Why coconut butter
Some weeks ago, I posted a few recipes for various nut butters, from macadamia to almond butter, plus a couple of variants. Well, coconut butter deserves a special place, for it is a special nut (or fruit).
If you take a look at the amounts of fat and carbs of shredded coconut, you can notice that net carb count is not the lowest among nuts, and fat count not the highest. But, and that’s an important “but”, the quality of its fat is very likely among the highest. Where does this come from? Coconut fat is extremely low in polyunsaturated fatty acids. That means that by consuming coconut fat we avoid taking in Omega 6 fatty acids, which have been found to be associated with many health issues.
I invite you to read Chris Kresser’s article on how too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3 is supposedly making us sick. It’s a short article, and Chris is a paleo guy, so you might get interested in more of his stuff and work.
How and where to use it coconut butter
Coconut butter is relatively easy to make. All you need is unsweetened dried shredded coconut (or coconut chips). But what to do with it once you’re left with your own homemade jar?
First, you can eat it straight out of the jar. Take the jar out of the fridge for a while first, because it tends to get rock hard in there. It’s really sweet and filling, just try it!
You can also use it instead of other nut butters when baking stuff, especially if you or people around you have tree nuts allergies.
Use it in keto recipe (yum!), add it to your favorite smoothies, blend with raspberries and freeze (do I smell ice cream?), add it to that daily piece of dark chocolate …
There are so many options! Now go and make your own coconut butter!
Ingredients
- 5 oz. shredded coconut (or coconut chips)
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
- Place the shredded coconut into a bowl of an "s" blade food processor. Start processing. Pause every now and then to scrape the inside of the bowl. Process until desired consistency is reached. Pour the butter into a jar and refrigerate to set.
Nutrition
Related: Macadamia Nut Butter, Homemade Almond Butter, Cinnamon Almond Butter, Vanilla & Macadamia Butter, Jaffa Chocolate Butter, Sunbutter
Can I blend desiccated coconut until fine and use as coconut flour?
Can I blend the desiccated even longer until it becomes coconut butter? I’m not able to get coconut flour or shredded coconut but desiccated coconut is easily available where I live. Thank you.
Hi,
You can blend desiccated coconut until it becomes butter. Depending on the degree of moist, you might need to add a bit of coconut oil in the process to be successful. As for the coconut flour, we usually used fat-reduced flour which is not the case with desiccated coconut. Fat-reduced coconut flour kind of resembles plain grain flours but finely blended desiccated coconut can still be used in recipes like fat or keto granola bombs for example. I’d suggest trying to look for fat-reduced coconut flour in an online store.
Thank you for this recipe. I never thought of making my own coconut butter although I have a few recipes where I use it, and it is always a hassle here in Mexico to try and find it. I can get all the coconuts and actually have a tree that yields about 40 coconuts every 3 or 4 months so I will start using some of those, drying the meat from them and making my butter instead of spending money to have others do it.
Wow, I wish I had a coconut tree myself! 🙂 Do let us know how it goes!