recipe
Homemade Oat Milk (5 Minutes, $0.50)
Fresh oat milk that’s actually creamy, costs about $0.50 per litre, and takes 5 minutes. Solves the texture problem most homemade oat milks have.
Recipe stats
- Prep: 15 minutes
- Cook: 25 minutes
- Total: 40 minutes
- Serves: 4
You’ll need
- 1 cup Rolled oats
- 4 cups Cold filtered water
- Pinch of salt
- to taste Optional: Maple syrup or 1 date
Method
- Add oats and cold water to a high-speed blender.
- Blend on high for exactly 30 seconds — no longer or oats become slimy.
- Strain through a fine mesh sieve, nut milk bag, or thin tea towel into a jar.
- Squeeze the bag to extract all the liquid. Discard or compost the pulp.
- Add salt. If sweetening, add maple syrup or a date and re-blend briefly.
- Refrigerate. Best within 4-5 days. Shake before using.
Notes + tips
- Cold water is non-negotiable — warm water releases starches and makes oat milk slimy.
- 30 seconds maximum blend — beyond that, you risk a slime issue.
- For barista-style oat milk, add 1 tbsp neutral oil per litre and pinch of guar gum during blending.
- Use the leftover oat pulp in baking — banana bread, cookies, oatmeal.
Why this works
This recipe is intentionally simple. The technique stays out of the way of the ingredients. Plant-based cooking generally rewards clean execution over elaborate technique — the flavours are fresher, the texture cleaner, and the result more satisfying when you let good ingredients do most of the work.
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Recipe by the Stay Healthy Vegan editorial team. Tested in our home kitchens before publication.