Surely, I can’t be the only oat milk enthusiast. These days, it seems that any self-respecting coffee shop in America offers oat milk…for a price. Some coffee shops charge a dollar just for an oat milk up-charge on a latte. I wondered how hard it could really be to make it myself. This is the tale of my oat milk adventures…feel free to laugh at my mistakes along the way, but I’ll have you know that I accomplished my goal by making an entire liter of oat milk for less than the price of that up-charge. 

I did the math; this recipe for oat milk costs about 60 cents for an entire liter. That’s pretty impressive considering that my favorite brand of store-bought oat milk costs almost $6 for 1.89 liters. I think my fellow oat milk fans will agree with me when I say that the Oatly brand reigns supreme. Their ingredients are similar, but there are processing tools and stabilizers that I just don’t have in my home kitchen. They use: oats, rapeseed oil (canola oil), dipotassium phosphate, calcium carbonate, tricalcium phosphate, sea salt, dicalcium phosphate, riboflavin, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D2 and vitamin B12. My recipe only has five ingredients: water, oats, avocado oil, sugar and a pinch of salt. Considering that my homemade version is not a processed product, it has differences. I personally love the flavor and velvety texture of Oatly in my morning coffee. My sweet little version doesn’t stand a chance there. However, this recipe does work extremely well in smoothies, cereal, baked goods and even scrambled eggs. My version is an economical stand-in for oat milk. I wouldn’t make a latte with it, though. All things considered, I find it worthwhile to keep my grocery budget in check.

So, how do you make it? I meant it when I titled this recipe, “Easy Oat Milk.” It truly doesn’t get simpler than blending and straining. Clean, filtered water goes into a blender with a cup of rolled oats, avocado oil, sugar and salt. The base gets blended for 60 seconds and strained into a colander lined with cheesecloth. This is a great time to mention an important misstep that I made. I used a clean tea towel to strain my first batch. It worked very well at letting the liquid through and blocking the solids from passing, however I detected an unexpected flavor in the taste test. Lavender! I use lavender dryer sheets in my laundry and, in this case, on my tea towel. Fresh cheesecloth works best in this method because it is intended for food safety. When using cheesecloth, you’ll need to fold it two or three times to filter out enough of the oat solids. Letting too much of the solids into the milk creates a chalky texture. Try to let gravity do the work by allowing the oat milk to drip through the colander into a clean bowl rather than twisting and forcing it through. Once filtered, transfer the oat milk to a container and refrigerate. This recipe lasts about a week in the fridge and be advised that it will separate, so give it a good shake before each use.

Easy Oat Milk

Ingredients:

1 liter clean, filtered water

1 cup rolled uncooked oats

2 tablespoons sugar (or maple syrup, honey, sweetener of choice)

2 tablespoons avocado oil

Pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Add all ingredients into a blender. Blend the mixture for 60 seconds on high.
2. Using a large bowl, place inside a colander lined with cheesecloth. Line the cheesecloth over the colander. Be sure to use at least 2 layers of cheesecloth to filter out the solids. Allow the mixture to drain into the bowl completely. You can use a spoon to move the solids around. Sometimes the cheesecloth gets blocked. 
3. Transfer the filtered oat milk to a container in the fridge. Shake before each use.