Coconut milk is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 335 recipes to get you started.

What is coconut milk?

Coconut milk is made by simmering grated coconut flesh in water and pressing out the rich, white liquid. It is not the watery juice from inside a young coconut. That is coconut water, a separate thing. Coconut milk is thick and creamy, built for cooking.

It is the body and richness behind Thai and Indian curries, the base for many Southeast Asian soups and desserts, and a common dairy-free stand-in for cream. The flavor is gently sweet and unmistakably coconut, mild enough to carry chili and spice without fighting them.

Most of what you buy comes in a can. Open one that has not been shaken and you will see a thick paste of coconut cream on top and thinner liquid below. That separation is normal.

Cooking With Coconut Milk

For most savory dishes you want full-fat canned coconut milk. Its richness is what makes a curry taste like a curry, as in this Green Chicken Curry with Eggplant or a pot of Thai Noodles.

A classic Thai move is to open a can without shaking it and scoop the thick cream off the top. Fry your curry paste in that cream until the oil splits out and the paste smells toasty, then add the thinner milk.

That one step builds far deeper flavor than dumping the whole can in cold.

It is just as at home in sweets, lending a custard its silkiness in a Coconut & Lemon Myrtle Brulée or churning into a dairy-free Mango Ice-Cream. It also makes a luscious mash, as in Coconut Milk Mashed Sweet Potatoes.

Splitting and the Lite Question

The big frustration is curdling. Coconut milk can break into greasy specks and a thin liquid when it boils hard or meets a lot of acid, like lime juice or tomato, too fast.

Keep it at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil. Stir now and then, and add acidic ingredients gradually once the pan is no longer roaring. A little splitting in a fried curry paste is wanted; a curdled, grainy sauce is not.

Lite coconut milk is just full-fat milk with more water added. It runs around 5 to 7 percent fat against roughly 17 to 24 percent in full-fat.

Lite is fine in soups and smoothies, but it will not give a curry the same body and is more likely to look thin. Reach for full-fat when richness is the point.

Substitutes

For curries and savory cooking, the closest swap is heavy cream or evaporated milk if dairy is fine, with a little coconut extract or shredded coconut to bring back the flavor. Both miss the true coconut taste on their own.

Coconut cream is just the thick top of the can sold separately, so thin it with water to make coconut milk in a pinch. Cartoned coconut beverage from the dairy aisle is too watery and often sweetened, a poor stand-in for the canned kind in cooking.

For a dairy-free, nut-free option, unsweetened oat cream gives body, though again without the coconut flavor.

Buying and Storing

Buy the canned kind, sold near the Asian or baking section, for any actual cooking. Do not confuse it with the cartoned coconut drink in the refrigerated case, which is a thin, watered-down beverage. Shake the can before opening unless a recipe tells you to skim the cream.

Check the label for full-fat versus lite. Prefer cans whose only ingredients are coconut and water, sometimes with guar gum to keep it smooth.

An unopened can keeps for a year or more in the pantry. Once opened, move any leftover to a sealed container in the fridge and use it within about four to five days, since it spoils as fast as dairy cream.

Leftover coconut milk also freezes well. Pour it into an ice cube tray for tossing straight into the next curry or smoothie.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Food group: Coconut milk is a member of the Nut and Seed Products US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese

椰奶

British (UK) term

Coconut milk

en français

lait de coco

en español

la leche de coco

How much does coconut milk weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 cup	226 grams
1 tbsp	15 grams

Related

Nut and Seed Products

Recipes using coconut milk

There are 335 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 335 recipes

More coconut milk recipes

• Bananas in Coconut Milk
• Chicken Adobo in Coconut Milk
• Coconut Milk Mashed Sweet Potatoes
• Curried Omelette
• Double Coconut Cake
• Easy Chicken Adobo in Coconut Milk
• Fragrant Coconut Rice
• Jamaican Curried Chicken
• Jamaican Rice & Peas with Coconut Milk
• Plantains in Coconut Milk
• Simple Coconut Rice with Coconut Milk
• Spicy Chicken & Pumpkin Stew
• Thai Noodles