How to Make Eggnog at Home

Making eggnog at home is not just really easy to do and inexpensive, it also skips all the sketchy ingredients of the store-bought version.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that I love to make food from scratch. Oftentimes, they are super easy and quick to make. Better yet, not only are you skipping sketchy ingredients, but you can also control what goes in it (how much sugar, etc). Homemade eggnog is one such example!

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Why make eggnog at home?

I get it. Sometimes, it seems so easy to just grab it from the dairy shelf. Done. But have you checked the ingredients? Often, store-bought eggnog contains all sorts of thickeners, stabilizers, artificial colors, and flavors. That is how they make them so thick and creamy. Worst of all, most of them are overly sweet and contain high fructose corn syrup. You can skip all these additives and make eggnog with real ingredients in no time!

Eggnog ingredients

All you need for your homemade eggnog is eggs, sugar, cream, milk, and spices. That’s it!

Eggs

I make my eggnog with raw eggs. We like to buy local eggs from pasture-raised chickens. If the thought of using raw eggs makes you uncomfortable, you can absolutely use pasteurized eggs. Alternatively, you can turn this eggnog into an adult version by adding some alcohol such as rum, bourbon, or cognac to it. Alcohol will help “sterilize” the eggnog and thus make it last longer. Pasture-raised egg yolks have a deep yellow, almost orange color as opposed the pale yellow egg yolks of caged chickens and will give your egg nog that distinct creamy yellow color.

Sugar

Sometimes, I use organic cane sugar, and sometimes, I use organic coconut sugar (I prefer to buy them in bulk, though to avoid plastic packaging and get a better price). Coconut sugar is my first choice, just know that it will give your eggnog a darker color. If you want a “clearer yellow” you can use regular sugar. Also, we don’t like our food too sweet. Therefore, I will use less sugar than most recipes. Feel free to add more to taste! If you’d like to further reduce the amount of sugar, you can add stevia to it. I find that mixing stevia with sugar hides that distinct off-taste of stevia. My favorite one for this recipe is an English toffee stevia.

Milk and cream

Our family drinks raw milk and that is what I use for my egg nog. Again, if that makes you uncomfortable, you can use pasteurized milk. Organic milk from grass-fed cows would be best but do what you can (afford). The same goes for the cream. I guess, I would really encourage you NOT to use ultra-high pasteurized milk and cream. These have been heated long and high enough to kill everything in your milk so that it becomes completely shelf-stable. I don’t even know why they stock them in the refrigerated section …

Spices

The most important spice in eggnog is nutmeg. Obviously, you can use less for a subtle nutmeg flavor or use more to really feature it. I do think that’s the beauty of homemade food: that you can adjust the ingredients and taste to your liking. We will also add a bit of cinnamon and some vanilla extract.

For the adult version: Alcohol

As I said above, this recipe works great in a non-alcoholic version. If you’d like to spike it or if you’re uncomfortable with using raw eggs and dairy, you can add some rum, bourbon, or cognac to it. If you do that, reduce the amount of milk so that it doesn’t become too runny.

Equipment

You’ll need some measuring cups and spoons. Any blender works but I have been loving my Vitamix for over a decade. Alternatively, you could use a hand-held immersion blender.

How to make the eggnog at home

1. Put 4 eggs and 1/2 cup of sugar into your blender and blend on medium for about 20 seconds
2. Add 1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon, and 2 tsp of vanilla extract and blend to combine.
3. Now add 1 1/4 cup of milk and 1 1/4 cup of cream and blend until creamy (about 15-20 seconds). Done!
4. Pour the eggnog into a glass bottle or mason jar and store in the refrigerator. You can enjoy it immediately but I think that it tastes better the next day. Since you are not using any stabilizers, your eggnog might separate a bit. If that’s the case, simply shake it before serving.

Hint: If for any reason you can’t make eggnog at home and are looking for a store-bought version, try this one if you can find it!

Printable Recipe:

You might be interested in some other recipes:

Easy Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Healthy Classic Cinnamon Star Cookies

Canned Apple Pie Filling

Easy Claypot Chicken

I’d would love to hear all your comments and questions below!

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