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In one of the video lessons on sourcing Real Food on this blog, I visit an Asian Supermarket to show you the primary items that I buy there. If you recall, I purchased raw, frozen coconut meat and young coconuts. I mention in that video that these items are ideal for homemade coconut milk.
High-quality coconut milk is a must-have in the kitchen of any Traditional Cook who seeks to serve nutrient-dense meals. It is a much healthier option than hormone-disrupting soy milk!
One of the most highly desirable nutrients in whole coconut milk is lauric acid, a medium-chain triglyceride. The body quickly uses this type of fat for energy. It is not stored like long-chain fats. It is also highly anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal.
In fact, this fat is so important to human health that the mammary gland makes lauric acid so breastfeeding infants get plenty! It is also present in a quality baby formula recipe, but not in commercial brands even if organic.
Unfortunately, coconut milk is typically found in cartons, cans or aseptic packages. This results in potentially undesirable toxins such as BPA or nanites leeching into the milk. There are some brands of coconut milk now available in BPA free cans. However, it’s easy to learn how to make coconut milk that maintains all its rawness and nutrition for basically the same amount of money. So why use canned?
Homemade Coconut Milk
Most homemade coconut milk recipes utilize boiling hot water to reconstitute desiccated coconut meat. This method is fine particularly if you are going to cook with coconut milk.
I personally prefer to make coconut milk in a manner that maintains all the rawness. Then, if you are going to make a coconut milk beverage, my cold process method preserves all the nutrition and enzymes.
The recipe below details this process step by step. In addition, a video tutorial below the recipe demonstrates how to make coconut milk that is both raw and fresh and uses only coconut meat and coconut water using either fresh coconut water or raw coconut water from the store. Making coconut milk this way costs little more than cans or cartons and is far healthier. Why not make a lot at one time and freeze it for convenient use later?
Additional information can be found in this article plus video on how to make coconut flour. This article plus video provides a coconut milk kefir recipe.
Make Large Batches and Store
The video within the recipe below below demonstrates the coconut milk recipe above. It is easy to make large batches of this raw homemade coconut milk and freeze so that you never have to use cans or cartons again.
Learning how to make coconut milk is important particularly if your children have a dairy allergy and you are using lots of coconut milk tonic as a milk replacement.
Once you’ve made your first batch of homemade coconut milk, try making coconut milk pudding with it!
Homemade RAW Coconut Milk Recipe
This homemade coconut milk recipe is simple and uses frozen shredded coconut meat and fresh coconut water for raw coconut milk with all the enzymes and nutrition preserved.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Shredded coconut meat
- 1 young coconut
Instructions
Thaw the frozen shredded coconut meat.
Open the young coconut as demonstrated in the video below and drain the coconut water into a bowl.
Place one cup of fresh coconut water and one cup of shredded coconut meat into a blender or food processor.
Blend until smooth. Check the consistency of the mixture. If it is extremely watery, add a bit more shredded coconut and blend again until smooth.
Pour coconut meat/coconut water mixture into a juicer to quickly strain out the coconut fiber. What is left is raw, whole coconut milk!
Alternatively, if you don't have a juicer, line a large bowl with a fine mesh cheesecloth and pour the coconut meat/coconut water mixture into the bowl. Gather up the ends and squeeze out the coconut milk into the bowl.
Repeat to make one more cup of coconut milk. Making one cup of coconut milk at a time seems to work best in my experience so as not to overfill the blender and to achieve ideal consistency for the coconut milk.
Refrigerate the fresh, raw coconut milk. It will last for one week in the refrigerator.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
Raw coconut water brands from the store can be substituted for the fresh coconut water as desired if fresh young coconuts are unavailable.
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Thank you again for another great video. If we ever get dug out of the snow here in New Hampshire I am heading over to the Asian grocer to find the young coconuts and the frozen coconut meat. By the way, this morning my husband and I had the beet, carrot,apple juice from one of your posts. We really enjoyed the addition of the beet and have enough energy to go out and shovel snow all day long!!
Does the homemade coconut milk taste like coconut? I buy SO Delicious brand(not in the can) and it doesn’t taste like coconut. I really dislike the taste of coconut. That’s why I’m asking.
Thanks
Hi Linda, the fresh coconut milk has a very mild coconut flavor.
if you use only the shredded coconut, where do you get the liquid ?
Have you watched the video? I use the fresh coconut water from the young coconuts.
If you did not have access to the young coconuts, but only the raw shredded meat, could you simply use filtered water to blend it up?
Hi Kelly, yes you can do that but you might want to buy unflavored, additive free coconut water from the store and use that instead.
Hey Sarah- GREAT video! Thanks so much for sharing it! I never thought about using the frozen raw coconut meat- excellent idea. I’ve been sticking with Native Forest, but I’m inspired to make my own now. I would love to share a little recipe I make that uses my coconut milk. It’s SO easy and I came up with it while traveling when I needed something fast in a pinch. Take one can of coconut milk, or about 12 oz of fresh, and put it in a mason jar or blender. Add two-three pastured egg yolks. (more would be ok too!) Add a drizzle of raw honey or Grade B maple syrup. Screw the lid on tight and shake, shake, shake! That’s it! If you were at home and had access to a splash of vanilla extract, and a pinch of nutmeg, those would be excellent additions. It served 4 people a good size amount to keep them full and energetic for quite some time.
Sarah,
Could this be done using a Vita Mix? The Vita Mix doesn’t not extract the pulp but pulverizes everything. I guess instead of Coconut milk, I’d have a coconut smoothie?
Hi Dorothea, sure you could use a Vita-mix. Sieving out the pulp is only a requirement if you want smooth coconut milk.
I’m very excited to try this- thanks fo rthe video!
As for extracting the coconut water, might I suggest making an additional hole on top, opposite from the one you made. I’d bet the water would come out much more quickly.
I tried that but you can’t punch another hole .. there is only one soft spot that I could find.
It’s true. I poked 3 holes in my coconut. It’s true – you can’t always find a soft spot, but I force it anyway! Sarah, thank you SO much for posting this!!! For whatever reason, I’ve been CRAVING all things coconut lately (No, I’m not pregnant. I’ll be 50 in a few days!).
I can’t wait to try this! Thank you!!!
That looks so yummy. I’m happy that my work unblocked YouTube, hahaha. I have that same juicer at my office and i’ll definitely be trying that!
May I ask what Juicer you use? It looks like a nice one. Thanks for the video!
Hi Gabriela, its a Jack La Lanne basic model. Does a good job .. really dry pulp so it gets the most out of your investment in organic vegetables. Easy to clean too. Here’s what it looks like although mine is a bit different as it is a few years old:
Hi Sarah,
I have been wondering how to do this recently, this will be fun to try.
I just put up a summary of the things I like about your site here: http://evolutionaryhealthsystems.blogspot.com/2011/02/healthy-home-economist-my-fermented.html
check it out if you get a chance.
TS
Question for you. You were talking about how the methods with boiling water make the milk not truly raw. What do you think about blanching almonds? They are in the boiling water for only a minute and then put in cold water. (When I blanch my own, I mean.) Does that make the almonds no longer raw? Thanks!
Not really sure about that one, Beth. I suspect at least some of the rawness is lost, but probably not all.
I am so excited to milk this. I actually went to the Asian market near my home (that I always just drive past) and found the frozen shredded coconut and the fresh young coconuts. I did notice that you really need to read the frozen shredded coconut though, as I found some had added sugar in them.
I am anxious to see your next post or video on how you use the coconut milk.
LOL, I meant to say I am excited to MAKE this…..guess I had milk on the brain….
Sarah, I just recently found your website and am very interested in your videos, however I am unable to find the link for making the coconut milk video..am I missing something on this page? Can you provide it please? thanks
Hi de .. the video is there now. I’m not quite sure how the youtube video disappeared from the post but it’s back now! 🙂
Hi Sarah,
All I was able to find in my area were green coconuts, not white. The one I opened had LOTS of water in it, but no edible meat.. It only had this jelly-like coconut goo in it. I dug into the meat with a spoon, and it was very hard and not sweet at all. Is this just too immature? Should I wait on opening the others to let them ripen, or are they just different than the white ones in your video?
Thanks!!
-Lauren
You can use the water out of the green coconuts. You will need to get mature coconut meat in the frozen section as I show in the video as you will get very little if any meat in young coconuts.
I was wondering about this myself. So are young coconuts only good for their water then?
Nicola — the meat in young coconuts is edible and delicious. Don’t throw it away! It can be eaten straight out of the coconut. Just scrape it out with a spoon, and avoid getting rough bits of husk in your mouth (although no harm in it of course, you can always spit that part out). This stuff is a prized ingredient for pies, fruit salads and as a plain ol’ nutritious snack where I come from.
Can you refrigerate it to get the layer of coconut cream on top similar to the canned stuff? That’s my favorite part!
Sarah, I’m a real newbie… and on a very limited budget. Thanks for being such an encouragement!
I’m curious how long the fresh coconut milk will keep in the fridge. Thanks, Lucy
Hi Lucy, it lasts about a week. Freeze what you will not use in that time.
What do you do with the coconut pulp from the blender? I hate to waste it.
Oops, just saw your new post about how to make coconut flour. Great timing as I have been wondering how to do just that. You are awesome!!