Oat Milk At Home – An Easy 5 Minute Recipe

A half gallon of oat milk can cost $4 or more and often comes in plastic. As we all know, plastic breaks down into smaller pieces over time but doesn’t ever really go away. To save money and help the environment, you can make your own oat milk at home in only 5 minutes! 

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I’ll admit that it took me a while to talk myself into making my own oat milk. At first, it wasn’t on my radar because my husband and I drank very little milk and rarely bought it. But once my daughter reached the age of drinking cow’s milk, we started to buy it regularly from the store. As we bought more milk it became more integrated into our diets. My husband is lactose-intolerant, so I was exposed to a variety of non-dairy milk alternatives that we also bought from stores. After a while, the cost started to add up. 

I looked up some recipes for homemade milk alternative recipes. It looked simple and everyone talked about how easy it was. Still I hesitated – mostly because I’ve been burned by “easy” DIYs in the past and was intimidated by using cheesecloth. I had never used cheesecloth in recipes before and none of the ones I saw really showed how to use it. Finally, I gave it a try and guess what? It really was easy! For any other cheesecloth-newbies out there I describe how you use it in the recipe notes below.

Why oat milk?

Oat milk is a very versatile non-dairy option. There are plenty of non-dairy milks out there (soy, hemp, almond, cashew, rice, etc.) and they each have their own taste. Oat milk is one of our favorites for its oat-y taste and creamy consistency. It pairs well with a lot of morning foods like cereal, toast, and overnight oats. It also foams well when I froth it using the milk steamer of my espresso machine, which makes for great homemade lattes and cappuccinos. When you add in lavender or mint simple syrup, it’s way better than fancy store bought drinks

How is oat milk better for the environment?

The nuts in nut-based milk alternatives can be very energy-intensive to grow. For example, almonds require a lot of water to grow. It takes 15 gallons of water to grow only 16 almonds. Almond production often uses pesticides which can harm pollinator populations and contaminate drinking water. With almond milk becoming more popular, there is also an issue of wetlands being converted to farmland to meet the demand for almonds. 

Oats are much less water-intensive to grow and the production of oat milk uses less energy and results in a lot fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cow’s milk. I recommend buying organic oats because non-organic oats can be contaminated with glyphosate from herbicide use. Glyphosate has been categorized as “probably carcinogenic” to people by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. 

What you will need

To make oat milk, you will need a high-powered blender (I use a ninja), organic oats, water, and cheesecloth. A pinch of salt, vanilla extract, and honey are optional ingredients to add some depth and sweetness to the milk.

To use the cheesecloth, place a strainer or funnel over the opening of your oat milk container. You will line the funnel or strainer with the cheesecloth and slowly pour some liquid into the cheesecloth. Squeeze the fabric so that the liquid pours into the container. If you can also let it passively go through the cheesecloth while you do something else (because there is always something else to do, right?) but it’s unlikely that you will be able to get all the liquid to go through without squeezing because the oat pieces can cause clogs. Periodically the fabric gets too full of oat pieces will needs to be rinsed under cold water. You will continue that process until all the liquid is strained. If you would like, you can strain it a second time.

Have extra oats on hand? Take a look at how you can save more money by making your own soap bars – adding oat flakes on top makes them look extra fancy!