Tiger Nut Milk Recipe (Nut-Free, Dairy-Free)

Tiger nut milk is a great nut-free alternative to plant milk. It’s incredibly sweet and tasty and only requires two ingredients: tiger nuts and filtered water.

Drink it as it is, use it as a coffee or matcha creamer, for your morning cereals or granola, or use it as a nut-free and dairy-free milk for baking.

Tiger nuts are rich in fiber, magnesium, and potassium and are allergen-free and keto-friendly.

What are tiger nuts / tigernuts?

Tiger nuts are spelled as two words or as one word; they are the same thing, and both are correct. I prefer to spell it ‘tigernuts’; this is how you will find it in most of my previous recipes and posts.

Despite the name, they are not nuts; they are the small tubers of Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus), cultivated in Southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.

They are also known as chufa and earth almonds. They can be eaten raw, soaked, or roasted and ground into flour.

Due to their hard and dry texture, whole tiger nuts are usually soaked before eating.

Why are tiger nuts becoming popular, and should you eat tigernuts?

There are so many reasons why tigernuts are considered a health food and becoming popular:

• they can be consumed raw or cooked, whole or ground into flour
• they are a great source of plant protein
• they are exceptionally nutrients such as magnesium, potassium, phosphor, and vitamin E
• they have a high fiber content and are considered a resistant starch (good for your microbiome)
• they are keto-friendly
• they are naturally sweet, fruity, and nutty and are allergy-friendly and compatible with most diets
• soaked and mixed with water, they will make a great nut-free and dairy-free milk
• tiger nut flour is great for baking
• 25 nuts contain more potassium than a banana.

How to reduce anti-nutrients in tiger nuts

While the benefits of tiger nuts are coming more into the spotlight, like any plant food, tiger nuts have anti-nutrients like tannins, phytates, and oxalates (NO lectins, though!).

Research shows that both soaking and toasting have a significant influence on the nutrients and anti-nutrients of tiger nuts. Toasting reduced the anti-nutrients more than soaking. Increasing soaking temperature and toasting time also influenced the reduction of the anti-nutrients.

Therefore, the anti-nutrients in tigernut can be reduced significantly by soaking in water at 60°C for 6 hours or toasting in an open pan for 30 minutes. (SOURCE: ResearchGate Study, Tigernut Processing: Its Food uses and Health Benefits, March 2011)

However, even if soaking at a constant temperature of 60C/140F for 6 hours is not possible without special equipment, soaking at room temperature will reduce anti-nutrients.

Where to find whole tiger nuts?

Tiger nuts can be found in gluten-free sections of some supermarkets or in health food stores.

There are quite a few options on Amazon US; these are three of them:

• Anthony’s Organic Peeled Tiger Nuts, 12 oz, Raw, Gluten Free, Non GMO, Paleo Friendly
• Tigernut – Ready to Eat Dry Tiger Nuts – Low Calorie Gemini Tiger Nuts 12oz (2-Pack) – Vegan, Gluten Free, High Fiber Raw Tiger Nuts – Organic, Nut Free Large Tigernuts for Digestive and Heart Health
• TIGER NUTS – PREMIUM ORGANIC(12 oz)| High Fiber, Gluten Free, Non-GMO

Ingredients and tools to make tiger nut milk at home

While finding tiger nut milk to buy is almost impossible (yet!), it is so easy to make at home (and healthier for sure). You only need whole tiger nuts, filtered water, a food processor, a blender, and a nut milk bag or a fine mesh sieve.

Optionally, you can add a sweetener or one dry date to the blender, vanilla or warming spices, or even a pinch of sea salt. But considering the nuts are already naturally sweet and have a fruity and nutty flavor, this milk doesn’t need much to be tasty.

Although a common practice, adding caloric sweeteners like maple syrup to tiger nut milk is really unnecessary.

I used peeled tiger nuts for this recipe, but the whole, unpeeled nuts can be used, as the pulp will be discarded anyway.

How to make tiger nut milk?

• Soak the whole tiger nuts in filtered water overnight, at room temperature, or if you can, to reduce even more of the anti-nutrient content, at 60C / 140F for 6 hours (but I don’t see how to keep a constant temperature of 60C for 6 hours without special equipment). An alternative is to toast them in an open pan for 30 minutes before soaking.
• In the morning, drain the soaking water, add the soaked tiger nuts to a food processor, and process until ground.
• Transfer the ground tiger nuts to a blender, top with water, and blend until it looks like milk. Mix the tiger nuts and water in batches if you have a smaller blender, like a Nutribullet.
• Using a nut bag, separate the pulp from the liquid.
• Store the milk in a glass bottle, in the refrigerator, for up to one week.

Can tiger nut milk be boiled?

Tiger nut milk can be boiled, so it’s excellent for warm lattes.

Horchata de chufa

Horchata de chufa is a Spanish drink, served chilled, made of tigernut milk, sugar, and cinnamon. The ratio of tiger nuts to water is usually 1:2, which I think is unnecessary. My ratio for homemade tiger nut milk is almost 1:4.

If you want, you can play with different ratios and decide which one you like more. Tigernuts are quite expensive, so for me, the 1:4 ratio is perfect. The milk is creamy, thick enough, tasty, and sweet.

When it comes to sugar, it’s unnecessary, as tigernuts are already very sweet.

Check out this article if you want to know more about how I quit sugar 5+ years ago:

• How I Quit Sugar 5 Years Ago. And I still Eat the Cake

How to use the milk?

This quantity makes about 1L (about 5 cups), which is so delicious and can be consumed in so many different ways:

• drink it as it is, cold or warm
• used it to make lattes with coffee or matcha tea
• serve it with granola or cereal
• use it for baked goods or making ice cream
• as a substitute for almond milk, oat milk, or any other plant-based milk

Serve it with our Sugar-Free Crunchy Granola with Green Plantains.

Use it to dunk our Gluten-Free Almond Biscotti with Tigernut Flour.

For another nut-free plant milk alternative, check out our Hemp Seed Milk Recipe.

More tiger nut recipes

If you love tigernuts, check out our Tigernut Flour Guide (20+ Recipes to Get You Started).

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