We’re loving this cozy, comforting vegan chai latte for cold winter days. And, we’re making this latte from scratch. You won’t find any pre-mixed packets or pre-fab concentrate here. Just black tea and those classic masala chai flavors–cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger.
How To Make This Recipe
In this homemade chai tea latte, we bring together black tea with classic masala chai spices–cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and ginger. This recipe remains flexible enough to accommodate personal taste. As a result, we occasionally experiment with adding other spices, such as star anise, to our spice blend based on mood.
When we’re looking for a caffeine-free alternative, we choose rooibos tea over black tea. Black tea offers a traditional chai flavor, whereas rooibos brings a natural sweetness and slightly nutty taste. This non-traditional chai is lightly creamy thanks to the addition of unsweetened dairy-free milk. We prefer oat or cashew milk, but soy milk also works well here. Top with either non-dairy whipped cream or frothed oat milk.
Prepare Chai
We begin briefly toasting all of our spices, except ginger, over medium heat in a dry non-stick skillet until fragrant. We take care not to overcook our spices. This process should take less than three minutes.
Briefly toast spices.
As soon as we smell those fragrant spices, we remove them from heat and transfer to a medium saucepan. To that pan, we add our boiling water, black tea, and ginger. We allow this to simmer for 10 minutes or so over low heat.
Simmer on low heat.
Once we steep our tea and spices, we add our sweetener and non-dairy milk. Then, we continue to simmer for another minute to warm through. At this point, we remove our chai blend from the heat. Finally, we taste for seasoning and adjust sweetness as needed.
Remove from heat once warmed through.
Ready To Serve
We’re ready to serve. Let’s start by pouring this cozy mixture through a sieve into individual mugs.
Strain into serving mugs.
Finally, we top each mug with non-dairy whipped cream or oat milk foam and sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
Garnish with non-dairy whipped cream or oat milk foam.
Now that we’ve grabbed our blankets and carried our mugs over to the couch, we’re ready to sip. Ooh, there’s just nothing like warm, cozy vegan chai latte on a cold winter day.
Enjoy your vegan chai latte.
More seasonal treats:
Recipe Card for Vegan Chai Latte
Here’s the recipe card for Vegan Chai Latte. Print, share or save!
Vegan Chai Latte
Equipment
- Skillet
- Strainer
Ingredients
- 3 bags black tea or 1 heaping tablespoon loose leaf black tea
- 1 each cinnamon stick
- 2 each cardamom pods
- 2 each whole cloves
- 2 cups boiling water
- 3/4 inch ginger sliced
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar substitute or sweetener of your choice
- 1 cup non-dairy milk unsweetened
- non-dairy whipped cream to taste
- ground cinnamon to taste (optional)
Instructions
- In a dry skillet, add all spices except for ginger. Toast over medium heat until release of fragrances, between 1-3 minutes.
- Transfer to a medium saucepan with 2 cups of boiling water and ginger. Simmer for 10 minutes at low heat.
- Add sweetener and non-dairy milk. Simmer for 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
- Pour mixture through a sieve into mugs and taste for seasoning, adjust sweetness. Finish with whipped cream and sprinkle ground cinnamon.
