Coconut Horchata
Ingredients
- 5 cups water divided
- 1½ cups shredded coconut unsweetened
- 1 cup sliced almonds
- ½ cup Jasmine rice uncooked
- 2 cinnamon sticks each about 3-inches long
- ¼ cup honey or sweetener of your choice
Instructions
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Heat 3 cups of the water to almost boiling.
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Mix coconut, almonds, rice and cinnamon sticks in a large bowl (I use a 2-quart glass measuring cup). Pour hot water over the mixture, stir, and let cool for about an hour. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
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Add the mixture to a blender, cinnamon sticks and all, and blend for 1 minute. You may have to intermittently stop the blender and stir things up a bit with a spoon to be sure everything is coming into contact with the blades. Add honey and 1 cup of water and blend for another 30 seconds.
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Strain half the mixture into a bowl or pitcher by pressing with the back of a spoon through a fine mesh strainer or by squeezing through a nut milk bag or cheesecloth. If you can find a good use for the leftover ground nuts and rice, hold on to it...otherwise, compost or discard (see notes). Repeat the straining process with the last half of the mixture. Stir your remaining 1 cup of water into the white liquid you’ve extracted to finish your horchata.
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Serve chilled. It’s delicious over ice or straight up.
Recipe Notes
* You could compost the leftover rice/nut mixture, at your discretion. A bit of web research suggests there are two different schools of thought on these particular ingredients: good for compost and not good for compost. If you’re an experienced composter, you probably know what works best for you and your pile. You could also turn it into rice pudding with a little heat, sweetener and additional liquid. While these two recipes call for just rice leftover from the horchata process, you could use them as your inspiration for a special nutty coconut version: Easy Horchata Pudding or Arroz Con Leche Rice Pudding.