I hope you like coconut.
Because I sure do!
A friend of mine brought over a few fresh coconuts for us to enjoy while watching the Olympics last week, hoping I could demonstrate how to open them. Of course, I was happy to oblige!
Not that my method for opening coconuts is very professional… but it does get the job done.
I simply use a cleaver to whack around the middle until a “lid” is created, then open that lid using the cleaver as leverage. And I always, always keep my spare hand behind my back, to make sure I keep all of my fingers in tact!
We lucked out with this batch of coconuts– all three were in good shape!
Usually I buy at least two coconuts at a time, because you never know if one is going to be spoiled. Signs of spoilage include green edges around the white outer shell (though, this doesn’t always mean it will be bad inside), pink-tinted coconut meat, or sour-tasting coconut water.
Note: If opening a coconut intimidates you, you can now purchase frozen organic coconut meat and water in the freezer case at most Whole Foods locations. You can also usually find already-opened coconuts, or ask a nearby produce manager to open it for you!
With all this delicious coconut meat to use up, I decided that pudding was in order. Creamy, dairy-free pudding that’s naturally sweetened and ready in minutes!
And because I can’t make up my mind, I made two flavors–> starting with my old favorite, vanilla.
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Creamy Vanilla Coconut Pudding
serves 1-2
Ingredients:
1 cup fresh coconut meat, from one young Thai coconut
1/4 cup fresh coconut water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon raw honey, or 12 drops liquid stevia
pinch of fine sea salt
Directions:
Add the coconut meat, coconut water, vanilla extract, salt and sweetener into a blender pitcher, and blend until very smooth and creamy. For best results, use a high-powered blender like the Vitamix or Blendtec.
Adjust sweetness to taste, if necessary, then chill for an hour before serving. It will thicken up even more in the fridge!
*For quicker chilling, add 4-5 ice cubes while blending, and serve immediately!
Serve chilled, and enjoy!
Creamy Coconut Pudding
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh coconut meat , from one young Thai coconut
- 1/4 cup fresh coconut water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon raw honey , or 12 drops liquid stevia
- pinch of fine sea salt
Instructions
- Add the coconut meat, coconut water, vanilla extract, salt and sweetener into a blender pitcher, and blend until very smooth and creamy. For best results, use a high-powered blender like the Vitamix or Blendtec.
- Adjust sweetness to taste, if necessary, then chill for an hour before serving. It will thicken up even more in the fridge!
- Serve chilled, and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Per Serving: Calories: 317, Fat: 27g, Carbohydrates: 17g, Fiber: 7g, Protein: 3g
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If you prefer chocolate pudding, the following is for you.
This chocolate variation reminded me of the childhood classic– but without the sugar or preservatives of the boxed stuff!
–> Click here for the chocolate recipe.
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Whichever flavor you choose, I hope you enjoy it!
Reader Feedback: Do you like using young Thai coconuts? I hesitate to share recipes calling for them too often, since I know they can be intimidating to open or hard to find, but they really do make for some darn good creamy treats!
I love coconut! I would definitely like to try out the chocolate!
Do you think it would be worth it to try coconut shavings if we can’t find whole coconuts? I am dying to try this but don;t want to waste my precious bag of coconut shavings if it will fall flat.
Thoughts?
Merci!!
I have no idea if coconut shavings will work! I’ve been meaning to try that myself, but haven’t gotten around to it yet… so you may want to save yours until then. I’d hate for you to waste them!
Oh gosh, this looks delicious!! I love coconuts.
I followed the recipes as suggested and used 1 Tbs raw agave nectar for the sweetner instead of honey. It’s fantastic with a clean fresh light coconut taste. And of course, the coconut water itself is just the best drink that can be found in nature.
It takes a bit of work to get all the meat out of the coconut shell but worth the effort.
it looks delicious
This looks decadent! I’m loving your recipes. Last week I made coconut macaroons which I froze and now break up for a topping on yogurt…so good! Yesterday I made your cauliflower pizza crust and it was great. I used 5 cups of cauliflower rice and 1/4 cup of egg whites as well and it turned out perfect. Thanks for the yummy recipes!
OMG it looks fantastic! I love coconut 🙂
Looks fantastic! I definitely have to try this recipe!
So cool- what a dessert! Fun stuff, your whacking technique 🙂
If you don’t mind the coconut not being “raw”, you can use a screwdriver and hammer to poke the three holes, to drain the juice out. Then you can put the coconut in a warm over (250-300 degree) for an hour or more, until it starts to crack. Works well if the coconut’s not so young- those older shells can be very hard to crack! The meat starts to separate from the shell, making it much easier to deal with. Just a thought!
The young coconut is very different than a mature coconut. When you whack it open the shell is very thin and you scoop the meat out with a spoon and it is sweet. I do like your idea of how to get the meat out of a mature coconut though! I always fight with them.
yum. i need some of this in my life!
Mine definitely did not turn out like that… super grainy 🙁
Is it possible that you used shredded coconut, instead of fresh coconut meat? I’m not sure how you’d get a grainy texture, otherwise.
I blended and blended, but it never got creamy. Maybe the coconut wasn’t a Thai coconut or young… It was still crunchy. Not sure if that’s a good description but yours looks like pudding and mine looks like ground up coconut. lol I have just a regular blender, that’s probably it.
It sounds like maybe you used dried shredded coconut? This recipe calls for fresh coconut meat that is scooped out of a young Thai coconut, so that would make a big difference!
I had the same outcome and used a fresh coconut meat from Wholefoods, I’m assuming it wasn’t a young coconut
My mother-in-law from Thailand visited over the summer and bought a young coconut. In the past, I’d only seen regular brown coconuts in the store. The inside is definitely a different flavor and texture. The young coconuts have a thinner white meat section that’s almost gelatinous in it’s texture, whereas the older coconuts have white meat that is much more like shredded dry coconut in the flavor and texture. I’ve only seen the young coconuts in an Asian market. They’re usually cream-colored on the outside and have flat-cut sides, surrounded by plastic wrap. The older brown ones just have the dark brown hairy hull on the outside and are still round.
I love your idea for coconut pudding! Do you think it would work with mature coconut meat? I have a frozen bag of organic coconut slices…
I can attest, you can make great,fresh coconut meat and milk from flaked coconut and water. Look up Mark bitman’s recipe.
Yeah… that didn’t work at all. Shame because the taste was good, but the texture made it hard to enjoy.
Hi, can I use an old/mature coconut?
No. It’ll be dry and not creamy
I used both young thai and green. Green is more grainy but still good! Whole foods sells frozen green
This company has the best coconut meat and coconut water! You can buy online..
http://www.exoticsuperfoods.com
Just what is a “young, Thai coconut”?
Will a “blown off in the storm, Florida coconut” work? The husk is dry and brown and I hear lots of water sloshing around inside. I know it’s more work to remove the husk first but the price is certainly attractive. Thanks for your help.
I’m not familiar with other types of coconut– the nice aspect of young Thai coconuts is that their meat is soft, unlike the hard brown coconuts. So, I’m not sure if the results will be as creamy, but please let us know if you give it a shot!
Tried it. Don’t like it. I have a high power blender it got smooth but still tastes dry. Not good
We made brown chalk! Our lips are still stuck to our teeth. Somewhere in there the taste was nice……..we think…..but tough to get past that dry wall mud texture! DO NOT use the hard brown coconuts!
Just made this and it turned out great! I was a little heavy handed with the vanilla but it is still delish! I had two fresh young coconuts I needed to use up and this was a perfect choice, Thanks!
Absolutely divine!! Thanks for this recipe. 10 golden stars!! Turned out perfectly. My only change was using only a tsp of honey. Thick, creamy, smooth & soooooo yummy. I was worried to use the magic bullet but it was velvety smooth. Thanks a million!
Instead of vanilla I used a spoon of cacao and it turned out amazing
I just made some Indonesian coconut pudding with mung bean flower. Take a look if you like. http://earthlychow.com/delicious-indonesian-coconut-pudding-tepung-hunkwee-puhun-tjemara
Waste of time, ingredients and money if you do not own a viamix or high end blender. I tried using a high quality food processor because that’s what we have and the best I could get it was grainy almond meal consistancy after almost 20 min of blending. Really wanted to love this
I just made the vanilla pudding, omg it is amazing, I never knew what to do with these things, now I am hooked!!
I love young coconuts. They are super easy to find at an Asian store and I’ve seen more at regular grocery stores. I’ve made a “coconut shake” by blending all the coconut water and all the meat scooped out. I’m so gonna make the pudding recipes. I would love to see more creative young coconut recipe ideas on here. The challenge is getting into them. Using the knife I always have pieces of the shell. Had my husband try a big open drill piece….don’t do that! I had to strain all my water since it put pulp like shell all in the water!
EXCELLENT!!! JUST LOVED IT.
I made this just now and it is amazing! I live in Miami Florida, and had 2 green coconuts I cut off my tree. I cut the coconut open for the water, and then scraped out all the meat- wasn’t sure what to do with it so I Googled “coconut meat recipes” and wow am I glad I found this!
It was perfect! I used a high-speed blender (Vita-mix), I substituted almond extract because I was out of the Nella. So I made a coconut almond putting, I also use agave nectar to sweeten rather than honey. All I can say is I found my new favorite recipe! I got tired of trying to chew all that coconut so I end up not using it. I’ll use it all now!
I think there is something to it being young Thai coconut…i used some frozen fresh coconut meat from an Asian market….. it did not specify which kind, or at least if it did I couldn’t read it 🤣🤣
Anyways, it was super yummy flavor, but not a pudding texture for me (I have a Blendtec). So to get what the writer has made here, make sure it’s a young green Thai coconut ( I’ll have to see if I can
Find it!!)
I decided I wanted chocolate pudding so I followed your instructions, doubled the recipe and then added 1/2 pouch of Hershey’s instant chocolate pudding. It’s the best pudding I’ve ever had. Not even a close second. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Just tried this but coconut isnt smooth. Do i need to cook it first?
Folks: This is a recipe for a Thai or young (white) coconut, not a brown one. I think some of the reviewers here were using brown (more common in my area) coconuts — the kind that is flaked in a bag. That’s not the same as the Thai or young coconut. That said, this is very tasty recipe. The only problem is that it’s a lot of work for the very little bit of product at the end. Next time I’ll use a little less vanilla, but I think that would have a lot to do with how much coconut meat you have. I should have meausred mine beforehan; I suspect I had less than a cup.
Didn’t work even slightly.
Just got blended coconut in sugary, watery goo.
Amazing recipe! I used an older coconut, but it still turned out delicious! Thank you so much for sharing this! 🙂
That did not work for me. I think my young coconut wasn’t Thai? The meat was probably too dry, not gelatinous.
Truth time- I didn’t measure anything and omitted thr vanilla simply because I was lazy. Just fresh young coconut, coconut water, a dash of sea salt and a spoon of honey. It was simply Devine! This is going to be a regular!
Me again- I have a low-quality blender- the one with the different cup sizes to make smoothies, and this turned out perfect. If you’re using the correct kind of coconut, you should have no problems as the meat is thin, smooth and almost jelly-like in consistency. Absolutely perfect, and literal seconds to make.
I LOVE this recipe. I’m crazy about vanilla so I made the vanilla pudding. I order raw coconut meat from this company: https://copracoconuts.com/products/coconut-meat. I’m not an affiliate or anything, just sharing info for you guys. I double the recipe and add extra vanilla. I used maple syrup for a sweetener. Love love love!