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I would like to try to make nut milk. I see several types of straining bags and even a special nut milk making machine. Do you have a preference or specific recommendation? Do you ever toast the nuts?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

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This event was on August 13, 2024

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Deborah Goodman

I would like to try to make nut milk. I see several types of straining bags and even a special nut milk making machine. Do you have a preference or specific recommendation? Do you ever toast the nuts?

Answer

I typically do not toast the nuts at all. Um, and uh, as far as my own preference, I'm usually going to use a straining bag to make a nut milk. They do have wonderful nut making or nut milk making machines, but they're quite expensive. And being a single use item, I'm typically not going to have that in my house just because it's like if, I mean, uh, a rice maker's probably the extent of that, but I don't actually use my rice maker that much either. So usually if it's just kind of a one and done kind of a thing, uh, you know, tool, um, I actually try to steer away from those a little bit more. And nut milk making machine is so specific I just never bothered to be able to get one. So what I would do instead is actually just, you know, um, you know, well soak them nuts and grind them as well on a Vitamix, then use a straining bag as well. You do need to get very fine. They have specific straining bags for nut milks. Um, so you do wanna be able to look out for those. A cheesecloth is okay, but it's really gonna let some of the other finer particulars through. So, um, yeah, but I will typically use a, um, it's a straining bag for that as well.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.