I’ve been on a pumpkin recipe bender lately and adapting the ingredient in some of our favorite real food recipes for the fall season.

This recipe is an adaptation to vanilla chai nut milk, adding pumpkin and other pumpkin spice-like ingredients to make a very seasonal and relevant recipe for this time of year – pumpkin vanilla chai nut milk.

This recipe is paleo & vegan-friendly, gluten-free, and a great dairy-free alternative to regular milk.  Did I mention it tastes amazing?

Ingredients:

2 cups raw cashew milk (directions below)

2 chai tea bags

3 tablespoons canned pumpkin

1 tablespoon maple butter

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Optional:  1 tablespoon coconut butter or 1/4 cup coconut milk. I found the pumpkin makes it creamy, as well as thick, so I left the coconut-based ingredients out of basic recipe.

Note: links above are to products and brands I approve and personally use

Directions:

1.  Use my homemade nut milk recipe for prepping and blending your cashews.  After cashews are first blended with water, open your chai tea bags and empty the tea into your blender.  Blend together for 10 seconds or so with your cashew milk to get the tea worked in before you strain your mixture for your nut milk.  Note:  for more intense chai flavor, let it sit for a couple hours before straining, or even over night before you strain it.

2.  Once you have your 2 cups of raw chai cashew milk after straining, add with all other ingredients to a blender and blend on low for a good 30 seconds, or until all ingredients incorporated.

Notes:

You can also add another tablespoon of pumpkin if you want.  I tried it at 2-4 tablespoons, four being great intense flavor but a slightly thicker consistency.  I have 3 tablespoons above in ingredients, but my suggestion would be since you’re only blending everything together anyway,  blend and try it at 2, 3 and 4 tablespoons to make it to your preference.

I also imagine these ingredients will taste great with most types of homemade nut milks.  Cashew nut milk, hazelnut milk, almond milk and brazil nut milk I think would all be great choices as a base. 

Enjoy!