Healthy Condensed Milk Recipe

Looking for condensed milk that isn’t full of garbage? Try this clean eating condensed milk recipe!

One of the toughest conversions for me, aside from recipes that are heavily reliant on butter, are those recipes that call for condensed milk. After reading the ingredients on a condensed milk can, I just knew I’d never be able to convert anything that would even come close. But life has a funny way of proving me wrong on a fairly consistent basis. In this case, I didn’t mind one bit.

Clean Eating Condensed Milk in a white pitcher, ready to be used for any recipe calling for condensed milk.

With the last round of the No Sugar Challenge, Gale Compton over at Fit Fabulous Forever came up with an incredible alternative. It’s truly clean, and works amazingly well!

She made hers with regular milk. But since I can no longer have dairy, I tried this with both almond milk and soy milk. It worked equally well with both, with just a few minor differences.

MAKE THIS WITH REGULAR MILK
Here’s what Gale had to say about making this with regular milk:

Although I haven’t tried it with whole milk, I read when using whole milk and raisins, it thickens up into an almost yogurt like consistency. With low-fat, it gets only slightly thicker.

It’s very important to know that after 24 hours the milk should be discarded if not used. I tried it a few more times as an experiment, left it in the fridge for 48 hours and it turned into this nasty looking, smelly liquid. The time needs to be fairly precise.

MAKE THIS WITH ALMOND OR SOY MILK

If you prefer to make a non-dairy version, here’s how:

Soy milk will pretty much maintain its thickness, no matter how long you soak it for. I left the raisins in for about 36 hours and while it didn’t really thicken, it was amazingly sweet.

For almond milk, the milk will thicken nicely, pretty much to the consistency of soy milk, maybe just a slight bit thicker.

Note: With non-dairy versions, you can reuse your raisins for a second batch. Just be aware that the milk will not thicken at all with recycled raisins. Also, you don’t need to worry about spoilage after a certain amount of time, though with almond milk, there will be a small amount of separation as you can see in the photo above.

Also note: For extra sweetness, blend in the raisins using a blender or hand blender. You won’t believe just how sweet it can get!

Other uses for this are:
  • Smoothies
  • Ice cream
  • Coffee creamer (just add vanilla or another extract for flavoring)

Healthy Condensed Milk Recipe Card

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Clean Eating Condensed Milk

Healthy Condensed Milk

Have a recipe that calls for condensed milk? Make it yourself for a much healthier approach.
5 from 1 vote
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Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 16 servings (1 tbsp. each)
Calories: 22kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 cup milk
  • ½ cup raisins

Instructions

  • In a storage container, combine both ingredients and set in the fridge for 24 hours.
  • Strain off the milk from the raisins and use the way you would use regular condensed milk!

Notes

Please note that the nutrition data below is a ballpark figure. Exact data is not possible.

Nutrition

Serving: 1tbsp. | Calories: 22kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 7mg | Potassium: 57mg | Vitamin A: 25IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 19mg | Iron: 0.1mg

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58 Comments

  1. Ja Ignacio says:

    Hello! This is a very neat idea since my mom LOVES to use condensed milk as much as how people go crazy over peanut butter. Not a fan of both, sad to say. But anyway, I’d like to ask if it’s possible to use something else rather than raisins? Because raisins are very high in sodium and our family is slowly cutting on the sodium intake (since our livers and kidneys are very sensitive, leading us to easy cancer… a family thing on a negative side). I’ve seen other people make their own condensed milk but so far, yours has the least ingredients and very easy to make! 🙂

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Ja – Sorry, no. The only other recipes I know of contain tons of refined sugar.

  2. Hello! I was wondering, if I made this condensed milk and used it to make the clean eating coffee creamer, does this mean that the coffee creamer itself is only good for 24 hours? Based on the comment above that exceeding 24hrs the milk becomes rather nasty. Thanks!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Nancy – Sadly, ya. I don’t recommend doing that. I would either use just the condensed milk as a creamy, or make one of my other creamer recipes with those ingredients.

  3. Josephine says:

    This is super amazing. Thanks for sharing this. I think I may try this with my coffee. I’ve been using almond milk that’s been slightly sweetened but I can try this and see what happens. Sounds super yummy!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Josephine – It’s good in coffee! Enjoy! 🙂

  4. In case anyone was wondering, it doesn’t really work with coconut milk. 😛 Canned lite coconut milk was the only milk in the house, so I gave it a shot. Steeping the raisins for 24 hours didn’t seem to do much, so I left them in for another 24. At that point, the milk got nice and thick and creamy, and it did get sweet… but it had a weird sharp aftertaste, too. I tried it in Earl Grey and Irish Breakfast tea, and my husband tried it in coffee. None of them were undrinkable, but we weren’t impressed. Blending the rasins in might work better, I’m not sure. On the plus side, coconut-soaked raisins are delicious, and they make a great addition to Irish soda bread!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Fal – Haha! Thanks for the input! I’m happy you at least enjoyed the raisins!!

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Evelyn – I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is. But feel free to post the ingredient list here and I can tell you.

  5. trying this tonight! FYI most Fat free milk or 1/2 and 1/2 has loads of sugar or the other bad stuff. I like that it is a natural alternative as we can hardly ever find organic condensed milk anyway. thank you

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Sara – My pleasure! I hope you enjoy it!

  6. Daniele Robbers says:

    So.I am a bit.confused after soaking do you strain the raisins or do you leave them in? I am so co.fused and can I use golden rasins?

    1. The Gracious Pantry says:

      Daniele – The raisins are only for thickening and sweetening. Unless you want to blend them in for a super sweet milk, you would remove the raisins from the milk by straining. I haven’t tried golden raisins, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Maybe try a very small sample batch before diving in to be sure.

  7. 5 stars
    Hi! Thanks for the recipe.

    Question about calorie calculation: how many calories do you calculate are added to the milk by virtue of the raisins soaking (and adding sweetness to it)?

    I know you provided estimated calories for your recipe, but I’m wondering how I would adjust the calculations for regular coconut milk? How many additional calories beyond the coconut milk itself do you think the final drink might have?

    Thanks,
    Susan

    1. Susan – I’m not sure, to be honest. I would think it’s pretty minimal, but I have no way to knowing for sure without sending the milk off to a lab for nutrition data. All my data is a ballpark figure. None of it is exact. I’m sorry, I wish I could be more help.