Coconut milk is always found front and centre in my pantry because it is a cornerstone of so much of my cooking. I buy it in bulk and rely on it to bring a voluptuous, fragrant, dairy-free creaminess to so many of my favourite dishes, from curries and dals to soups and rice dishes. It’s also indispensable for puddings for vegan friends, and for my sweet-toothed, lactose-intolerant husband. It mellows out spices and pulls a dish together, adding a silkiness to sauces and a sweet, nutty richness to cakes, batters and vegan custards.
I appreciate the convenience of the canned stuff because making coconut milk from scratch, as my mother used to do when I was growing up in Kenya, is laborious: a mature brown coconut has to be broken, its flesh grated, then soaked in hot water, before being strained and squeezed several times through a cheesecloth.
What I look for when buying coconut milk is minimal ingredients and a large percentage of coconut. Ideally, coconut milk should contain two ingredients: coconut milk and water. Buying a good-quality one – as opposed to one bolstered with sweeteners, emulsifiers and stabilisers – often makes the difference between a great dish and a bad one. I try to use ones with no stabilisers or emulsifiers added, such as Biona (see below) and Clearspring. I also like some of the less widely available Asian brands, such as Aroy-D, which, though it contains a thickening agent, has a whopping 70% coconut content, making it one of the most coconut-forward, creamiest milks on the market.
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The best canned coconut milk
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Best all-rounder
Essential Waitrose coconut milk
★★★☆☆
A good, distinctive, nutty flavour overall, with a creamy texture and only a slight sweetness.
***
Best splurge
Biona organic coconut milk
£3.20 for 400ml at Ocado
£11.95 for 6 x 400ml at Amazon
★★★★★
The Ferrari of coconut milks – this has 50% organic coconut, with water being the only other ingredient. It’s creamy and nutty. It contains no emulsifiers, either, so the coconut fat separates and solidifies, but it emulsifies perfectly when heated, whisked or blended. Top marks.
***
Best bargain
Sainsbury’s coconut milk
★★☆☆☆
This has the right amount of body and contains 68% coconut, yet it tastes rather bland. It does have a decently creamy texture, though.
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And the rest …
Dunn’s River coconut milk
£1.13 for 400ml at Asda
£1.15 for 400ml at Sainsbury’s
★★☆☆☆
This one is packed full of stabilisers and emulsifiers and, while there is a strong flavour of coconut, it feels greasy and tastes artificially sweetened.
***
Blue Dragon coconut milk
£2.30 for 400ml at Tesco
£2.50 for 400ml at Asda
★☆☆☆☆
Another one, as with most of these, that falls into the ultra-processed food category. It has a soapy flavour and a gunky texture.
***
M&S coconut milk
★★☆☆☆
Thin, insipid and, despite containing emulsifiers, remains lumpy even after a lot of stirring. It does, however, have more coconut flavour than some of the other contenders.
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Kingfisher Oriental coconut milk
£2.25 for 400ml at Waitrose
£9.87 for 6 x 400ml at Amazon
★☆☆☆☆
Thick and quite creamy, but has a synthetic, unpleasant, cosmetic aftertaste that reminds me of sun cream.
***
Tesco coconut milk
★☆☆☆☆
Watery and too sweet. You might use this to make dairy-free pancakes or a cake batter, but it wouldn’t work well in a Thai curry, where you need a deep coconut flavour.
***
Asda coconut milk
☆☆☆☆☆
Thin, watery and underwhelming, particularly if you’re hoping to enrich or thicken a sauce. It also tastes a little bitter and rancid, as though it’s past its best.
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Asia Specialities coconut milk
☆☆☆☆☆
This has a strange, metallic aftertaste and lacks fragrance and flavour. I imagine this would need a lot of curry paste adding to it to mask the unpleasant taste.
