Sesame milk substitutes

Homemade sesame milk from sesame paste, which is what most commercial sesame milk is made from anyway.

Best for

smoothies, baking, creamy savoury sauces and soups, porridge, iced coffee

The genuine substitute, and it takes a minute. Blend hard, or whisk with a little water first to loosen the paste, or you get an oily slick sitting on top of grey water. Use light or hulled tahini: dark, unhulled or heavily roasted tahini makes a milk that is markedly bitter and much stronger than the carton version, which is smoother and lightly sweetened. Add a teaspoon of maple syrup or sugar per cup for drinking, and keep it to a level two tablespoons, since more tips it from creamy into heavy and oily.

The other seed milk, nut-free, with a similar mild savoury edge.

Best for

savoury sauces, baking, cereal and porridge, nut-free kitchens

The closest match in character, since both are seed milks with a faint grassy, savoury note rather than the clean sweetness of a grain milk, and both are free of tree nuts. Sunflower milk is thinner and blander, without sesame's toasted depth, so a tahini-adjacent dressing or a Middle Eastern soup made with it tastes flatter; half a teaspoon of tahini stirred in restores that. It is also lower in calcium than sesame milk, which matters if that was your reason for buying it.

The most widely stocked nut-free plant milk, sweeter and thicker than sesame milk.

Best for

coffee and lattes, baking, porridge and cereal, creamy soups

The practical everyday swap: nut-free, easy to buy and thick enough to stand in for sesame milk's body. The clear difference is that it is sweet and cereal-flavoured where sesame milk is savoury and toasted, so it works well in sweet baking and less well in a tahini dressing, a hummus-adjacent sauce or a Middle Eastern soup, where it can taste oddly sugary. Add a pinch more salt in savoury dishes, and note that ordinary oat milk is not gluten-free unless the carton says certified.

Nut-free, high-protein plant milk and the most capable one in hot cooking.

Best for

coffee and lattes, custards and puddings, white sauces, baking, vegan buttermilk

The best functional match, because sesame milk and soy milk are both relatively protein-rich for plant milks, so soy behaves similarly under heat and does the things sesame milk does: it foams passably, it sets a custard and it curdles cleanly with lemon juice. The flavour is beany rather than toasted, which is a lateral move rather than an upgrade in a savoury dish. Nut-free but obviously not soy-free, and sesame allergy and soy allergy sometimes appear together, so check what you actually need to avoid.

Sesame milk from whole seeds, for when you have seeds but no tahini or carton.

Best for

savoury sauces, porridge, smoothies, when nothing else sesame is in the house

Works, with a technique caveat: soak the seeds in hot water for an hour or overnight, blend for a full minute in a decent blender and strain through a cloth, because sesame seeds are small and hard and a weak blender leaves you with gritty water. Toasting the seeds first gives a much deeper, nuttier milk that is lovely in savoury dishes and too assertive for a delicate cake. Yield is lower than you expect and the milk is thinner than the tahini version, so use it where its flavour is welcome.

Ordinary cow's milk, the plain answer when the reason for sesame milk was a nut allergy rather than dairy.

Best for

every use, baking, coffee, sauces and custards

Swaps directly, and in most recipes it performs better, because it brings more protein and fat than sesame milk and thickens and sets more reliably. What it does not bring is the toasted savoury note, so a dressing or a soup that was leaning on that will taste rounder and blander; half a teaspoon of tahini per cup puts it back. Not an option in a vegan or dairy-free recipe, which is why sesame milk exists, but plenty of people meet it purely as a nut-free choice.