RECIPES FOR HEALTH
Pine Nut Milk With Saffron
The perfect holiday drink
By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi

Pine nuts are rich in flavor. They remind me of walking among giant pine trees in the forest.
A perfect holiday delight in a cup with wonderful health benefits.
Research background for the recipe ingredients from the National Institute of Health (NIH).
- Pine nuts have a wonderfully rich taste. Pine nut has a great nutritional value; it is an antioxidant, has a high percentage of protein and fat, is anti-inflammatory, has anti-carcinogenic properties, helps lower blood pressure, has properties that are effective against yeast infections, and help decrease allergies (Valero -Galvan et al; 2019).
- Saffron is a spice and also an herb that has wonderful effects on our body and mind. It is a natural antidepressant, and it was found to increase “mental wellness” in multiple studies (Siddiqui et al, 2018). Saffron has been widely used in eastern medicine. Saffron can pass our blood-brain barrier and have a beneficial effect on our nervous system (Abu-Izneid et al, 2020).
The pine nuts I used were organic. To make pine nut blend “milk” I begin by boiling water and measuring out pine nuts and saffron. I thought the saffron would be a nice twist to the rich pine nut experience and would also color the drink to a light yellow color just like eggnog.

You can adjust both the pine nut and water ratio and the amount of saffron to taste. You can also use turmeric to get a similar effect.
I used 1/3 cup of pine nuts and about 20 threads of saffron. I used a 1:4 water to pine nut ratio.

I poured the boiled water over the pine nuts, let them sit for a few minutes then blended them. You can add less or more water depending on how dense you would like your pine nut drink.

The pine nut blend had a rich foamy top and a wonderful flavor. I used the mixture with my morning coffee. I did not drain the pine nut pulp I left it in the drink. It was just perfect.

I used the rest of the pine nut drink for my morning protein smoothie.
It was a lovely flavor. Pine nuts are expensive that is why this was a wonderful treat. I will probably make this recipe a few times a year for special holiday occasions.
I hope you enjoyed this simple recipe.
Gabriella
Other nut drink recipes by Gabriella
Making Nut and Seed Drinks
Exploration of creating a variety of alternative “milk” drinks
medium.com
Follow me here, Subscribe to the Medium platform here, Buy me a coffee here
My Books are available on Amazon here and on Barnes and Nobles here
Dancing Elephants Press Nov 25th, 2021. All Rights Reserved.
References
Abu-Izneid et al; NIH (2020) retrieved from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33327732/
Siddiqui et al; NIH (2018) Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6266642/
Valero -Galvan et al; NIH (2019) retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600560/
