How to Make Coconut Milk (Without a Blender)

The majority of people have heard of coconut milk. It is one of the foundations of some Thai meals, a popular substitute for ordinary dairy-based milk, and it is just healthier for you in a variety of ways that dairy milk is not.

As a result, more and more individuals are interested in creating their own coconut milk since it is more accessible than attempting to locate and acquire a dairy cow.

The issue is that, more often than not, creating one’s own coconut milk would need the use of a blender to break down the real flesh of the coconut.

This becomes an issue if you don’t have a blender that can accomplish this or if you don’t possess a blender at all. You may be concerned that if you don’t have a blender, you won’t be able to produce coconut milk at all; however, there are many methods to make your own coconut milk at home without using any machines.

Remember that using a food processor will make things much simpler for you, and that although not all food processors are blenders, most food processors can be used to create coconut milk.

This implies that if you have a food processor, you will be able to make coconut milk much more easily than if you have nothing that can break down the flesh of the coconut.

Making Coconut Milk with a Food Processor

Using a food processor will surely simplify things. It will mean that you cannot use a brand-new fresh coconut since it will be difficult to get the coconut pieces to be the appropriate size without a blender, but you can still prepare what you need if you have the other ingredients.

When you use a food processor to make coconut milk, you will be using coconut butter, which is another kind of processed coconut. Coconut butter is similar to coconut oil, however unlike oil, which just uses the lipids in the coconut, coconut butter uses the whole coconut, making it significantly more beneficial for your purposes.

The good news is that coconut milk prepared from coconut butter is the most tasty and smooth milk to ingest; nevertheless, one disadvantage is that coconut butter is fairly pricey.

With this approach, you’ll want to start by simply placing the coconut butter (along with some water) into your food processor and processing it until the mixture seems to be too fine to process any more. The usual rule of thumb is that you should use two cups of water for every third cup of coconut butter.

After you’ve processed all of your coconut butter, drain the coconut milk overnight using cheesecloth or a nut milk bag. You may also omit this step entirely; however, bear in mind that your coconut milk will have a fibrous and pulpy texture since the coconut fibers utilized in the butter will still come through.

If you opt to strain the milk, keep in mind that it will take some time for everything to pour through the cheesecloth and that you will not get coconut milk immediately away. This technique simply assures that all you receive from your coconut milk is the liquid itself, eliminating the need to worry about undesirable textures.

Aside from utilizing a blender to reduce the size of everything else, this method yields the creamiest and smoothest coconut milk possible. It may be more costly at initially due to the coconut butter, but if you can discover a technique to create the coconut butter yourself, you may save a significant amount of money.

You may also use coconut cream in a similar manner, this time with a ratio of one can of coconut cream (a regular can being 5.4 ounces) to two cups of water in the food processor.

This method also works with a food processor, and since the coconut cream has already been filtered of the more fibrous bits of the coconut, you don’t have to deal with the extra step of straining it with a cheesecloth and can instead utilize it right away.

Making Coconut Milk with Your Hands

If you don’t have a blender or a food processor, you may be at a loss for what you can do. It is vital to remember that making coconut milk without one of these equipment would be more challenging.

You should balance the pros and drawbacks of creating coconut milk with your hands vs investing in an inexpensive food processor to get the job done, since preparing it with your hands might take much longer than other techniques.

One of the primary reasons why most people use a blender or a food processor is because coconut milk is created from the white flesh of the coconut fruit, which has a bit of a rougher consistency and may be difficult to break down without the assistance of machinery.

Furthermore, utilizing equipment helps you to maintain more nutrients and tastes in the coconut milk itself, resulting in a superior taste and texture as well as improved cooking characteristics.

Keeping this in mind, there is still a technique to make coconut milk without using any machines. All you’ll need is your bare hands, a cheesecloth (a nut milk bag also works), a saucepan big enough to handle the ingredients, and some boiling water.

A good rule of thumb to follow for this is to use four cups of water for every two cups of shredded coconut. You may cut this in half if necessary, but with one cup of shredded coconut, you won’t get much milk out of it, which is one of the reasons why the initial quantity is two cups.

You’ll also need to locate a source for unsweetened shredded coconut. Some supermarkets may offer this in its natural state, however others may need some detective work to get unsweetened, undried shredded coconut.

Once you’ve located the shredded coconut you’ll need to create the milk, start by heating a pot of water to a boil. You’ll want to maintain the quantity of water appropriate to the amount of shredded coconut called for in your recipe.

Put the shredded coconut in another dish while you wait for the pot of water to come to a boil, or at least until little bubbles begin to appear. This basin should be big enough to hold the shredded coconut as well as the water that is now boiling.

When the water has reached the proper temperature, pour it into the dish containing the coconut and continue stirring. Continue stirring until the water in the basin has reached room temperature and you can comfortably put your hand into it without becoming hurt or uncomfortable.

After that, you’ll want to wash your hands and start kneading the shredded coconut chunks in the water. Do this for a full minute (or more if you have more than two cups of shredded coconut). Make sure your kneading is thorough so that you get the most milk out of your shredded coconut chunks.

Then, dampen a cheesecloth and set it over another big bowl, which should be large enough to contain all of the coconut milk that you will be obtaining from this, which should be near to the quantity of water that you began with. Then, carefully pour the coconut mixture over the cheesecloth, taking careful not to spill any of it.

Once everything is in the cheesecloth, gather all of the corners and begin pressing the coconut over the new dish. This will become your coconut milk, so extract as much as you can; from there, you will have your coconut milk to work with.