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Soy Milk

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Homemade soy milk is a great alternative to cow’s milk. It’s delicious, so inexpensive, easy to make and only requires 2 ingredients: water and soybeans.

A picture of a bottle and a glass with soy milk made from scratch

Soy milk is a delicious and healthy alternative to cow’s milk. You can find it at pretty much any supermarket and is so inexpensive, but homemade soy milk is much better than store-bought

It has a strong flavor, though, so it’s not my favorite milk for drinking plain (I prefer oat milk), it is my favorite choice for cooking because it’s higher in fat than other plant-based milk products and has a similar texture to cow’s milk.

Making soy milk at home is really easy. You just need 2 ingredients: water and yellow soybeans, that’s all! However, you need to cook the milk before drinking it, as soy is a legume and can’t be eaten raw.

You can also add other ingredients, like vanilla extract, cocoa or carob powder, some sweetener (dates are amazing) or anything you want.

Soy is pretty controversial, it has supporters and detractors, but soy products have been consumed by centuries in Asia and they’re super healthy people, so don’t be afraid and enjoy your super tasty homemade soy milk.

In addition, soy milk is better for your health, the planet and the animals than cow’s milk, so give it a try!

How to make soy milk – Step by step

Step by step photos of how to make soy milk
  • Soak the soybeans in water overnight.
  • Drain the soybeans and remove the outer skins. Then blend the soybeans with 3 cups or 750 ml of water until well blended and almost smooth (photo 1).
  • Strain the blended mixture using a nut milk bag, a cheesecloth, a napkin or a fine mesh strainer (photo 2).
  • Pour the mixture into a pot or a saucepan and add 1 cup or 250 ml of water (photo 3).
  • Bring to a boil, stir and skim foam (photo 4).
  • Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes (photo 5).
  • Let cool the soy milk and enjoy it (photo 6). You can add other ingredients such as vanilla extract or dates. Blend the mixture if necessary.

Pro tips

  • Use yellow soybeans, it’s the best kind of soybeans to make soy milk.
  • Add more or less water depending on how thick you like your milk
  • Feel free to add any sweeter you want or don’t add any sweetener at all. Add it gently until the milk tastes good.
  • Some recipes call for a tiny amount of salt, but I prefer my milk salt-free.
  • Feel free to add other ingredients like cocoa powder or ground cinnamon.
A shot of a glass with homemade soy milk and a bamboo straw

How long does homemade soy milk last?

It lasts about 3 to 5 days in a sealed container in the fridge. The time may vary depending on the container you’re using.

If the milk smells, tastes and looks good, it should be okay. I usually keep it for 5 days or even longer in the fridge.

Can you freeze soy milk?

When you freeze soy milk it often loses its texture and some of its flavor. However, freezing does not affect its safety or nutritional value, and you can keep it in your freezer for 3-6 months.

As it changes in texture when thawed, it’s better to use it for cooking rather than for drinking it just by itself.

Looking for more plant milk recipes?

Side shot of a glass with homemade soy milk

Did you make this soy milk recipe?

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Soy Milk

★★★★★ 4.7 from 22 reviews
  • Author: Iosune
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 35 minutes
  • Yield: About 2 cups (500 ml) 1x
  • Category: How To, Drink
  • Cuisine: Vegan, Chinese

Homemade soy milk is a great alternative to cow’s milk. It’s delicious, so inexpensive, easy to make and only requires 2 ingredients: water and soybeans.

A square picture of a bottle with homemade soy milk
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Ingredients

  • ½ cup dried soybeans (80 g)
  • 4 cups water (1 l)
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract or a piece of vanilla bean (optional)
  • 4 dates (optional)

Instructions

  1. Soak the soybeans in water overnight (ideally 12 hours or longer).
  2. Drain the soybeans and remove the outer skins. Removing the outer skins is optional, but your milk will have a better texture if you do.
  3. Blend the soybeans with 3 cups of water (750 ml) until well blended and almost smooth.
  4. Strain the blended mixture using a nut milk bag, a cheesecloth, a napkin or a fine mesh strainer.
  5. Pour the mixture into a pot or a saucepan and add 1 cup of water (250 ml). Bring to a boil, stir and skim foam.
  6. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.
  7. Let cool the soy milk. You can add other ingredients such as vanilla extract or dates. Blend the mixture if necessary.
  8. Keep leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for about 3-5 days.

Notes

  • Use yellow soybeans, it’s the best kind of soybeans to make soy milk.
  • Add more or less water depending on how thick you like your milk
  • Feel free to add any sweeter you want or don’t add any sweetener at all. Add it gently until the milk tastes good.
  • Some recipes call for a tiny amount of salt, but I prefer my milk salt-free.
  • Feel free to add other ingredients like cocoa powder or ground cinnamon.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 cup (250 ml)
  • Calories: 95
  • Sugar: 2.1 g
  • Sodium: 16 mg
  • Fat: 4.8 g
  • Saturated Fat: 0.5 g
  • Carbohydrates: 4.2 g
  • Fiber: 2.1 g
  • Protein: 9.5 g

Update Notes: This post was originally published in Mayo of 2014, but was republished with new photos, step by step instructions and tips in January of 2020.

About Iosune

Hey, I’m Iosune! I am a recipe developer, writer, and author of Simple Vegan Meals and Simple Vegan Smoothies CookBooks.

Find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

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Reader Interactions

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Reader Reviews

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  1. Joanne Murphy says

    Great! Easy, remarkably so. I was shuddering in apprehension because although I love cooking I feared this would be intolerably complicated with a million steps, and it was not! Next will try the vegan buttermilk and vegan butter. Hooray! 😄

    ★★★★★

    Reply

  2. Teigan says

    Hi there, thanks for the recipe! Do you think it would work to make extras ahead of time and freeze until ready to use?

    Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Teigan! You’re so welcome 🙂 I think it should work, but maybe it’s better to use that milk for cooking, rather than for drinking it plain.

      Reply

      • Steve says

        I love Minute Tapioca with cow’s milk then put frozen blueberries on top while it cools, but it’s even better with store bought soy (Silk brand is my favorite) instead. Do you think homemade soy milk will work for MT?

        Reply

  3. Viji says

    Hi there!

    I am going to make this tonight – what with the social distancing and all, I have a lot of time to kill 😀

    I had a question about cooking the milk for 20 minutes. Why do we have to cook it for so long? To make it thicker or … ?

    Thanks in advance!

    Reply

    • John Chatfield says

      According to the starter of this blog, “you need to cook the milk before drinking it, as soy is a legume and can’t be eaten raw.” Check it out online. Not to scare you or anything but some websites talk about the potential for toxicity. I know I had some stomach issues when I didn’t boil my dried chili beans long enough after soaking.

      Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Viji! Hahaha yes, I’m also cooking like crazy 😛 You need to cook it so long because soy is a legume and you need to cook it really well or your milk will be hard to digest. Have a nice day!

      Reply

  5. Tahira Akhtar says

    I have worked this out using the soybeans I have brought it will cost 15p per 1 cup of soy milk. So cheap. I had brought a huge bag of soybeans 5kg = £11. I can’t wait to try this. Do you have any recipes on what you could use the soybean pulp for after making the milk?

    Reply

  6. Nancy says

    I’ve made a soy milk with soy flour and the water (60oz) from the tofu that I bought in at the store. It tastes great and it still lasted only 5 days at the most I use the water and a cup of soy flour from Hodgson Mill.

    Reply

  8. Margaret says

    According to the Non-GMO project, “Soybean is the number one genetically modified crop in the world, representing half of all worldwide biotech crop acreage with an 82% adoption rate among soy farmers.” One real danger of gmo foods may come from the heavy use of pesticides to grow them. So, if you want to avoid gmo’s, you’ll want to purchase organic soy beans.

    Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Margaret! Most of the GMO soy is for the animals, not for humans. Here in Europe, you can only find non-GMO soy products 🙂 You should be more worried if you eat animal products, but not if you’re eating vegan soy foods. Have a nice day!

      Reply

  9. Judy says

    I’m amazed that you are still pushing soy anything after it was revealed almost 2 yrs. ago that all the soybeans in the US are now GMO and poisoned with Roundup. No other countries in the world are buying our soybeans now. We can’t even give them away!

    Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Rose! I’ve never tried it myself, but I think it should work. There are so many recipes on the internet with okara (the soy pulp left when you make soy milk). Have a nice day!

      Reply

  14. Emma says

    This was amazing! I was craving comfort food and not a lentil version. This really hit the spot.

    ★★★★★

    Reply

      • John Chatfield says

        With the non-organic beans that I use, soaking them at room temperature resulted in a better flavor and less Okara as compared to soaking them in the refrigerator. See my other comments about rinsing them prior to soaking.

        ★★★★★

        Reply

  17. Nate says

    Hi there! I just found your blog, I’m looking into what it would take to make our own non-dairy milk like this or almond milk.

    Is the recipe scalable? I ask as being part of a two-person household where we both work full time (and love our smoothies) we go through a couple of litres of packaged soy milk a week at the moment. Spending an hour every two days to make our own milk I’m not sure works, although being able to do a batch each weekend might! Thanks!

    Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Nate! This milk only lasts 3-5 days, but nut milks are made in just seconds, for example cashew milk is really delicious and you just need to blend the cashews and the water, that’s all, you don’t even need to drain the milk. Any nut will do 🙂

      Reply

  18. Renee says

    I followed a similar recipe, and the flavor was really beany in not a good way. Is there anything I can do to reduce the grassy/beany flavor?

    Reply

      • John Chatfield says

        Prior to soaking, I rinse the raw beans in a strainer until there are no more bubbles. This is to remove any organics on the beans that would cause them to go bad while soaking. Then I soak them for 12 hours at room temperature followed by soaking them in the refrigerator for several more hours. I then give the soaked beans a good rinse. And I think it is important that when cooking the beans, you bring them to a rolling boil to drive off unwanted flavors. This gives me a good thick milk with good flavor.

        ★★★★★

        Reply

    • John says

      Renee,
      Based on information that I found on other websites, I rinse the raw beans in a strainer until there are no longer any bubbles. This is to remove any bacteria present on the surface of the bean so that I can soak them at room temperature for 12 hours and not have them go bad. I also think it is important to bring beans (either before or after blending) to a rolling boil. I have no experience to say that either of these suggestion will help with your issue.

      Best of luck.

      ★★★★★

      Reply

  20. Harper Brechin says

    You stated that this recipe took 45 minutes to execute but upon further inspection it takes approximately 12 hours and 45 minutes to fully complete this activity and I feel as a consumer of said recipe that you should update the time accordingly I hope you take my suggestion to heart thank you

    Reply

  22. Liv says

    Hi! Once you’ve removed the foam during boiling, do you keep scooping off the meniscus layer that forms at medium heat or is the idea to stir often enough that it doesn’t form?
    Also, could you pop the dates in before heating then just drain any residual bits once cool instead of another blending?
    Thanks so much!

    Reply

  24. John Chatfield says

    My soymilk maker (SoyaJoy G3) grinds and then cooks the soaked beans. The recipe that came with it calls for filtering the milk after cooking. And their recipe calls for using 1/2 cup of beans per 1.3 to 1.6 liters of water. The milk produced is very thin. I have tried using more beans and it doesn’t seem any thicker, just more okara. Some of the comments seem to indicate that the commenters are cooking their beans before straining as well. But your recipe calls for straining and then cooking. I wonder if this is my problem and that I should be straining before I cook and not straining after I cook. Proteins do coagulate during cooking. Perhaps this results in them being removed and thus thinning the milk when filtered after cooking. Perhaps if I strain before and not after, I can get thick soy milk like I fell in love with in China. Thoughts?

    Reply

  25. Guillaume says

    My first batch came out great. My second batch I doubled it. No one touched it for 4 days in the fridge and now it has the consistency of yogurt. Do you know what went wrong? Is it good for anything else? Thanks.

    ★★★★

    Reply

    • David Reichard says

      I have the same problem as guillaume. I use a Soyajoy and often after a few days, the milk turns very thick. I suspect some kind of microorganism is causing this, but it can happen even if I carefully sanitize everything. Other times, it separates into what looks like curds & whey. I used to make soy milk all the time and it went bad like this only rarely. Now it thickens or separates most every time. Any ideas?

      Reply

      • Guillaume says

        How much are you making. I’ve made several batches with just a 1/2 cup of dry beans and so far, so good. Doesn’t last long enough for anything to happen to it. I think I made too much last time and it was a few days before anyone drank it.

        Reply

      • John Chatfield says

        It must be that the beans are different or the water is different. I use bulk soybeans from the local chinese grocery and filtered Chicago tap water. Perhaps your water has some coagulants in it. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu) I suspect that those curds you have seen are the beginnings of tofu. Try a batch using distilled water and see what you get. My soymilk is always thin (like fat free cow’s milk) and stays that way for over a week in the frig. I tried blending and filtering before cooking with no filtering post cooking. I cooked the soymilk in my Soyajoy and did not skim off the foam. I did remove the skin that formed on top of the cooked soy milk while it was cooling. This last time I made 1.6 liters of soymilk and so I used 108 grams of soybeans. I soaked the beans overnight in the frig, rinsed them and then blended them with 400 ml of water. I filtered out the okara. I then put the okara back in the blender with 400 ml of fresh water. Did this twice more until I had ~1.6 l of soymilk. The okara reduced significantly between the first and second blending but subsequently it didn’t reduce much. But the milk didn’t seem any thicker. Not even the first 400 ml was very thick. And cooking did not thicken it either.

        ★★★★★

        Reply

        • John Chatfield says

          I checked it out online and the traditional method is to soak the beans at room temperature overnight or for about 8 hours. It was said that there was little risk in doing this so long as the beans were given a good rinse prior to the soad to remove any surface bacteria. Previously, I had been soaking them in the frig. The room temperature soak along with removing the skins gave me a much better soy milk. It seemed thicker. I think maybe the skins prevent the rest of the beans from being ground as fine. As expected, I ended up with significantly less okara, less than what would be expected from the skins being removed prior to cooking.

          Reply

    • Iosune says

      Hi Guillaume! I’m so sorry the recipe didn’t work for you. Did you use the same ingredients and follow all the steps? Try to keep it in an airtight container 🙂

      Reply

    • diego says

      hi, in monday i ve made 3l of soymilk( another recipe, but wherever). I made 2 yogurts with previously made yogurt and left the other litre in the fridge… Two days after it turned thick naturally… I have 2 hypothesis… I think any bacteria could have acidify and then the protein had precipitated… or… the water in marseille is really calcareous (calcium and magnesium high) so it is the beginning of tofu making (both minerals are used for that function).
      The taste is OK, a bit acid.
      But… i don’t if i shall take it or not 🙂
      Thanks for the comments !

      Reply

  27. shirley says

    Hi, well, I’m stuck at step 2: remove the outer skins. I bought a 25kg bag of organic soya beans, so I’m up for varied recipes. I have a pressure cooker which I use to cook the beans after an overnight soak. I haven’t noticed any outer skins after soaking, only after cooking. any comment?

    By the way, I find soya beans to be the most energy-giving of all the beans I’ve tried.

    Reply

  28. Jeanne Genova-Goldstein says

    I use soymilk that I make this way for tofu and for soy yogurt. It is a little labor intensive, but not difficult. You will need to get something as a coagulant. Also, mesh bags to drain the curds. Yogurt is easier

    Reply

  29. Jeremy Boland says

    This recipe looks great, I was just wondering, could you apply the same concept to chickpeas to make chickpea milk to use for tofu.

    Thanks
    Jeremy

    Reply

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