Coconut oil is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 38 recipes to get you started.

What is coconut oil?

Coconut oil is the fat pressed from the meat of mature coconuts. The thing that sets it apart from other cooking oils is its texture: it is solid and white at room temperature and melts to a clear liquid the moment it gets warm, somewhere around 76°F (24°C).

That low melt point is the whole trick to using it. Scoop it firm, and it behaves like a soft butter; warm it, and it pours.

There are two kinds to know. Virgin (unrefined) coconut oil is pressed from fresh coconut and keeps a clear coconut aroma and taste. Refined coconut oil is processed from dried coconut. It comes out nearly flavorless and takes more heat before it smokes.

Cooking With Coconut Oil

For frying and high heat, reach for refined coconut oil, which has a smoke point around 400°F (204°C). Virgin coconut oil smokes lower, near 350°F (177°C), so save it for medium-heat cooking where its flavor is welcome.

Its coconut character belongs in dishes that want it. It rounds out a Malabar Chicken Curry Recipe and a Coconut Curried Butternut Squash Soup, and it sets the silky, sliceable texture of a Filipino Maja Blanca as it cools and firms.

It is a workhorse in baking too. Because it is solid when cool, it creams and sets much like butter, which is why it carries vegan recipes like Black Bean Coffee Brownies and Gluten-Free Lemon & Chia Seed Muffins.

That same habit makes it the standard dairy-free butter swap, melting into batters and firming up in no-bake bars and frostings the way butter would.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Coconut oil suits warm spices, chocolate, lime, and tropical fruit, and it is at home in South Indian and Thai kitchens as much as Caribbean ones. Pick virgin when you want that coconut note and refined when you do not.

The most common mistake is fighting its solid state.

Trying to cream rock-hard coconut oil straight from a cool pantry tears batter, so soften or just melt it first, then let the recipe set the texture.

The other trap is the reverse: pour warm coconut oil into chilled eggs or cold plant milk and it seizes into hard flecks at once, so bring those to room temperature first.

Substitutes

For baking and any place you need a fat that is solid when cool, butter is the closest one-to-one swap, and a vegan butter stick works for dairy-free recipes. Both bring their own flavor.

For frying or sauteing, any neutral oil stands in, though you lose the coconut aroma. Where the coconut taste is the point, full-fat coconut milk or creamed coconut can carry it instead, especially in curries and desserts.

Buying and Storing

Choose virgin or "cold-pressed" for flavor and aroma, or refined for neutral high-heat cooking. The jar will look solid or liquid depending only on the room, and neither is a sign of quality.

Coconut oil is mostly saturated fat, which makes it one of the most shelf-stable oils you can buy. Kept in a cool, dark cupboard with the lid on, it lasts a year or more, and it does not need refrigerating.

It turns rancid slowly, but it does turn. A yellow tinge with a sour, soapy smell means it is past its best.

Quick facts

In Chinese

椰子油

British (UK) term

Coconut oil

en français

l'huile de noix de coco

en español

aceite de coco

Recipes using coconut oil

There are 38 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 38 recipes