Honey Sweetened, Cooked Eggnog (Dairy and Non Dairy)

A healthy homemade cooked eggnog, with no raw eggs.  This eggnog can be made with dairy milk, or a non dairy milk if necessary.

I’m so thankful we have a really good source for our eggs, every time we pick up eggs we see the chickens out in their large fenced-in yard with whatever kitchen or garden scraps were around for them and even sometimes we see the lady putting eggs into the carton straight from her basket that she filled that morning.  Sometimes there’s hay in my egg carton, not all the eggs are the same size and even sometimes there are two smaller yolks inside one egg, but I can honestly say I would never go back to store bought.  I don’t want to go on and on about eggs – even though I could- but I can honestly say there is a huge difference in quality and taste(let alone the difference there must be in nutrition) and I highly recommend searching out local eggs in your own area.  I know eggs at the store here with all the labels – “cage-free”, “organic”, “free range”, etc – are all really pricey, and in the end they still don’t compare to the eggs we get straight from the farm for much cheaper.

Despite how I dislike store bought eggs, I always have to buy a little eggnog from the store every year, just enough for a taste, even though I don’t know where any of it came from and I know there’s more sugar than I really want in it.  I’m so happy with this eggnog though that I don’t think I care at all about store bought anymore.  At first we used full fat milk which makes an incredibly thick and rich eggnog.  But the nice thing about this recipe is you can make it low fat, using whatever kind of dairy milk you like or you can make it dairy-free(and especially low-calorie) using an unsweetened non-dairy milk.

I did prefer the dairy version, but found that the milk didn’t really agree with my stomach.  I think it’s just a pregnancy thing because I usually don’t have too much of  a problem with it – I just enjoy almond milk on a regular basis too.  In any case, I started to experiment with almond milk so that I could enjoy some too, and it turns out I enjoy the almond milk eggnog even more.

Both recipes were adapted from and inspired by this eggnog recipe on Babble but I changed it quite a bit.  You can also add rum if you’d like, but consider reducing the milk slightly to maintain the eggnog flavor.  This is just how we enjoy it so feel free to play around with the recipe and make it your own 🙂  Since just starting to use freshly grated nutmeg, I completely, 100% recommend it, but if you have to, store bought ground nutmeg will work.  We love the nutmeg flavor but if you’re not too sure, you can start out with less and taste your drink before adding more.  You can even play with the spices and add some cinnamon if you want, you can make it sweeter by adding a little more honey, or for a really delicious drink try scraping half a vanilla bean into the milk and let it cook for a few minutes at a simmer before adding the egg.

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Honey Sweetened Cooked Eggnog

Ingredients

• 3 cups milk even low-fat will work
• 2 eggs + 1 yolk
• Very tiny pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg more to taste
• Tiny pinch of cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon good quality vanilla

Instructions

1. In a medium sized pot, heat the milk over medium heat.  To speed the cooling process if you're not serving it warm, you can start with 2 cups of milk in your pot and add 1 cup of cold milk after the honey has been added and stirred in.  In a small bowl beat the eggs and yolk along with the cornstarch and pinch of salt.  The cornstarch may clump but keep beating and it will combine.  Set aside.  Measure out your honey and set aside and grate your nutmeg directly into the milk and add the cloves while the milk is heating.
2. Once the milk is hot but not quite boiling, take a small ladle-full and pour it into your bowl of eggs while whisking the eggs to temper them.  Then pour your eggs directly into the hot milk while whisking quickly.  Keep whisking until the milk comes back up to temperature and thickens.  Once it's thick and completely cooked, remove from the heat and stir in the honey and vanilla.  Consider running the eggnog through a fine mesh sieve or strainer before serving or sealing tightly and storing in the fridge to catch any pieces of egg that have cooked or large pieces of nutmeg and to ensure it's nice and smooth.

Recipe Notes

For a non-dairy version use only 2 1/2 cups milk, and increase the honey by 1-2 tablespoons.  The non dairy version will naturally not be as thick, you can increase the cornstarch by 1/2 teaspoon if desired.

Tagged as: cooked, dairy, drinks, eggnog, honey, honey sweetened, no raw eggs, no refined sugar, non-dairy, nutmeg, recipe, sweet