Vegan Labneh Recipe with Almonds & Rice

Name: Vegan Labneh Recipe with Almonds & Rice
Cuisine: Middle Eastern / dairy alternatives
Ingredients: 1 cup almonds, soaked overnight and peeled.; 1 cup rice, cooked in water only and dried well without burning.; A little oats if needed, lightly ground but not turned into flour.; ½ cup water for blending the rice and almonds, with more if needed.; Juice of ½ lemon, with more to taste.; 1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste.

A homemade vegan labneh made from almonds and rice, with lemon and sea salt. Creamy, tangy and made without dairy.

Cuisine
Middle Eastern / dairy alternatives

Preparation time
About 25 minutes hands-on + overnight soaking and 1–2 days chilling/fermentation

Use
Labneh / breakfast and mezze

This was a new idea I came up with for a tasty vegan labneh, and I wanted to share it especially with other labneh lovers.

Ingredients for Vegan Almond and Rice Labneh

1 cup almonds, soaked overnight and peeled.
1 cup rice, cooked in water only and dried well without burning.
A little oats if needed, lightly ground but not turned into flour.
½ cup water for blending the rice and almonds, with more if needed.
Juice of ½ lemon, with more to taste.
1 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste.

How to Make Vegan Almond and Rice Labneh

Soak the almonds overnight and peel them. Soaking them briefly in hot water can make peeling easier.
Blend the almonds with ½ cup water until smooth.
Add the cooked rice after it has cooled and blend with the juice of half a lemon. Add a little more water if needed.
If your blender is too small for both the rice and almonds, blend them separately and combine them afterward.
Once the rice and almonds are very smooth, mix them in a glass or stainless-steel container with a lid. Adjust the salt. If the mixture contains too much water, add about 2 tablespoons of lightly ground oats and mix.
The original recipe left the mixture for several hours outside the refrigerator until it began to smell like labneh, then refrigerated it.
Place the mixture in cloth over a container to absorb excess water, cover it with the cloth, and leave it in the refrigerator for one or two days to thicken and develop flavor.
Adjust the salt and lemon to taste.
You can store it in a jar covered with oil in the refrigerator.
Or shape it into balls. If the balls are still too soft, place them on a cloth-lined tray, cover with another cloth without a lid, and leave them in the refrigerator for a day so excess moisture can drain and they become firmer.
Then place the balls in a jar with olive oil. The flavor develops further in the oil. Keep refrigerated.

Enjoy.

Important food-safety note: The steps above preserve the original recipe, which includes leaving a mixture containing cooked rice at room temperature for several hours. Modern food-safety guidance recommends cooling cooked rice quickly and keeping it refrigerated because Bacillus cereus spores can survive cooking and multiply when rice is left at room temperature. Smell is not a reliable safety test. For a safer version, keep the mixture refrigerated rather than relying on room-temperature holding. Food Standards Agency.

Homemade vegan labneh from almonds and rice

Why Almond and Rice Labneh Is More Than a Dairy Substitute

Almonds can improve several cardiovascular risk markers. A recent meta-analysis of controlled trials found reductions in LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, non-HDL cholesterol and ApoB. Source.

Along with that come plant protein, fiber, unsaturated fats, vitamin E and magnesium. So this gives us a creamy almond-and-rice labneh without dairy and without dietary cholesterol.

And one important correction: “vitamin B17,” or laetrile, is not an established vitamin or a proven cancer treatment. Almonds have plenty of real nutritional value without that claim. National Cancer Institute.