Recipe
🥤 DRINK
Horchata
A cooling, cinnamon-scented drink of blended rice and almonds, enriched with milk and served over ice.
Mexican · easy · serves 6
prep 15 min · cook 0 min
~329 cal · 8g protein · 50g carbs · 12g fat · 3g fiber · 20g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Horchata is one of Mexico's best-known aguas frescas, the fresh, cooling drinks sold from great glass barrels at markets, taquerias, and street stalls. Its lineage traces back through Spain (where a version is made from tiger nuts) to North Africa.
The Mexican version is built on rice, soaked and blended with water, often with almonds and always with cinnamon, then strained and sweetened. Both forms are standard and neither is a compromise: the water-only version belongs to the aguas frescas tradition and is what the glass barrels usually hold, while most household and restaurant horchata has milk stirred in at the end, often evaporated or condensed, which turns it richer and properly creamy. The rice and cinnamon always go into water first either way, since that is where the flavour and the milky colour come from.
Served over ice, it is the perfect foil to spicy food and hot afternoons, refreshing and gently sweet. Horchata is a fixture of the Mexican table, a homey, nostalgic drink that cools and comforts in equal measure.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
1 cup long-grain white rice
1/2 cup almonds
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup milk, or evaporated or condensed milk, to enrich
5 cups water
Instructions
1
Soak the rice, almonds, and cinnamon in 2 cups of the water for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
2
Blend the mixture with its soaking water until as smooth as possible.
3
Strain through a fine cloth, pressing to extract the liquid.
4
Stir in the remaining water, the sugar and the vanilla, then stir in the milk to taste.
✎ Chef’s note
Rice and cinnamon are always soaked and blended in water, never in milk; that extraction is where the flavour and the milky colour come from, and milk would only muffle it. The dairy goes in at the end if it goes in at all. Leave it out and you have the aguas frescas version sold from the glass barrels; stir it in, and if you use evaporated or condensed milk cut the sugar accordingly, and you have the richer one most kitchens and taquerias serve.
5
Chill and serve over ice with a dusting of cinnamon.
Jalisco tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Jalisco. Tequila is a place before it is a drink, a town in this state where blue agave is grown, the hearts roasted and crushed and the juice fermented and distilled. Guadalajara's own sandwich is the torta ahogada, a crusty birote roll of pork drowned outright in thin chilli sauce and eaten out of a bowl.
🗺️
Mexico. Chillies are treated as a vocabulary rather than a heat setting, with the same pod carrying one name fresh and another dried, poblano becoming ancho and jalapeno becoming chipotle, each toasted before it is ground. The comal, a flat unglazed griddle, is the busiest surface in the kitchen, used in turn for tortillas, chillies, tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic.
🌍
North America. North America's table began with Indigenous foodways, the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash, plus chiles, tomatoes, and cacao, then layered on colonial, African, and immigrant influences. From Mexico's UNESCO-recognized cuisine to the Cajun and Creole pots of Louisiana and the fiery jerk of the Caribbean, the region turns ancient staples into something new. Barbecue, tacos, gumbo, and mole all carry stories of migration and adaptation.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Mexico
Cochinita PibilPork marinated blaze-orange in achiote and sour orange, wrapped in banana leaves and roasted until it shreds itself.
EnfrijoladasCorn tortillas bathed in silky black-bean sauce, folded and finished with cheese, crema, and onion.
BirriaJalisco’s chile-marinated slow braise, served as a rich consomé with tortillas, or griddled into dripping quesabirria tacos.
Browse all Mexico recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender.
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
Make it a Mexico meal
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CapirotadaDessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Horchata?
A cooling, cinnamon-scented drink of blended rice and almonds, enriched with milk and served over ice.
Where does Horchata come from?
Horchata is a Mexican dish from Jalisco, Mexico.
Can Horchata be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Horchata recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Horchata safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Horchata take to make?
About 15 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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