Did you know that you can make milk from nuts and seeds?  It’s very easy with a Living Synergy Nut Milk Bag!

What?  Haven’t heard of a Nut Milk Bag?!

Well, it’s a handy tool that helps you make fresh and nutritious milk from a variety of nuts and seeds.  Coconut, almond, cashew and rice milk are probably the most popular.  However, you can even make milk from brazil nuts, pecans, walnuts, pistachios, sesame, sunflower, pumpkin seeds etc … You just have to make sure they are raw and unsalted.  Nut milks are a great alternative for those who are dairy intolerant.

You can also use your nut milk bag to make juice from fresh ingredients, by blending and then straining the juice through the bag, then by using the pulp in other ways, eg in cakes, crackers, muffins, raw fudge etc.  You can even make flour from coconut milk pulp!

Use a nut milk bag where you’d normally use cheesecloth or muslin in cooking – it’s much easier to clean and dry and is another slick accessory to complement your Thermomix.

You can use the milk for smoothies, soups, chia pudding, rice pudding, custard, ice-cream, over granola, or anywhere else you would normally use milk.  For a lovely smoothie, blend some nut milk with a mix of fresh and frozen ripe bananas and perhaps mango, strawberries, frozen raspberries, vanilla, dates and cinnamon.  There are endless choices.

Here are a few suggestions on using a nut milk bag:

• Quirky Jo uses her nut milk bag to make lots of dairy free milks 
• Mindful Foodie uses her nut milk bag to strain her coconut milk, then makes coconut flour from the pulp, which she uses to bake some muffins!
• Quirky Jo makes lots of green smoothies and juices – use a nut milk bag to separate the juice and pulp!
• Jen shows us how to use the Thermomix to make a green juice and extract the pulp with the nut milk bag
• Mindful foodie uses her nut milk bag to make almond milk 
• UK Thermomix has a simple almond milk recipe and Jenny demonstrates how easy it is to make almond milk in this short video
• Jen makes a chia pudding using her almond milk
• Quirky Jo uses home-made rice/almond milk in her sauces and custards 
• Natural New Age Mum uses her nut milk bag to strain her chocolate chai syrup
• Lots of ideas on Jess Ainscough’s blog post for different milks in the comments section!
• I used my nut milk bag for draining the nut cream ‘cheese’ in Clever Cook’s delicious dairy free baked cheesecake!
• I also used my nut milk bag to squeeze out excess water from steamed cauliflower … for my pizza base
• Here’s a novel idea from Jen – how to grow alfalfa sprouts with a nut milk bag!
• use up your almond pulp … in a raw fudge
• … or cookies
• … or some savoury crackers
• … or some macaroons
• More ideas on how to use up juicer pulp

Living Synergy Nut Milk Bags are high quality, good sized, fine meshed, strong, durable, easy to clean, quick drying and ethically made.  The owner of Living synergy in Western Australia, Jen Keenan, sources the fine polyester locally to her and the nut milk bags are assembled exclusively by a man who lives in Perth and he runs a small factory from Bali.  Jen has been over, toured the facility and met the workers, who are happy to travel from other islands to work there.

Making nut milk in 3 easy steps …

1. SOAK          soak your nuts of choice in enough water to cover them, even as they swell
2. BLEND        rinse and strain thoroughly before putting in the Thermomix with some water, then blend
3. STRAIN       strain through the Nut Milk Bag and ‘milk’ it with your hands

• Nuts with brown skins have enzyme inhibitors* and require soaking for at least 6 hours or overnight, and then give them a good rinse.  Fattier nuts like macadamias and cashews don’t require soaking, although it can make them a little creamier and will give a smoother texture to whatever you may be making.
• Use between 2 to 6 parts water to 1 part nuts/seeds.  The less water, the creamier the milk.
• You can sweeten and flavour the milk with honey, rice malt syrup, dates, vanilla etc, by adding them to the Thermomix bowl at the same time as the nuts and water.  Sweetener is entirely optional, though I always like to add a little vanilla powder and a pinch of salt to help bring out the flavour. –
• It is easiest to put the Nut Milk Bag over a large jug or bowl with a lip to strain the milk.  (I generally put the nut milk bag over the steamer basket and pop that over a bowl).
• The nut milk should keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

*  Read further about enzyme inhibitors and soaking/activating your nuts here, with Mindful Foodie and here, with Natural New Age Mum.  (By the way, I can personally attest that soaking and dehydrating your nuts makes them taste way better!)

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The Nut Milk Bags come nicely packaged in a box with a coloured instruction and recipe booklet including photos.  A lovely gift idea for your Thermie/dairy free/vegan friends!

For more information, visit http://www.livingsynergy.com.au/nut_milk_bags/

For Australian stockists, click here

For UK/International stockists, click here – £11.50 inc postage and packing