I make my own coconut milk for several reasons:
- Store-bought coconut milk is packaged in either cans lined with plastic or hard-to-recycle Tetra-Paks that contain plastic
- Many of these plastics contain BPA or a replacement that is just as harmful
- Store-bought often contains food-like and suspect ingredients
- Homemade contains only two ingredients, one of which comes from your tap
- Homemade costs little
- Homemade tastes good
- Homemade is easy
- Homemade makes me a rebel with an apron
The short version of how to make coconut milk
Combine 1 part coconut and 2 parts hot water. Let sit for 10 minutes or so, whir in a blender, strain, enjoy.
If you feel more energetic, you can also make coconut milk from a whole coconut. My daughter posted that on her blog several years ago. I will never make this.
A few notes
Cost
- The organic coconut for the two cups of coconut milk I made cost a 84 cents. The water was essentially free.
- You don’t need a nut milk bag to make nut milk. If you have a bowl, a sieve (which you’ll use for many tasks) and a thin cloth, you can save yourself some money.
Use and storage
- The fat will separate from the milk rather quickly. When this happens, just give the jar a shake. If you won’t use the coconut milk immediately, refrigerate it. Once chilled, the fat will harden into solid chunks. If you need a homogenous consistency for a recipe such as ice cream, melt the fat and add it back to the coconut milk.
- This will keep for four or five days in the refrigerator or a few months in the freezer.
- You can use this coconut milk in recipes that call for canned coconut milk. I made a coconut curry vegetable dish last night with half of the coconut milk pictured in this post. It tasted delicious!
The pulp
- The pulp is quite dry at the end of the process. I didn’t have the oven on the day I made the milk for this post, so I simply spread the pulp out on a glass dish and covered that with a cloth. It dried within a couple of days.
- The pulp has had most of its fatty goodness stripped out but it still makes good filler for oatmeal, baked goods, veggie burgers, soup… You’ll find a use for it.
And now some pictures (lots of pictures…).
Coconut Milk Made from Dried Coconut
Servings 2 cups
Cost $1
Equipment
- 1 blender
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2 cups hot water
Instructions
- Place coconut and hot water in a blender pitcher. If you have a plastic blender, you may want to do this first in a metal or glass bowl. (Heat can leach toxins out of plastic and into food.) Let sit for at least 10 minutes.
- Blend for approximately 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the blender. Continue to blend for 2 more minutes.
- Place a sieve over a large bowl. Line the sieve with muslin, another tightly woven thin cloth or a nut milk bag. Pour the blended mixture slowly into cloth-lined sieve.
- After gravity has strained most of the coconut milk, push down on the coconut pulp with the back of a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Gather the edges of cloth together and squeeze out as much milk as possible.
- Use your coconut milk in place of canned coconut in a recipe immediately or store in glass jars or bottles and refrigerate for up to 5 days. Separation of the milk from the fat happens quickly. Simply shake the jar to combine. If the fat has solidified and you need a homogenous consistency for a recipe such as ice cream, melt the fat and add it back to the coconut milk.
- Refrigerate, freeze or dehydrate the leftover pulp. Use it to add texture to recipes such as oatmeal, granola, quick breads, pancakes and so on.
