The Healthy Latte Recipe That Will Cut Your Starbucks Spending In Half
Raise your hand if morning coffee is a driving force to get you out of bed in the morning!
I'm not a morning person, so a yummy latte is one of my favorite parts about starting the day.
What isn't my favorite about the coffee obsession that has overtaken so many of us?
The amount of money and the amount of calories! A standard (grande, no customizations) Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks has 390 calories and 50g of sugar and costs (in 2021) $5.45.
Sure, I embrace this obsession with open arms year after year. If you want that latte, you drink that latte! I'm not in the business of telling people to deprive themselves of goodness.
But it's important to be conscious of processed sugar intake and have a balanced, healthy diet. And as heartbreaking as it is to say, a PSL every morning isn't really doing that for you.
Not to mention it's nearly $6 for a specialty latte before tax. Depending on your order, you could be spending upwards of $42 a week- almost $170 a month- on store-bought lattes!
Dude, that's insane.
To solve this pressing problem I learned how to make a healthier flavored latte right at home. Without a single fancy piece of espresso equipment. And now I'm sharing how to make a healthy vanilla latte at home, so you can do the same and save big money on coffee!
Healthy Vanilla Latte Recipe
A classic vanilla latte is my go-to at any coffee shop. Even a regular coffee- hot or iced- isn't complete without vanilla. If that's your thing too, you're going to love this recipe.
However, if you wanted to, you could skip the flavoring and make a simple at-home latte this way too. You could spice it up and add cinnamon, which I have started doing because I also love me a cinnamon dolce latte.
Make it yours and run with it! There are so many creative latte recipes. Either way, there are fewer sugars coming in and fewer bills going out.
Hope you enjoy making this healthy latte at home!
What You Need:
While other flavored latte recipes without syrup might be more complex, a vanilla latte is pretty easy to do. All you need is vanilla extract, which you might have in your pantry already. Here's this healthy latte's ingredient list:
Coffee (or espresso)
Milk of choice
Raw Honey (I explain why I use raw honey in this post)
Vanilla Extract
Cinnamon (optional)
Mason Jar (or frother and a cup)
How To Make A Vanilla Latte
1) Step one is to make the coffee or the espresso. I don't have an espresso machine and my coffee maker might have cost literally $25. You can brew the coffee strong if you want to be more espresso-like.
2) Make the sweet cream.
*Note: you can do this either hot or cold. Honey does not melt in the cold obviously, so I usually prefer to heat up my homemade sweet cream, even if I'm making an iced latte. But if you don't want to risk melting your ice or don't have time to let it cool - making the sweet cream cold works in a pinch.
To make the sweet cream add this to a mason jar:
milk
roughly half a tablespoon of raw honey (I don't measure anymore)
a few drops of vanilla extract (probably 0.5 -1 teaspoon)
a few shakes of cinnamon (optional)
Then combine them together by:
heating in the microwave (approx 1 min)
cover the jar tightly
shake for 30-60 seconds until it foams
*Note: with a frother you can skip the mason jar and the shaking. Again, heating will help with the honey but isn't absolutely necessary.
3) Finish the latte by adding milk to coffee/espresso. Here's a video if you're a visual person.
In the cup you plan to drink from, pour in the coffee. Next, pour in the now complete sweet cream, slowly and blocking the foam from going in. Once the liquid cream is mostly in, allow the foam to fall out onto the top of your cup for a beautiful latte!
*Note: Want an iced latte? Do the same thing but add ice to your coffee before pouring. If the cream is hot, consider waiting a few minutes.
Optional (but recommended by me of course): shake the cinnamon on top for a garnish!
Healthy Latte Recipe: A Quick Fix To Spend Less
Now I can't promise you that there won't be days when you want to run out to Starbucks or Dunkin ready to spend your last paycheck on a triple extreme sweet matcha macchiato.
And I wouldn't ask you to give that up. I'm not a monster.
But with this oh-so-easy latte trick, I found myself itching way less to run out for a fancy, sugary store-bought latte. Maybe your coffee runs go down from 5 a week to once a week. Or 20 times a month to 15.
In my eyes (and your wallet's), that's a win!
If you're looking for other ways to spice up your coffee at home, check out my easy at home turmeric latte recipe or this post where I share some of the Internet's popular ways to make coffee healthier!
For all of my coffee posts be sure to search "coffee" in the search bar, I'm always talking about it.
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