Homemade Hemp Milk Hot Cocoa

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According to last month’s issue of Outside Magazine, among the many alternatives to cow’s milk, hemp milk tops the charts as the best dairy-free, plant-based alternative. Hemp milk is loaded with heart-healthy omega-3s, athletic performance-enhancing magnesium, disease-fighting beta-carotene, and brain-boosting iron. It’s also the only non-dairy alternative that can be considered a complete protein as it has all 9 essential amino acids. The runners’ up are almond, soy and coconut milk, which each have their own pros and cons. In my humble opinion, if you can get down with the sometimes slightly bitter taste of hemp milk then that is where it’s at, nutritionally speaking.

Lucky for you I have here a homemade hemp milk recipe, naturally sweetened with dates and made more palatable by a touch of vanilla extract (bye-bye bitter). As a holiday bonus, I’ve also included a recipe for Homemade Hemp Milk Hot Cocoa, featuring my new favorite low-glycemic index sugar alternative–raw coconut sugar–which I gushed over in my post on Pumpkin Power Cookies earlier this month.

Homemade Hemp Milk

Homemade Hemp Milk

What You’ll Need:

  • 1 cup hemp seeds
  • 4 cups water
  • 2 medjool dates
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
How to Make It:
  1. Add all ingredients to a powerful blender and mix on high until smooth.
  2. Optional: strain mixture with cheesecloth to remove any clumps if you want your homemade batches to be smooth not pulpy like the store-bought kind.

Hemp Milk Hot Cocoa

Homemade Hemp Milk Hot Cocoa

What You’ll Need:

  • 2 cups homemade or store-bought vanilla hemp milk
  • 2 tbs (heaping) raw cacao powder
  • 2 tbs raw coconut sugar
  • 1 tbs coconut oil
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cardamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/8 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/8 tsp ground cayenne

How to Make It:

  1. Heat hemp milk over medium heat to just under a boil.
  2. Remove from stove and add heated hemp milk with all the other ingredients to your blender and blend for a minute, or until smooth.

Serve hot with a side of my Pumpkin Power Cookies or Sweetly Salted Nut Butter Power Cookies for a healthy and festive afternoon snack.