Coconut oil in the kitchen

Coconut oil is the fat pressed from the white flesh of mature coconuts. It comes in two broad kinds. Virgin (or extra virgin) coconut oil is pressed from fresh coconut without refining, and tastes and smells clearly of coconut. Refined coconut oil is usually made from dried coconut, called copra, then refined, bleached and deodorised, which leaves a neutral oil with very little flavour.

Both behave the same way in the pan. The choice comes down to whether you want the coconut flavour or not.

The thing that makes it different: it sets

Most cooking oils in your cupboard, such as canola, sunflower, rice bran and olive, stay liquid at room temperature. Coconut oil does not. It melts at roughly 24°C, which means it spends much of the New Zealand year as a firm white solid and turns clear and liquid on a hot day or in a warm kitchen.

That is useful in cooking. A fat that is solid at room temperature can be rubbed into flour for pastry, creamed with sugar for biscuits, or used to set a no-bake slice, much as butter is. It is also why a jar can go from solid to liquid and back again without anything being wrong with it.

What it does well

• Dairy-free baking. Solid coconut oil is one of the better swaps for butter in biscuits, crumbles, slices and some cakes, especially for people who do not eat dairy.
• Curries and Southeast Asian dishes. Virgin coconut oil suits dishes that already use coconut milk or cream, and its flavour belongs there.
• No-bake slices and bliss balls. Because it sets when chilled, it holds things together.
• Roasting kūmara and pumpkin. A little virgin oil gives a faint sweet coconut note that works with orange vegetables.

How hot it can go

When any oil is heated past its smoke point it starts to break down and smoke, and the flavour turns acrid. Published smoke points for coconut oil vary between sources, but virgin coconut oil is usually quoted at around 175°C, and refined coconut oil considerably higher, often above 200°C. Treat these as rough guides rather than exact numbers.

In practice, virgin coconut oil suits gentle sautéing and baking at moderate oven temperatures. For high-heat frying and stir-frying, the Heart Foundation’s guide to choosing fats and cooking oils suggests oils such as canola, high oleic sunflower, rice bran or refined light olive oil, which are also cheaper.

Swapping it for butter

Butter is roughly four-fifths fat and one-fifth water and milk solids. Coconut oil is almost pure fat. So when you swap one for the other, a straight one-for-one swap by weight makes a richer, sometimes greasier result.

• For butter in baking: use about 80 percent of the weight. For 100 g of butter, use about 80 g of coconut oil, and add a tablespoon of milk or water if the dough seems dry.
• Creaming: the oil must be solid but soft, like butter at room temperature. If the kitchen is warm, chill it for ten minutes first.
• Pastry: use it cold and firm, and work fast. Coconut oil goes from hard to soft over a narrower range than butter.
• Melted butter in a recipe: melted coconut oil swaps in easily, but mix it into room-temperature ingredients. Cold eggs or milk can make it seize into little lumps.

Expect a flatter, crisper biscuit and a slightly firmer crumb in cakes. Virgin oil will make everything taste a little of coconut, which is lovely in an Anzac-style biscuit and odd in a cheese scone.

The saturated fat, stated plainly

Coconut oil is almost all fat, and most of that fat is saturated. Food composition tables from the United States Department of Agriculture put it at about 82 g of saturated fat per 100 g. For comparison, butter is roughly half saturated fat, and liquid plant oils such as canola and olive oil are mostly unsaturated.

New Zealand guidance on this is clear and calm. Health New Zealand’s eating well page recommends extra virgin olive oil or other liquid plant oils such as sunflower or canola. The Heart Foundation’s guide says small amounts of coconut oil to add flavour are fine, and that another oil, such as olive oil, is the better choice as your main cooking oil.

That is how we use it. A spoonful for a curry, a batch of dairy-free biscuits, a tray of roast kūmara now and then. Not the everyday frying oil.

Coconut oil is neither a poison nor a wonder. You will read both claims online. It is a fat with a distinctive flavour and a useful habit of setting solid, and it earns a small jar in the pantry for those reasons.

Buying and storing

Coconut oil keeps well, because saturated fats are slow to go rancid. Store it in a cool cupboard with the lid on. If you want it scoopable year-round, keep it somewhere a little warm, or stand the jar in warm water for a few minutes before use. If it smells sour or soapy, throw it out.

Price varies a lot by kind and jar size. As with any pantry staple, compare the unit price per 100 g on the shelf ticket rather than the price on the jar, and buy refined oil if you do not want the coconut flavour, because it is often cheaper.

General information only — not medical or dietary advice. For advice about your own diet, see your GP or a NZ-registered dietitian.