How to Make Your Own Golden Milk

There’s a good chance you’ve seen golden milk on the menu of your favorite café recently. As more and more people learn about the powerful benefits of turmeric, golden milk is becoming more widely available.

There’s no reason you have to leave your house to benefit from this delicious and nutritious drink. You can easily make golden milk at home in under ten minutes with only a few basic ingredients. 

Keep reading to find out how this golden milk can help you improve your overall health and how you can easily make it yourself.

What Is Golden Milk?

Golden milk, also called a turmeric latte, is a hot drink generally made by mixing turmeric and other spices like cinnamon and ginger in milk. Some golden milk recipes use cow’s milk while others use plant-based milk such as coconut or almond milk.  Even though it’s currently very popular, it’s not a new invention. 

Golden milk comes from an ancient Indian drink called haldi doodh that was originally made as a medicinal drink. (1) Haldi doodh was traditionally made with turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, a sweetener, and occasionally ghee or coconut oil mixed with cow milk.

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Health Benefits of Golden Milk

Golden milk has the potential to improve many different aspects of your health. Many of golden milk’s benefits are due to the key ingredient turmeric. Turmeric contains a compound called curcumin that’s a powerful antioxidant and helps to support a healthy response to inflammatory reactions. 

Turmeric has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for nearly 4,000 years. (2) In ancient Ayurvedic medicine, it was believed that turmeric could strengthen the body’s energy, reduce bloating, get rid of worms, support digestion, and relieve menstruation symptoms. Research over the past 25 years has confirmed what people have already known for thousands of years. Turmeric has a myriad of health benefits.

A 2017 review of studies looked at the benefits of adding turmeric spice to your diet. (3,4)The researchers found that it may improve many aspects of your health including the following:

• Supports a healthy inflammatory response
• Promotes a healthy blood pressure
• Supports cognition through aging
• Helps to maintain healthy joints

Turmeric isn’t the only ingredient in golden milk that has the potential to increase your overall health. Research on the key ingredient in ginger called gingerol is also known for improving your digestive health. 

Research on ginger has found that it may have the following benefits: (5)

• Helps to relieve occasional nausea  
• Supports a healthy digestion
• Promotes the normal repair of joints

Most golden teas also contain cinnamon, which is another spice that has promising research backing its potential benefits. According to a 2014 study published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, cinnamon may have the following benefits. (6)

• Acts as a powerful antioxidant
• Helps to support a healthy response to inflammatory reactions
• Promotes heart health
• Helps to maintain healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels

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How to Make Dairy Free Golden Milk

Golden milk is an easy and delicious treat that provides you with the benefits of turmeric and other spices. It also fits most diets including paleo, dairy-free, and vegan. 

Here’s an easy recipe that takes less than 10 minutes. You can keep it in your fridge for up to three days. 

Most golden milk recipes call for a small amount of sweetener like honey, monk fruit, or maple syrup. To make this recipe even healthier, you can skip the sweetener or use a very small amount. As your taste buds become accustomed to the taste, you can reduce the amount of sweetener over time. 

It’s important to add black pepper to get the most out of your golden milk. Research has found that consuming black pepper with turmeric has the potential to significantly increase your body’s absorption of turmeric’s active ingredient, curcumin. (7) 

INGREDIENTS

PER 4 SERVINGS

• 3 cups of light coconut milk
• 3 cups of unsweetened almond milk (or oat milk)
• 3 teaspoons of turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon of ground ginger
• ¼ tsp of cinnamon powder
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 dashes of black pepper
• *Optional: a small amount of sweetener to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add all the ingredients to a saucepan over a medium heat. 
2. Whisk the ingredients together for about four minutes or until the liquid is warm but not boiling. 
3. Take the saucepan off the heat and serve immediately. You can put leftovers in the fridge and reheat as desired. 
4. In the mood for a cold treat? Pour it over a cup full of ice cubes!

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Should I try Golden Milk?

Almost anybody can benefit from adding more turmeric to their diet. The active ingredient in turmeric, curcumin, has an excellent safety profile and is well tolerated in most people. (8) However, there are a few groups of people who might want to consult their doctor before adding turmeric to their diet including the following:

• Breastfeeding mothers
• People taking blood-thinning medications
• People taking medication for diabetes
• People with gallbladder stones
• People who are pregnant

Final Thoughts

Golden milk is one of the most delicious ways to get more turmeric in your diet. Turmeric’s active ingredient curcumin is a powerful antioxidant, and adding turmeric to your diet is an easy way to help your body respond to inflammatory reactions in a healthy way.

If you want to get even more turmeric in your diet, you may also want to consider adding a turmeric supplement to your supplement routine. Our Daily Turmeric supplement allows you to receive a highly concentrated amount of the active ingredient, curcumin, that would be hard to receive through your diet alone.

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QUICK DISCLAIMER‍

This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. Readers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither the author(s) nor the publisher of this content take responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All readers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.

Sources

1. O’Brady T. (2017). Same drink, different table: The so-called discovery of haldi doodh in the West. 

2. Prasad S, & Aggarwal BB. (2011). Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. 2nd edition. 

3. Hewlings, S. J., & Kalman, D. S. (2017). Curcumin: A Review of Its' Effects on Human Health. Foods (Basel, Switzerland), 6(10), 92. 

4. Chen, M., Du, Z. Y., Zheng, X., Li, D. L., Zhou, R. P., & Zhang, K. (2018). Use of curcumin in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Neural regeneration research, 13(4), 742–752. 

5. Nikkhah Bodagh, M., Maleki, I., & Hekmatdoost, A. (2018). Ginger in gastrointestinal disorders: A systematic review of clinical trials. Food science & nutrition, 7(1), 96–108. 

6. Rao, P. V., & Gan, S. H. (2014). Cinnamon: a multifaceted medicinal plant. Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 2014, 642942. 

7. Gupta, S. C., Patchva, S., & Aggarwal, B. B. (2013). Therapeutic roles of curcumin: lessons learned from clinical trials. The AAPS journal, 15(1), 195–218. 

8. Kocaadam, B., & Şanlier, N. (2017). Curcumin, an active component of turmeric (Curcuma longa), and its effects on health. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 57(13), 2889–2895.