Coconut milk powder substitutes

The everyday swap whenever the recipe is going to end up wet anyway, such as a curry, a soup or a rice dish.

Best for

curries, soups, coconut rice, braises, smoothies

Because you are adding a cup of liquid that the recipe expected you to add yourself, take a cup of water or stock out somewhere else or the sauce will be thin. Canned milk also tastes slightly cooked and metallic next to freshly mixed powder, and it separates in the tin, so shake or stir it smooth first. Fat varies a lot by brand: a 17 to 19 percent fat tin lands close to standard reconstituted powder, while a light tin will taste noticeably thinner.

A solid bar of pure ground coconut flesh and oil, sold in a paper-wrapped block, that melts into hot water.

Best for

curries, rendang, dry spice mixes, shelf-stable pantry cooking, thickening a sauce

This is the closest thing to the powder in spirit because it is also concentrated and shelf-stable, and unlike the powder it is usually pure coconut with no maltodextrin or milk protein. It is fattier, so it can look greasy or split if you dump it into a boiling pan; grate it, add it off the heat and whisk until smooth. Grated fine, it can also stand in when a dry mix needs a coconut solid rather than a liquid.

Thicker and higher in fat than canned coconut milk, so it is diluted rather than used straight.

Best for

rich curries, desserts, ice cream, coconut caramel

Used straight without the water it makes a dish distinctly richer and heavier than reconstituted powder, which is sometimes exactly what you want in a dessert. It is also the swap least likely to make a sauce watery. Check the label, because some tins sold as coconut cream are sweetened cream of coconut for cocktails, which will make a curry taste like a pina colada.

Homemade santan, the way it is made from scratch before anyone dried it into a powder.

Best for

curries, soups, coconut rice, when the shop only has shredded coconut

Blend for a full minute with water just off the boil, then squeeze it through a clean cloth or a fine sieve, pressing hard. The result is noticeably thinner and less rich than reconstituted powder because a lot of fat stays in the pulp, so blend a second batch through the same pulp only if you want a light coconut milk. Use unsweetened only; sweetened shredded coconut will make the dish sugary.

A powder-for-powder swap for dry mixes, where the whole point is that nothing is wet.

Best for

dry curry mixes, instant drink mixes, bubble tea powder, dry rubs, camping and backpacking meals

This is the only easy answer when the recipe needs a powder that dissolves later, and it works because milk powder brings the creamy body while the extract brings the aroma. Be clear about what changes: it is dairy, so it is no longer vegan or dairy-free, and the flavour reads as sweet milky coconut rather than the fresh nutty coconut of real santan. Skip it in anything savoury and Southeast Asian, where the dairy note is obvious.

Included because it is the mistake people make, and because it has one narrow legitimate use.

Best for

thickening only, and only as a last resort

Coconut flour is defatted, ground coconut fibre. It will not make coconut milk, no matter how much water you add: it drinks liquid up and turns gritty and dry, which is the opposite of what the powder does. The one honest use is a teaspoon or two stirred into a curry that already has coconut fat in it, to thicken and add a faint coconut flavour. If coconut milk powder is doing the creaming job in your recipe, coconut flour will not cover for it.