Milk Substitutes: Plant-Based Alternatives to Cow’s Milk

Soy milk, oat milk, almond milk: If you are vegan or want to avoid dairy products from animals, there is a large selection of milk substitutes available today. We introduce you to the most important varieties.

For the vegan diet: milk substitute

If you want to get by without animal products, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to milk and dairy products. The shelves are now well stocked with milk alternatives. Since every plant milk has slightly different properties, there is a suitable substitute for cow’s milk for every type of vegan recipe. Basically, the milk substitute can be divided as follows:

• Cereal drinks (oat, rice, millet, and spelled milk)
• Nut drinks (almond, hazelnut, coconut, macadamia, cashew, and rice-almond milk)
• Soy milk
• Hemp milk, lupine, and pea drink

Which milk substitute you choose is a matter of taste. However, experts do not recommend the plant drinks for small children under the age of three, as they lack important nutrients such as vitamin B12 for growth and others are less digestible in plant form – such as calcium. In addition, when buying, it should be noted that some dishes only work well with certain milk alternatives.

Milk substitute for coffee froth and baked goods

For example, if you like your coffee with nice milk froth, you should not use rice, millet, cashew or hazelnut milk. Soy, almond, spelled and oat milk, on the other hand, froth well. The neutral-tasting rice milk is suitable for baking without milk and eggs, and the nut drinks also go well with baked goods with nuts and caramel. Note that some plant-based drinks have a natural sweetness. In the case of baking recipes with cow’s milk, the amount of sugar may therefore need to be reduced if you use a milk substitute. Our article on vegan biscuits provides more tips.

Milk alternatives as slimming products?

Do you want to lose weight and save calories? Then you should make sure that your milk substitute does not contain any sugar. The lowest calorie drinks are unsweetened almond, coconut, oat and hazelnut drinks – their energy content is lower than that of low-fat milk. On the other hand, all varieties with flavors, such as vanilla, banana, and chocolate, are full-bodied. If you are looking for a particularly high-protein milk substitute, you can try a pea drink. The relatively new plant milk contains as much protein as cow and soy milk. Incidentally, the latter serves as the basis for our vegan sour cream.

Are you now interested in trying milk substitutes? Just make it yourself! Oat milk can be easily made from cooked oat flakes, which are then pureed and strained. For nut drinks, soak almonds, cashew nuts, etc. overnight and mix them raw. By the way, you can also make delicious vegan cheese from nuts and soy. You can then process your homemade plant-based milk into a high-quality power drink using our vegan Golden Milk recipe. You can find other ways of using plant-based milk in the kitchen, for example in our almond milk recipes.