We don’t drink cow’s milk in our house. I didn’t grow up on the stuff, and just never liked it. Plus it makes everybody phlegmy around here … who needs that?
I’m also not convinced it’s all that cool that ours is the only species on this planet that a) drinks milk beyond childhood, and b) drinks milk from a different species than our own. (Remember how it was so shocking to the general public when Salma Hayek breastfed another woman’s baby in Africa? Yet nobody gives a second thought to the fact that cow’s milk is collected from many, many different cows to be consumed by humans. I’m just sayin’…)
It’s easy to have a dairy-free diet nowadays, as there are lots of milk alternatives out there: soy, almond, rice, oat, and hemp for example. I’m a big fan of almond milk, and make it frequently. But Ecodaddy isn’t so fond of it (unless it’s warmed up with a splash of maple syrup, which is super-delish!), and so we still spend a chunk of change on store-bought rice milk.
Compared to nut milks like almond, rice milk lacks beneficial protein and fats and is quite a bit higher in carbohydrates. However, many like it because it is a low fat choice, and hey: sometimes you just need some cold, yummy white stuff to moisten your bowl of cereal, ya know?
Lucky for me, a few weeks ago a friend posted her rice milk recipe on Facebook, and I was ready for a new kitchen project. I am happy to report it was easy and cheap to make, and totally delicious to drink!
I’ve since tested this recipe twice using two different types of rice. I got 3 quarts of rice milk from the first batch and 4 quarts from the second. I had coupons for Lundberg organic brown rice that I held onto until it was on sale, making my final rice cost a mere $.50 a cup.
Tweaking my friend’s recipe, I added some vanilla extract to the final product, but didn’t like it because I could taste the alcohol from the extract. In batch two, I added half a vanilla bean during the cooking time instead, with much better results.
I also found that the type of rice you use determines whether you really need to add a sweetener or not. I used a sweeter type of rice the second time (Lundberg Golden Rose). Flavored with just the vanilla bean, it didn’t need any sweetener at all.
Homemade Rice Milk
- 1 cup uncooked organic long or medium grain brown rice
- 8 cups water for cooking
- More water for diluting
- 1 tsp salt
- Glass jars or bottles with lids for storage
- Blender
- Fine mesh strainer
- Thoroughly wash the rice.
- Put 8 cups of water in a big pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Pour in rice and stir.
- Cover the pot and lower the heat to let the water simmer.
- Cook for 3 hours stirring occasionally, til it looks like very soupy rice pudding. Turn off heat and stir in salt.
- In batches, fill your blender halfway with cooked rice mixture and halfway with water. Blend until very smooth. Strain twice through a fine mesh strainer, collecting rice milk in mason jars.
- Continue on with remaining cooked rice mixture until you’re finished, filling jars with rice milk and screwing on lids tightly.
Since it doesn’t have preservatives, presumably it won’t last too long in the fridge. I’ve kept mine in there a little over a week and it was just fine.
Make sure to shake before serving, as there is some separation, plus the tiny black vanilla specks settle to the bottom.
Enjoy!
Frontier is a brand that makes alcohol-free vanilla. It’s in a glycerin base and tastes yummy.
Thanks for the tip Greg! I’ve been making my own vanilla extract with vodka and vanilla bean pods because it’s so cost effective (will write a blog post about it soon!), but I taste the vodka.
I buy my vanilla beans through Frontier, so I will be sure to check the catalog to see if they carry glycerin as well. Thanks again!
I ran across your website by doing a search Lungberg rice and rice milk. I’m sure you have tried Imagine Rice Dream. I use rice milk in my tapioca pudding along with dairy milk. I tried making rice milk once last week but it seemed to lack that refreshing taste that Rice Dream has going for it. I was thinking along the same lines as you, the brand of rice matters. Luckily, I ran into your site. After using the Golden Rose rice, would you say your rice milk comes close to Rice Dream? Does it have that refreshing taste I experienced? That is the best way I can describe it. As it (rice milk) makes my tapioca pudding shine. I would like to make it completely dairy free but I compromised after several tries. Using comercially available rice milk didn’t thicken the tapioca properly. That is why I use a mixture of the two milks.
I did buy the short brown rice from Lundberg as package said it was a sweet rice but then I see you found the Golden Rose to be sweeter so I exchanged for that.
Thanks for your post David. I think that tastes are subjective, and while my rice milk doesn’t taste *exactly* like Rice Dream, it a) tastes like rice, b) tastes good, and c) does a great job moistening my bowl of cereal. 🙂
Remember that commercial rice milk has other ingredients in it, and mine is absolute simplicity, featuring just three basic ingredients. You can always sweeten it if you choose, and you can certainly add more vanilla as well. It is wide open for interpretation!
As for your pudding experiment, I don’t know the science behind it, but I’m pretty sure no alternative milk is going to give you the same consistency as cow’s milk would. Perhaps you might consider adding something to help thicken it more … for example, some yogurts have gelatin added to help give a thicker consistency.
When you do finally try my recipe, I would love to hear your feedback! Thanks again for stopping by!
Ecomama, I think rice milk and cow’s milk are probably two of the most neutral milks out there. Soy tastes a little strange, but okay. While almond tastes like almonds, but good. I did try a non-dairy tapioca and that was pretty good, but it had coconut milk, plus soy milk and you could taste the coconuts. Not exactly what I call tapioca. At least not like the stuff I grew up on. I still have a little of the rice milk from 1st batch I made, and then I will try the Lundberg rice. If one does use the Rice Dream and Pacific Naturals then the recipe changes a little because the Pacific Natural is a bit thicker. With the Rice Dream I had to add a little cornstarch at the end while I didn’t have to with the Pacific Naturals. Once I made tapioca with straight Rice Dream and the pudding was almost clear looking when it was refrigerated.
I also noticed that Lundberg has a Brown Sweet Rice. They didn’t have that one at the co-op though.
I actually like rice milk more than I do cow’s milk.
Soymilk worked out just fine for tapioca but there was that off taste. It has the proteins in it to thicken just fine.
I also read up on this rice milk powder (Growing Naturals) contains almost 7% protein in it. That is as much as soy milk. They want a lot for it though.
David, remember that you can control the texture of your homemade rice milk by adding less water in the blender. When I make it, after I put half cooked rice mixture and half water in the blender, the blended result is thicker than I would drink or put in my cereal. I think of it as “rice heavy cream”. Maybe this would work better for your pudding? Good luck!
I read up on a guy from Spain who said that the best rice milk comes from sprouted brown rice grains. Not sure if that is the secret to the refreshing taste in Rice Dream or not. Here is two web pages you might be interested in.
http://www.instructables.com/id/HOWTO-make-GBR-germinated-or-sprouted-brown-rice/
http://radishboy.blogspot.com/2008/05/sprouted-brown-rice.html
Going to try sprout some old rice first, then try it on the good stuff. Let me know if it makes a difference if you try.
[…] already make my own rice milk and almond milk, but there are certain recipes calling for cow’s milk, like my favorite […]
So glad to have found your recipe!
I was a milk lover in my youth, but dairy has disagreed with me for many years now. Many nasty symptoms — description of which I’ll spare you.
Just made a half recipe with some white Arborio rice I had in the cupboard, and I am now sipping a cup of Mexican hot chocolate that is delicious, and that I KNOW won’t cause me physical grief for the next 24 hours. I’m looking forward to seeing how well the product works in other applications over the next few days.
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as I’m planning to create my own site and would like to know where you got this from or just what the theme is called. Appreciate it!
Hi, Thanks for the Recipe. Cant wait to make 🙂
Steviejc