How to make Oat Milk

Hey guys, I'm Justin from Cooking with Coit. I specialize in clean comfort cooking, and today I'm gonna show you how to make this super creamy and delicious oat milk. And if you like this video, make sure you hit those like and subscribe buttons. Let's get started. My family loves oat milk. I think we probably drink it almost every single day of the week. If you haven't had oat milk before, here's a couple things that we like to do with it. We use it as a non-dairy creamer for our coffees. We use it in our smoothies, and we also use it to make pancakes. So there's a ton of things that you can do with it. And best of all, you only need four very simple ingredients that you might already have in your pantry to make this homemade oat milk. And it's really quick and easy to make, and it's gonna save you a ton of money. First thing we're gonna do is measure out one cup of oatmeal. And I'm using rolled oats for this recipe. Next, we're gonna add four cups of water. And one really important note here is that we have chilled this water, so it is very cold. And I'm gonna tell you in a second why it's important to use ice cold... Oh! I think this measuring cup is broken, because every time I use it, water goes everywhere. So the important thing about ice cold water is that if you think about it, when you're cooking oatmeal, you're using hot, boiling water. And so what's happening is is that the oats are sucking up all of that water. You don't want that to happen when you're making oat milk, and here's why. If the oats absorb too much of the water, whereas you're using hot water, what's gonna happen is is that when you're straining it, it's going to get kind of a slimy texture. And it's not like real slime, it's not like a fungus or something, it's just that the little bits of oats are soaking up the water and giving it a slightly slimy texture that you're not gonna like to drink. So, use ice cold water. Very important. Next thing we're gonna add is one half of a tablespoon of maple syrup. And one half teaspoon of vanilla extract. The maple syrup is gonna give the oat milk a nice little touch of sweetness, and the vanilla extract is really just there for a little bit more flavor. And we're gonna add one pinch of salt. One little pinch. And that's it. All right, so now we're gonna blend this up. One other really important note here is that you don't wanna over-blend your oat milk. Reason for that is, to go back to the previous note, is that we don't wanna make the oatmeal, the oatmeal flakes, too small. Here we go. The ideal blending time should be about 30 seconds. We blended it for a minute when we were testing this recipe, and it didn't turn out that good. So, 30 seconds is the best time. Okay, there we go. Whoa. See, this is what's great about oat milk. See how it's kinda bubbly? It looks just like milk. And here's the thing. I've tested a lot of dairy alternative milks. I've tested almond milk, rice milk, hemp milk. Hemp milk is not that good. And none of them are as creamy as oat milk. You really can use oat milk almost exactly as you would like a real cow dairy milk. It's really like a nice one-to-one substitute. Next thing we're gonna do is strain our oat milk, and so you have a couple choices here of how to do it. My preferred method is to use a rag and to place it over the measuring cup, pull it tight, and strain through this cloth. I think this will give you the most amount of filtration and make your oat milk basically as kind of least slimy as possible. So it's really gonna filter out all those small bits of oats that have sucked up the water. Now, Cameron, on the other hand, has a completely different point of view. She thinks that it's better to use a strainer because it's easier. Fine mesh strainer. A fine mesh strainer, because she feels that it's easier to use, easier to clean. More people will have this. Less people are probably gonna wanna use a towel and dirty up a towel, because then you have to wash it to each their own. So we're gonna use the clean T-shirt or clean towel method. This is gonna give us the best end product for sure. We are going to pull the towel fairly tight, but not too tight around the measuring cup. You could also use a bowl, too, if you don't have a big measuring cup like this. And then we just give it a pour. But see how you really wanna be careful not to pull the shirt too tight, or else you're gonna have oat milk spilling all over your countertop. This method definitely gives you the most high-quality results, the smoothest oat milk, but it is a little more time-consuming because the T-shirt or the cloth is gonna strain more finely. So it's just gonna take a little bit longer. So we're letting it strain now. It's taking a little longer than we'd probably like. I mean, we're so used to everything happening really fast in life. This is quite a slower process. But one way that we've kind of figured out how to speed this up is you just take a little spatula and you just move it around in the oat milk while it's straining, and that's going to allow the straining to happen a little faster. One thing I just realized, too, that somebody could try, and if you do try it, please report back and let us know how it goes. You could take a regular strainer, wrap it in a cloth or a towel or T-shirt, and then just set it in there, and that would allow you to just kind of like leave it be. Like right now, because we've used this cloth, I feel like I have to be here holding it, whereas this is a little more rigid, and you'd also get a double-strained effect, which could be really good. All right, so guys, we're back. What we figured out is that this double-straining idea is super cool and it works really well, and it actually allows you to step back and not have to kind of babysit this thing the whole time. So what we did was strainer with a cloth on top, letting it strain that way. It's much better. So we're almost done. We'll be back soon for the taste test. To store this oat milk, I prefer using these mason jars, but you can also just use an airtight container. When stored properly in the fridge and kept cold, it's going to stay good for up to a week. All right, this oat milk looks so delicious. I cannot wait to give it a taste, but before I do, if you love this recipe and you want to see more just like it, check out my healthy recipes playlist. Let's give this a sip. That's good. This oat milk is extremely delicious, and you can even see how thick that is. This is not like a watery rice milk or even a watery almond milk. Oat milk is better. It's definitely the better dairy substitute. I hope you guys use this in your coffee, smoothies, pancakes, everything that we do. I'll see you in the next video.