Hazelnut Milk substitute

Best substitute

Hazelnut butter blended with water

Use 2 tbsp hazelnut butter for every 1 cup water

Best for chocolate-hazelnut recipes

Close match

Homemade hazelnut milk from ready-ground nuts, the closest possible substitute.

Other hazelnut milk substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Cashew milk
Different taste
Use the same amount
The creamiest common nut milk, mild and naturally thick.
What changes
Best for
coffee and hot chocolate, ice cream bases and custards, creamy sauces, baking
The best texture match, because hazelnut milk is one of the richer plant milks and cashew milk is the only one that matches that roundness without help. A latte or a panna cotta made with it feels right. What it lacks entirely is hazelnut's toasted praline character, so a chocolate-hazelnut dessert made with cashew milk tastes like a plain chocolate dessert; a teaspoon of hazelnut butter or a few drops of hazelnut extract per cup fixes that. Use unsweetened, as cashew milk already tastes sweet.
3Almond milk
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
The most widely available nut milk, thinner and mildly nutty.
What changes
Best for
baking, granola and cereal, smoothies, iced drinks
Fine as a like-for-like nut milk when hazelnut milk is simply the liquid, and it stays within the tree-nut family so it suits recipes chosen for nut flavour generally. It is noticeably thinner and less fatty, so a custard is looser and a hot drink thinner; add a tablespoon of neutral oil or nut butter per cup if the recipe is a dessert. Flavour is a mild sweet almond rather than a toasted hazelnut, so it reads softer and less interesting in anything chocolate-based. Resist adding almond extract, which tastes of marzipan and pulls further away.
4Raw hazelnuts blended with water
Close match
Use ¼ cup hazelnuts for every 1 cup water
Hazelnut milk from scratch, which is better than most cartons if you handle the skins.
What changes
Best for
chocolate-hazelnut recipes, coffee and hot chocolate, desserts where the flavour is the point
Genuinely worth doing, and the skins are the whole story. Hazelnut skins are tannic and bitter, so roast the nuts at 180C for ten minutes, rub them in a tea towel to shed as much skin as will come off, then soak, blend for a minute with a pinch of salt and strain through a cloth. Skip that and the milk is astringent and slightly grey. Roasting also deepens the flavour into proper praline territory. Keeps three days and separates hard, so shake it.
5Oat milk
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Nut-free, sweet and the best plant milk for steaming and foaming.
What changes
Best for
lattes and cappuccinos, baking, porridge, nut-free kitchens
The pick for coffee, because barista oat milk foams properly while hazelnut milk does not, and the essential answer for a nut-free kitchen. It is sweeter and tastes of cereal, which is pleasant in a latte and noticeably flat in a hazelnut torte or a chocolate-hazelnut filling, where you have simply removed the ingredient the recipe was named after. If you are cooking nut-free, accept the flavour loss honestly rather than trying to imitate it, and lean harder on chocolate, vanilla or coffee for depth.
6Whole dairy milk with hazelnut extract or ground hazelnuts
Close match
1 cup whole milk plus ¼ tsp hazelnut extract, or 1 tbsp finely ground hazelnuts
The non-vegan route, which restores the flavour and improves the body.
What changes
Best for
hot chocolate and coffee, pastry cream and custards, gelato and ice cream, cakes
Often the best-tasting version if dairy is allowed. Whole milk is richer than hazelnut milk and sets custards far more reliably, and the extract or ground nuts put the hazelnut back. Ground nuts give the truer flavour but need steeping in the warm milk for twenty minutes and then straining; extract is instant but can taste synthetic if you overdo it, so start at a quarter teaspoon. Not an option in a vegan recipe or where hazelnut milk was chosen to be dairy-free.

What is Hazelnut Milk?

Hazelnut Milk is Hazelnut milk, sometimes sold as hazelnut drink and made from what are also called filberts, is a plant milk of blended hazelnuts and water with a rich, toasty, distinctly praline-like flavour that is much more assertive than almond or oat milk.

Cooking tips

Decide whether the recipe wants hazelnut milk for flavour or for liquid. In a chocolate-hazelnut cake, a Nutella-style filling, a hazelnut gelato or a European-style coffee, the flavour is the point of the dish and only a hazelnut product will keep it. In granola, porridge or a plain muffin, any unsweetened plant milk is a straight swap.
If you are making hazelnut milk from nuts, deal with the skins. Roast the hazelnuts for about ten minutes at 180C and rub them in a tea towel first; the skins are where the tannic bitterness lives, and milk made from unskinned nuts tastes astringent and looks grey no matter how well you strain it.
Hazelnut milk will not froth. Nut milks lack the protein for stable microfoam, so if you were using it in coffee, either switch to barista oat or soy milk and add a spoonful of hazelnut butter for flavour, or accept a flat, creamy drink.
Chocolate hazelnut spread is not a one-for-one stand-in for hazelnut butter. It is around half sugar plus cocoa and palm oil, so if you use it to make milk, drop the recipe's sugar by about a third and expect the colour and flavour to shift towards chocolate.
Most carton hazelnut milks are sweetened, often more than almond milk, so a savoury sauce made with them tastes odd and a sweet bake made with unsweetened almond milk instead can taste bare. Read the carton and adjust the recipe's sugar by a teaspoon or two per cup in whichever direction you are going.

Frequently asked questions

What is the closest substitute for hazelnut milk?

Two tablespoons of hazelnut butter blended into a cup of water, because that is essentially what hazelnut milk is. It comes out richer and more strongly flavoured than the carton, which usually improves a dessert. Failing that, cashew milk is the closest in creaminess and almond milk is the easiest to find, but both give you a plain nut milk with none of the toasted praline character, so add a teaspoon of hazelnut butter or a few drops of hazelnut extract per cup if the flavour matters.

Can I use almond milk instead of hazelnut milk?

Yes, one for one, and nobody will notice in granola or a plain batter. In anything where hazelnut is part of the dish's identity, such as a chocolate-hazelnut cake or a hazelnut latte, the swap is very obvious: almond milk is thinner, milder and sweeter in a different way, so the result tastes generically nutty. Add a tablespoon of oil or nut butter per cup to make up the missing fat in a dessert, and do not use almond extract to compensate, since it reads as marzipan.

Can I make hazelnut milk at home?

Yes, and it beats most cartons. Roast a quarter cup of hazelnuts at 180C for ten minutes, rub off the skins in a tea towel, soak in hot water for thirty minutes, then blend with a cup of fresh water and a pinch of salt for a full minute and strain through a cloth. The skin removal is the step that matters, since the skins are bitter and tannic. It keeps about three days, separates as it sits, and tastes far more of hazelnut than anything you can buy.

Can I just leave the hazelnut milk out?

Only if something else supplies the liquid, and only where the hazelnut flavour is not the point. In a recipe named after hazelnuts, omitting it means making a different dessert. If you are stuck, water plus a tablespoon of oil per cup will carry a batter, and a spoonful of ground toasted hazelnuts stirred into the dry ingredients puts some of the flavour back better than leaving both out.

What is a nut-free substitute for hazelnut milk?

Oat milk is the best option, with soy, rice, hemp and carton coconut milk also nut-free. None of them can imitate hazelnut flavour, so in a chocolate-hazelnut recipe be honest about it and build depth elsewhere: a little more cocoa, a spoonful of strong coffee, browned vegan butter or a small amount of toasted sunflower seed butter all add roasted character without any nuts. Check cartons for shared-line warnings if the allergy is severe.

Related substitutes

More dairy alternatives substitutes

Hazelnut Milk substitute

Other hazelnut milk substitutes

2Cashew milk

3Almond milk

4Raw hazelnuts blended with water

5Oat milk

6Whole dairy milk with hazelnut extract or ground hazelnuts