk is a vegan milk substitute made from hazelnuts. These are soaked overnight in water and then pureed with a kitchen blender to a watery mass. Then you need to filter the mass through a cloth, sweeten to taste and then you can use the drink like milk in coffee, for cereals or desserts. Hazelnut milk is characterized by a subtle nutty flavor.

What is hazelnut milk?

Hazelnut milk is a vegan milk substitute, more specifically a watery extract made from hazelnut kernels. The nuts are soaked, ground, then pureed and sweetened to taste.

The vegetable alternative tastes very nutty, contains a lot of vitamin E and B as well as omega-3 fatty acids. It can be added to muesli at breakfast or to your morning coffee. The nice thing is that you don’t necessarily have to buy it in the supermarket, because preparing your own is very easy. The great advantage of hazelnut milk is that the plant from which the delicious seeds are harvested is native to our area. So you can grow the ingredients in your own garden.

Is it hazelnut milk or hazelnut drink?

Like other plant-based alternatives, for example soy, oat or almond milk, hazelnut milk is becoming increasingly popular and is also available in supermarkets. Strictly speaking, these products may not be sold as “milk”. This is because the term is protected under food law and reserved only for the products of cows, sheep, goats and horses. The packaging of the alternatives therefore says “drink” or “beverage”.

This is how to make your own hazelnut drink

Ingredients:

• 250 g hazelnuts
• 1 liter of water
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup or agave syrup, alternatively: 1 date
• possibly some cinnamon and cardamom

Preparation:

Soak the hazelnut kernels in water overnight. You should pour off the soaking water the next day. Then puree the nuts together with a liter of fresh water and the maple syrup or agave syrup in a blender for about three to four minutes until fine. Then strain the mixture through a clean kitchen towel, a nut milk bag or a fine-mesh sieve so that only the watery solution remains. A date can also be added to the blender to sweeten it.

A special note gets the milk by a pinch of cinnamon and / or cardamom. The drinks can be stored in clean bottles in the refrigerator for three to four days.

To make the hazelnuts taste even more intense, you can roast them in the oven at 180 °C / 356 °F for about ten minutes or briefly in a pan before soaking. Then rub them with kitchen paper, remove the brown skin as best you can and then soak the kernels.