How to make the best pumpkin spice latte at home with pumpkin puree, coffee, milk, and fall spices. Better than store-bought!
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How to Make the Best Pumpkin Spice Latte at Home
The moment Fall hits, we rush to our local coffee shop and order a pumpkin spice latte. We love them so much, we took it upon ourselves to try making it at home.
This recipe is easy and I bet you have most, if not everything, you need to make it at home right now. It also comes together in under 10 minutes!
Pumpkin Spice Latte Ingredients
It’s easy to make your own PSL at home. Here’s a quick explanation of what you will need. The full recipe is below.
- Milk — Use dairy or non-dairy milk. I love using homemade oat milk, but coconut or almond milk is also delicious.
- Pumpkin Puree — You can use canned puree or make your own. Here’s our recipe for homemade pumpkin puree. It’s quite simple to make! If you make your own puree, you also get to roast pumpkin seeds!
- Sugar — You can use regular sugar, brown sugar, simple syrup, maple syrup, or honey! It’s completely up to you.
- Vanilla & Pumpkin Pie Spice— A little vanilla extract goes a long way and it makes the latte so tasty. For the spices, use a store-bought blend or make your own. Here’s our simple pumpkin pie spice blend.
- Hot (or Cold) Coffee — Lattes in coffee shops have espresso added to them, so the coffee is usually a bit stronger. I like brewing my coffee strong for homemade lattes. You can also use cold coffee or cold brew (for an iced latte).
- Whipped Cream — This is optional, but I love it! Here’s how to make whipped cream or for a non-dairy option, make coconut whipped cream.
Our Tips for Making It Best
Warm Gently: Heat the milk, pumpkin puree, sugar, pumpkin pie spices, and vanilla extract on the stove over medium heat. Slowly heating the mixture prevents scolding the milk but helps the sugar to melt.
Use strong coffee: Coffee shops use espresso, a bit stronger than typical brewed coffee at home. I use home-brewed espresso or add extra coffee grinds to my regular brew when making lattes.
For even more pumpkin flavor (recipe update): If you want a more intense pumpkin flavor, try reducing the pumpkin puree before adding it to the milk mixture. Simmer the puree until it’s reduced by about one-third to concentrate the flavor. You can do this in advance and store the concentrated puree in your refrigerator for your next latte craving! Or try our maple pumpkin butter instead.
Sweet Treats to Enjoy with Your PSL
Let’s bring the coffeehouse experience home! Skip the lines and recreate that cozy bakery atmosphere with your own delicious treats. Here are a few of our bakery-style favorites:
- The Best Blueberry Muffins: Bursting with juicy berries and a crackly sugar top.
- My Favorite Coffee Cake: A classic with irresistible cinnamon-sugar streusel.
- Perfect Banana Bread: Moist, flavorful, and always a crowd-pleaser.
- Soft and Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls:Â The ultimate treat with a simple cream cheese glaze.
- Best Fudgy Brownies: Reader favorite!
More Pumpkin Recipes
- Easy Pumpkin Mac and Cheese — so creamy!
- Homemade Pumpkin Pancakes
- Pumpkin Cupcakes
- Homemade Pumpkin Pie — so easy!
- Pumpkin Scones — inspired by Starbucks!
- Chocolate Orange Pumpkin Bread
The Best Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
Make the popular coffee house pumpkin spice latte at home. Canned or homemade pumpkin puree both work well in this recipe. Here’s our recipe for making pumpkin puree from scratch.
After making this recipe, some of you have asked how to get a more intense pumpkin flavor. Here’s my tip: concentrate your pumpkin puree! Simply simmer it in a saucepan until reduced by about a third. This intensifies the flavor beautifully. You can even make a larger batch of concentrated puree and store it in your fridge, ready for your next pumpkin spice latte craving. Another option is to swap the pumpkin puree for pumpkin butter. If you do this, you will need less sweetener.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 cups milk (dairy or non-dairy)
2 tablespoons pumpkin puree, or more to taste, see our pumpkin puree recipe
1 to 3 tablespoons sugar, depending on how sweet you like it
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, plus more for serving
1/2 cup strong hot coffee
Whipped cream, for serving, see homemade whipped cream or whipped coconut cream
Directions
1Add milk, pumpkin puree, and sugar to a saucepan over medium heat. Heat until hot, but do not boil. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, and the coffee.
2Divide the mixture between two mugs. Top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Milk: This tastes best with 2% or whole milk, but you can substitute with skim milk. Non-dairy milk like oat, soy, almond, or coconut milk will also work.
- Sugar: This recipe calls for 1 to 3 tablespoons of sugar. How much you use is up to you. We tend to prefer less sugar in our drinks. You can also use a sugar substitute. Add this to taste.
- Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend: Find pumpkin pie spice at the store or make it at home. You likely have everything you need to make it already. Mix the following spices in a spice jar: 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon + 2 teaspoons ground ginger + 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg + a pinch of ground cloves.
- Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values. We assumed 2% milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar.
Easy, fast, tasty. Save your money and use this recipe! I used sugar substitute and soy milk. I have not been to Starbucks since!
I’m leaving review again to add my experience w getting stronger pumpkin taste. Today I added 3T pumpkin purer instead of 2 and it tasted too much like canned pumpkin. Author talled about cooking pumpkin down but I didn’t want to do all that. I found just adding more sugar did the trick w a little more spice. You can also add vanilla sugar. I use light to medium strength coffee so a dark roast may need more of everything in it. Bottom line, delicious recipe!! I used instant milk for the milk but have used almond milk too.
5 out 5
This is the first time making haomemade pumpkin spice latte. So easy and delicious. I will definitely try this again.
Hi there, we are so happy you gave our recipe a try. Thanks for coming back and letting us know.
My sister from Calgary Alberta loves homemade pumpkin spice lattes that her daughter makes from scratch. I sent her off in fashion this morning with this yummy pumpkin spice latte recipe that did not fail even though I didn’t have pumpkin from scratch or Pumpkin Pie spice. I threw in some various spices like cloves, Vietnamese cinnamon, ginger and all spice to the mix and it came out delicious. I used my milk frother to make my foam of 1/2 and 1/2 with a few shakes of vanilla bean powder. So YUMMY 😋