What is oat milk

Its creamy texture makes it a popular choice for lattes and cappuccinos, but you can also add it to basically any recipe that requires milk. Help Urgent Care. Toggle navigation. Patient Portal. Pay Bill. Resources On Your Health. Find a Location. Find a Doctor. Subscribe Now. Both the unsweetened and in a vanilla versions were light taupe liquids that I found to be creamy but smooth, like low-fat milk.

The vanilla version reminded me of mildly sweet melted ice cream. Also light taupe in colour, the consistency was like soy milk, and as expected, it foamed when heated and frothed. Clocking in at twice the fat and nearly double the sugar of Earth's Own, it left a cream-like film in my mouth. It had a neutral flavour when I tried it on its own, and incorporated well in my strong-brewed morning cuppa.

The packaging also suggests using this oat milk in cereal, but using such a rich-bodied milk for that seemed like overkill. In contrast, there's the oat milk I tried from Isola Bio, an Italian producer that uses organic Italian oats.

I could only find the brand's Oat Light version in store, promising 30 per cent less fat than the brand's original oat drink. I found the pale grey, skim milk—thin beverage to be surprisingly sweet and reminiscent of horchata or melted iced milk. While I might not choose to down a glass of it, it's the only oat milk I think would be suitable for cereal, mainly due to the drink's looser texture.

It contains the fewest ingredients of all of the commercial milks I've tried so far: just water, oats and sea salt — the same ingredients you'd use if you were to make oat milk at home My friend Michelle Kano is a fitness instructor, trainer and nutritional specialist with a sensitivity to the proteins in cow's milk. She documents her plant-based food journey online and recently shared her homemade oat milk recipe a habit born out thriftiness, though she does stock up on the commercial brands when they go on sale.

With that to start, I scoured the internet for recipes. I found straightforward instructions to blitz water and oats in a high-powered blender, and other recommendations to soak oats overnight and strain the liquid through cheesecloth. Almost all of the recipes start with uncooked oats quick-cook rolled oats or steel-cut oats, pre-soaked for 30 minutes , require refrigerated storage of the final product, and suggest consuming it within three to five days.

There's also talk of the options to sweeten or flavour the beverage with maple syrup, agave nectar, vanilla extract, date syrup or ground cinnamon. Equipped with my research, I settled on my own stripped-down recipe, using steel-cut oats, water and salt, and blitzed a cup of overnight-soaked oats with filtered water and a pinch of Himalayan salt I'm fancy like that on high power for 30 seconds.

I strained the slurry and passed the liquid through a coffee filter to remove any further residue. As expected, my homemade version had a runny texture, similar to Isola Bio's Oat Light drink, but it wasn't anywhere in the same league of sweetness — mine tasted exactly like you'd imagine boiled oat water would taste.

I could see why Kano noted that she only cooks with her homemade version or uses it in smoothies. I had mixed results in my experiments to take oat milk beyond the realm of coffee and tea. I tried using my homemade milk in overnight-soaked muesli, figuring the reconstituted dried fruit and nuts would lend a bit of sweetness to my bland liquid.

The final result was edible but not memorable. Oat milk's toasty and sweet flavour is said to work in batter-based goods like pancakes and waffles; quick breads, including loaf cakes and muffins; or in small amounts in cookie doughs or crusts. I decided to try using commercial oat milk in a pancake recipe free from any other forms of dairy besides the milk I intended to replace, my reasoning being that anyone who would be substituting alt-milk in a recipe was likely doing so due to an aversion or objection to dairy.

Edinger warns that some varieties sold in stores do have added sugar, especially the flavored versions. Some brands of oat milk also include small amounts of oils, gums or stabilizers.

The base recipe includes just oats, water and a pinch of salt blended until smooth and then strained through a fine mesh strainer. If you avoid dairy and are on a low-carb diet , almond milk might be your best bet. But if you have a nut allergy or are just looking for a thicker, more filling addition to your coffee, smoothie or cereal, this might be a good option for you.

It typically has a bit more protein and fiber than other kinds of nondairy milks but also more calories and carbohydrates. Learn more about vaccine availability. Advertising Policy. You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter.