Vegan Mexican horchata, made with rice, almonds, water, a cinnamon stick and vanilla seeds. It's a refreshing drink, naturally sweetened with dates.
Horchata is a traditional Spanish drink made of tiger nuts (we call them chufas in Spanish). There are also other variations of this recipe that use rice and/or almonds instead of tiger nuts and are so popular in Mexico and other countries in Latin America.
I've found so many Mexican horchata recipes online and most of them are not vegan because they include some dairy product like milk, condense milk or evaporated milk. Some use only rice and other also add almonds. As I haven't used any dairy product, I thought it could be a good idea to also add almonds to make my horchata creamier.
Some people make their horchata more watery, but I like mine pretty thick, like any other plant milk. Horchata is actually a plant milk made with rice and almonds and also with cinnamon, water, vanilla (optional) and naturally sweetened with dates.
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📖 Recipe
Vegan Mexican Horchata
Ingredients
- ½ cup uncooked white rice
- ½ cup raw unsalted almonds
- 1 small or ½ big cinnamon stick
- 4 cups water
- 4 Medjool or 8 Deglet Nour dates, pitted
- ½ vanilla bean, scraped, optional
Instructions
- Add the rice, almonds, cinnamon stick and water to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Keep this mixture in a sealed container in the fridge overnight.
- The next day, drain the mixture using a nut milk bag, a cheese cloth, a napkin or even a fine-mesh strainer. Discard the pulp or add it to your recipes (smoothies, soups, truffles, etc.).
- Add the liquid to the blender with the dates and the vanilla seeds and blend until smooth. Taste the horchata and add more dates if needed.
- You can serve it immediately with some ice cubes or leave it in the fridge until it's cold. Keep leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for 3 to 5 days.
Notes
- We don't have the nutritional info for this recipe as we discarded part of the rice, almonds and cinnamon stick when we drained the horchata and it's not easy to calculate it.
- We used short-grain white rice, but any type of rice will do.
- Feel free to use ¼ to ½ teaspoons of ground cinnamon instead of the cinnamon stick, although you'll get a better texture if you use the cinnamon stick.
- Any natural sweetener is okay, you don't have to use dates. Just add it until the horchata is sweet enough for you.
- Vanilla seeds can be replaced by ½ to 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Diane says
I'm wondering the same thing as Teresa, how do we prepare the rice, is it raw, do we rinse it before?
Iosune says
Hi Diane! It's uncooked rice and no, you just need to follow all the steps 🙂
Teresa says
Is the rice cooked or raw when adding it to the blender in the first step? Can’t wait to try this recipe!
Iosune says
Hi Teresa! The rice is uncooked 🙂 Hope you like it!