Maple Sweetened Oat Milk

At first maple syrup and milk don't seem like they go together since maple syrup is drizzled over pancakes or on your favorite dessert. But maple sweetened milk is so yummy. I think milks have their own specific sweetener, I prefer date sweetened almond milk and maple sweetened oat milk. I have had an obsession with canned coconut milk lately and I'm just going to step back and take a break. Even though I'm vegan and all the fat I consume is good fat, I still worry about eating so much coconut especially in the form of milk so I'm going to switch back to making my own milk. Tonight I made this oat milk for tomorrow and Saturday's recipes; it's so creamy and delicious, it's hard not to slug it down.

I'm sitting in my NYC apartment listening to come meditation music and blogging.  I now own a yoga studio with three of my yoga friends, I have friends in this city, I have fun plans tomorrow night, I take care of the cutest, funniest and, at times, most challenging little boy. I'm in the middle of a good book, I'm training for a half marathon, I just have so much to be thankful for. It's been a while since I've felt this settled and content that I feel like I need to remind myself on a daily basis that life is good and I need to be grateful. Then I got to thinking about this milk and blogging about it.

I mainly make this milk to use in recipes, pancakes, overnight oats, anywhere you need non-dairy milk. My homemade milk in general is used for recipes; I don't drink it during meals, it's used in smoothies, shakes or food recipes. This is a low fat, less time consuming milk to make if you don't want to buy almonds and deal with a nut bag.  For oat milk, I use oats, a strainer, a big spoon and a mason jar to store the milk. You will also need a high powdered blender. I made this recipe before but I think it bears repeating. You DO NOT need to soak the oats unless you want to. I like the consistency of the milk better using unsoaked oats.

Oat Milk:

2 cups of rolled oats
2 1/2 cups of filtered water
1/4 cup of maple syrup

Place your rolled oats in your blender, add the water (make sure it's enough to cover the oats) and add the maple syrup. Blend on high for about a minute.

With a large strainer in your hand, pour the blended oats into the strainer over top of a bowl; the milk will drain into your bowl and the strainer will catch the oat pulp.  Using a soft spoon (I use an icing spoon for baking), move the oat pulp around and press it gently into the strainer to squeeze out all the milk. Save the oat pulp for a breakfast or snack (so you're really getting milk and a breakfast out of this recipe!). It will be sweetened oat pulp; mix it with fruit or add to a smoothie, it is delicious so don't throw it away!

Once all of the blended oats are out of your blender and strained, pour your freshly made oat milk from the bowl into a mason jar or any container you want to store it in. Consume within 3 days; because homemade milk has no preservatives, it will go bad quickly.

It's that simple.  It's vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, made from whole foods, sweet and delicious. If you drink milk fast or made alot of recipes involving milk, make alot of oat milk. But beware, don't let it sit to spoil. It will also naturally separate so shake it up before you use it.  Alas, another use for maple syrup!

What is your favorite plant based milk?  Have you signed up to receive my blog updates via email?