It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

Want to Save This Recipe?

Enter your email & I’ll send it straight to your inbox. And you’ll get new recipes & tips each week.

Save Recipe

Meet my new obsession: cashew milk.

Seriously, cashew milk.

In 2016, kale is king (or is there a new king of the vegetables these days?), quinoa is no longer a mystery word or substance (even Walmart sells quinoa), and cashews are milked (well, more like blended).

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

One of the first processed food to real food swaps we made was the kind of milk we purchased. After reading the book, The Untold Story of Milk, we searched for a local farmer with very clean living and milking conditions for the cows, and started consuming raw milk in place of the ultra-pasteurized organic milk we purchased from the store. Dustin, who suffered from dairy issues since he was a child, noticed a huge difference in his ability to consume the raw milk versus the ultra-pasteurized milk.

For nearly four years now, we’ve been purchasing raw milk from the same local farm every two weeks. I love everything about our raw milk farmer’s milk: it’s creamy (you can see the thick cream line just floating on top), nourishing, and decadent. Most of the time our gallon of raw milk is used for baking, smoothies, and granola bowls.

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

This past year I’ve been traveling a lot more than I have in the past, which means I’m not always home to pickup our raw milk on the designated week and time. When this happens, I usually purchase Organic Valley’s Grass Milk or Natural By Nature’s Milk from Whole Foods or our local health food store. Both options are by far the best store-bought milk options in our area. The flavor difference between these milk options and our creamy and sweet raw milk means that I usually resort to using this milk for baking (biscuits, pancakes, waffles, etc.), and use a nut milk for smoothies and granola bowls. Raw milk has definitely changed and spoiled my taste-buds.

Enter creamy cashew milk.

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

I’ve shared one of my go-to nut milk recipes, almond milk, on Live Simply before. I absolutely love almond milk, but I also love changing things up every once in a while when it comes to what we’re consuming.

To do this, I like to switch between making homemade almond milk and cashew milk. While both milks are creamy and sweet, and both add the perfect subtle flavor to smoothies and granola bowls, I personally love the extra creaminess that “milked” cashews offer. Cashew milk is also much easier to make than almond milk, since you don’t have to use soaked nuts and don’t need a nut bag (or heavy duty cheesecloth). Cashew milk also leaves behind very little pulp, which I believe is the reason for the super creamy consistency of this milk.

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

If you haven’t tried making your own nut milk yet, cashew milk is definitely the recipe to start with. As mentioned above, it’s a super simple nut milk that requires zero prep time and results in a creamy, white milk that looks just like “regular” milk. Cashew milk can be used in just about any recipe calling for milk, added to smoothies, poured over your favorite granola, enjoyed in coffee as a creamer, or enjoyed straight from a glass with homemade cookies.

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

How to Make Creamy Cashew Milk
4 from 1 vote

How to Make Creamy Cashew Milk (Dairy-Free Milk and Coffee Creamer)

Cashew milk can be used in just about any recipe calling for milk, added to smoothies, poured over your favorite granola, enjoyed in coffee as a creamer, or enjoyed straight from a glass with homemade cookies.
Kristin Marr
Prep Time5 minutes
Total Time5 minutes
Course Drinks
Cuisine American
Servings 4 cups of milk
Calories 202 kcal

Ingredients

  • 4 cups filtered water
  • 1 cup cashews
  • 2 TB medjool dates pitted, or 2maple syrup
  • 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Add the ingredients to the jar of a high-speed blender. Blend the ingredients for 60 seconds, until the cashews are completely blended into the water.
  • Strain the milk through a nut bag or fine mesh sieve (you don't have to use a nut bag since the cashew milk leaves behind very little pulp). If you're using a nut bag, slowly squeeze the bag like you're milking a cow. If you're using a fine mesh sieve, press the pulp down with the back of a wooden spoon to squeeze out the milk. Discard the leftover pulp.
  • Place the milk in a bottle with a tight-fitting seal for 7 days (I've gone as long as 10 days). Gently shake the bottle before use.

Nutrition

Calories: 202kcalCarbohydrates: 15gProtein: 6gFat: 14gSaturated Fat: 2gSodium: 16mgPotassium: 262mgFiber: 1gSugar: 6gCalcium: 22mgIron: 2.2mg
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it was!

Cashews are soft enough that they don’t need to be soaked in advance. From a nutritional standpoint, soaking the cashews overnight may boost the nutrition of this milk and make it easier to digest. Soak the cashews in water and a pinch of salt, then discard the water before adding the cashews to the blender.

Cashew milk may be used in just about any recipe calling for milk, or enjoyed as a delicious beverage. If you’re making savory dishes with this milk, you may want to leave out the sweetener and vanilla. I love to use cashew milk as a coffee creamer and to make smoothies.

It's super easy to make your own creamy cashew milk! No soaking necessary. It's the perfect substitute for coffee creamer!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

12 Comments

  1. Hello,

    I’ve enjoyed following your blog and trying out some of your recipes. I’m going to make your cashew milk and bake your pumpkin pie, but will need to make it dairy free, which leads to my question. I notice that you don’t use nut milk when you are baking, but will choose to use it in other recipes. Have you attempted using it and if so what is your reason for not continuing. I’m wondering if it’s more than taste preference?

    Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!
    Stacy

    1. Hey Stacy, Most recipes that call for milk can be subbed out with cashew or almond milk. Any recipe that calls for heavy cream is slightly different. The best option for heavy cream is a coconut cream, since it’s thicker. For pumpkin pie, the best option may be a coconut cream. Although I haven’t tested the recipe with this ingredient, so I’m not 100% sure. Happy Thanksgiving!

  2. 4 stars
    My girlfriend made some cashew milk, and u was curious if we should pasteurize it after, since we didn’t wash out hands before we made it. Will boiling the cashew milk change it in any way,?

  3. I was wondering if you have to use raw cashews or if you can use roasted salted cashews? I have just discovered your blog. You are a genius and a gift to many of us. Thank you so much for your sharing your wisdom in life with us! God Bless!

    1. Hey Cynthia, Thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the blog. Yes, you can use roasted and salted cashews. The only real difference will be the saltiness of the milk. Roasted cashews will also change the flavor of the milk just a bit.

    1. Hey Maggie, The cashew milk is really mild. I personally don’t think it tastes like cashews (at least the taste isn’t strong enough to make you think that the milk is made from cashews). The sweetener and vanilla just add a bit of sweetness and a slight vanilla flavor to the milk. I don’t care for the bland taste of plain nut milk.

  4. I don’t have a high quality high speed blender like your blender. Do you think I could do this in a food processor instead? Do you think the consistency would be different?

    1. Hey Jaclyn, I think a “regular” blender will work; I just haven’t tried using one for this recipe. You may need to run the blender a bit longer to fully process the cashews. The food processor probably wouldn’t get the job done very well. Let me know how it goes!

  5. I saw this on my way home, made it while I was cooking supper and tried it right away- and it is SO GOOD. Really looking forward to trying it in my coffee tomorrow morning! Thank you so much!!