How to Make Homemade Coconut Butter
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Homemade Coconut Butter is a breeze easy to make in your food processor or high-powdered blender in just minutes and once you make, you'll wonder where it's been all your life. You only need one ingredient to make it, but there are lots of fun variations to experiment with as well.
It tastes great on its own but there are also loads of ways to use it. Let the homemade coconut butter making begin.
Have you seen coconut butter in recipes and wondered what it is? Or do you use it often and are just tired of paying so much for it?
Either way, you're going to love this recipe.
Let me introduce you to coconut butter and show you how easy it is to make this otherwise very pricey pantry staple for yourself.
What Is Coconut Butter?
I still remember the day that I found out what coconut butter is. I was looking at a recipe that I wanted to make and noticed that “coconut butter” was one of the ingredients. I didn't know what it was, but had to find out.
What I found out first is that it cost a mere $13.99 for a “giant” 16 oz. container on the first website I checked. Wow. Oddly, the only ingredient in that jar was — coconut!
It turns out that coconut butter is just dried coconut that's processed to make a thick butter like nut butter, but it's hard at room temperature.
Coconut butter is useful by itself, but it's used in a low-carb/keto recipes as well.
What's Best for Making Coconut Butter — Food Processor or High Speed Blender?
The high-speed blender wins hands down and here's why.
The first time I tried making coconut butter, I used a food processor. The post that I got the recipe from said that it should take about 12 minutes of whirring in total.processor. Well, I had a heavy duty processor at the time and could make four batches of Savory Hummus at a time, yielding a creamy smooth product in about 1 minute. So I figured that if any food processor was going to be able to make coconut butter, mine would.
Try as I might, it didn't work well. Now, I've done it since then and so it's possible, but just be careful about burning your food processor out because it can happen.
Meanwhile, making coconut butter in a high-speed blender like a Vitamix (you can also order one on Amazon), is a piece of cake. And though the price of these blenders is a little steep, once you see how much you can make with them, you'll see that it's totally worth it.
How Much Can You Save?
One 16 oz. jar of coconut butter costs approximately $13.99. One pound of medium unsweetened coconut, at the time of publishing this post, cost me approximately $1.75. That's more than an 87% savings.
How to Use
There are so many ways to use homemade coconut butter. How about…
- Spread it on crackers, bread or toast.
- Blended into smoothies.
- Added to hot drinks like coffee, a coffee substitute, or hot chocolate.
- Use in recipes calling for coconut butter, like Chocolate Avocado Truffles and these No Bake Brownies.
- Stirred into hot cereal like oatmeal or Cream of Rice.
- Added to curries for more richness.
- As a frosting by adding some coconut oil and sweetener.
- As a fat substitute in recipes. It does need to be softened first and will make your recipe a little stiffer, but it can work.
- As a substitute for nut butters in many recipes, depending on how much you're replacing and what the recipe is.
- Drizzled on ice cream to make a simple “magic shell” coating.
- Eat it with a spoon. Our oldest LOVES it like this.
Storage
Coconut butter keeps really well and will likely store just fine in your pantry for several months. Most likely you won't have it around that long, however.
There is no need to keep it in the fridge, and in fact, if you do, you will have hard time eating it since it gets incredibly hard at low temperatures.
Recipes That Use Coconut Butter
Here are some tasty recipes where you can use coconut butter.
- 3 Ingredient Shortbread Crisp: This really uses only 3 ingredients, and none of them is a packaged mix. Don't those “3 ingredient” recipes drive you nuts when one ingredient (or more) is a boxed mix that has a gazillion ingredients?
- Coconut Butter Fat Bombs: 3 flavors of simple healthy keto treats.
- Chocolate Avocado Truffles: Super easy and delicious. And healthy. You won't believe these are made with avocado!
Recipe Notes
After having trouble with this working sometimes and not working at other times, I have a few tips to help you get PERFECT coconut butter anytime.
- Start with less coconut. This works more consistently if you start with only about 4 cups of shredded coconut. Make that into a butter and then add 1 cup of additional coconut at a time, blending to a butter with the addition of each cup.
- Make sure that your blender is COMPLETELY dry. Even a little bit of water causes the coconut butter to not form properly.
The coconut butter will come out of your Vitamix quite warm and runny, but it will harden up as you let it sit. If you need to speed up the process, just put it into your fridge or freezer.
Your coconut butter will become spreadable around 76 degrees, but you can use a knife or apple corer to get it out of the jar if it's colder than that in your home.
NOTE: Occasionally, for some reason, the coconut butter just doesn't quite work out well. If that ever happens to you, just add a few things to the blender and you can have these fabulous No-Bake Coconut Cookies instead!
Variations
Here are some fun flavors to try by adding the following to the coconut before it's done processing, or after while it's still liquidy.
- Spiced Honey: Honey plus any of the following: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, ginger, and salt.
- Maple Vanilla: Maple syrup, vanilla extract or vanilla powder, and a dash of salt.
- Chocolate/Cacao: Cocoa or cacao powder and salt. Stir in some cacao nibs after processing for a chocolatey crunch.
- Nutty: Add some nuts to the mix. Anything goes!
- Pumpkin Spice: Pecans and pumpkin pie spice.
- Fruity: Dried fruits like goji berries, raisins, dried cranberries, and more.
- Toasted: Toast the coconut first for depth of flavor and add some salt while you're at it.
Special Diet Notes
For Those With Nut Allergies: Note that coconut is not actually a nut, but some allergy groups classify it as such since it's a food that more people are becoming allergic to. Sadly, allergies are becoming more and more prevalent these days.
More Great DIY Pantry Staples
- Homemade Rice Milk
- Easiest Coconut Milk
- Homemade Powdered Sugar or Powdered Sugar Substitute
- Easiest Almond Milk
- Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter
- Powdered Egg Replacer – works amazingly well in most recipes that call for eggs.
Easiest Homemade Coconut Butter
Ingredients
- 7 cups unsweetened shredded coconut (approximately 1.25 pounds)
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil (optional for blending ease)
Instructions
High Powered Blender Instructions
- Put the coconut (and coconut oil, if using) into the Vitamix (or other high-powered blender). Of course, you can try to use less. I just found that this is a great amount to get it blending well in the Vitamix to produce a wonderful consistency quickly.
- Turn the motor of your Vitamix on and quickly work the speed up. Run the machine on High while using the tamper to keep the coconut moving through the blades (or follow directions for your blender)
- Run the machine on high for about 1 minute.
- After a brief rest, process the coconut on High again for up to 1 minute until it is of the desired consistency.
- Pour into a glass jar for storage.
Food Processor Instructions
- Put the coconut shreds (and coconut oil, if using) into a food processor.
- Turn the food processor on and process until the shreds make a butter, taking breaks as needed for the machine to cool.
Notes
- Start with less coconut. This works more consistently if you start with only about 4 cups of shredded coconut. Make that into a butter and then add 1 cup of additional coconut at a time, blending to a butter with the addition of each cup.
- Make sure that your blender is COMPLETELY dry. Even a little bit of water makes things problematic.
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It may vary depending on ingredient brands, substitutions, and preparation methods. Optional ingredients are not included. Net carbs are typically calculated by subtracting fiber and sugar alcohols (such as erythritol) from total carbohydrates. This information should not be relied upon for medical or nutritional purposes.
I just came across this great post and am excited to try making my own coconut butter. I appreciate the tips! We have actually been talking about making it on the “Vitamix Enthusiasts” Yahoo group, and through others’ trial and error have found that Bob’s Red Mill coconut flakes do not work because of the process they use to dry them. The oil is gone from them, so will not make nice coconut butter, but will turn very hot and turn into a pasty sticky flour. Just wanted to post the info, so people know it is not them, but perhaps the coconut they are using if they have trouble!
Thanks, Natalie!
Thanks for the post Natalie – I just tried this recipe yesterday with the Let’s Do Organic coconut flakes and it was almost a disaster. The coconut was basically getting toasted in the vitamix as it was getting hot and the flakes just got shredded to a very fine powder….there was no fat or moisture to create the creamy texture I was expecting. I finally added a little coconut oil to salvage the mix and while it’s edible, certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Do you mind sharing with me what brand of coconut you use?
Haneen, that happened once to me and I have no idea why it did that. Never happened again. Did you use enough coconut? If you don’t have enough it won’t turn into the butter. I buy mine from Country Life Natural Foods.
Yes – I used the recommended amount. I think certain brands of unsweetened coconut are dehydrated. I bought a second batch of coconut from the bulk bins at whole foods and it worked great! Can’t wait to try to make some sugar-free almond joys. Do you have any recommended recipes?
Thanks!
Did you see my Almond Joy recipe?
Hi there.
I had this almost happen to me tonight and I am not sure, but this is what I am thinking……if it starts taking too long, take it out of the container and let it rest and cool again. Then put it back in the container and see if you can get it to process. Mine worked – maybe it’s a temperature thing. Too hot and it doesn’t work ???
Hi Frances,
I must say, I am perplexed by your troubles. I think I made the coconut butter in the smaller container, but I am not sure. Did you use the amount of coconut that I recommended to start with? Did you use the tamper? And did you call Vitamix about this? I can’t believe it. Please let me know. These machines are workhorses. I make nut and seed butters all the time. I just don’t know why you are having these problems.
My Vitamix was the 5200C specially made for Costco with a 48 oz. container. Perfect height for my counter. Since I just bought it just a month ago, thought it was defective. So I exchanged it for another one which is exactly the same. I tried making the coconut butter again today with the new machine following your recipe exactly. Same thing happened. This time it took about 15 minutes and again the container leaked from the bottom and turned the butter orange. Now I’m wondering if it’s the container size. I think yours is the 64 oz. container? I’m afraid to use the Vitamix again to make the co nut butter. Bummer. Nonetheless, love ur website. : )
I used my Vitamix to make the coconut butter. I followed your method. It took a very long time and finally my vitamix blade came loose and started to leak at the bottom. The coconut butter never liquified What did I do wrong? Now I have to get a new container. I
Hi Frances,
Hmmm…I have a couple of thoughts in response. First of all, did you use plenty of coconut? It doesn’t work well unless you use the amount that I mentioned and then…well, every time that I have made it, it worked really fast.
Second, just because the blade came loose, that doesn’t mean that you need to get a new container. I had a blender container that used to do that pretty frequently and we’d just reattach the blade assembly with a special wrench. I would call Vitamix on their toll free number and ask them to help you out. When it happened to me, it was with nut butter.
I think it is possible that there is something a bit “off” with your machine, but I would run the situation by Vitamix.
Let me know how it turns out!
Love Your site,I just want to now if i can use fresh grated Coconut for making butter and if Chocolate can be mix with it. Thank You.
Hi Maria! I think that the fresh coconut would make a butter that is somewhat runny since the one made with dried coconut is perfect. I assume that the taste would be wonderful, however, and it wouldn’t get hard as easily. And of course you could mix chocolate with it. In fact, I was thinking about doing that very thing! Let me know how it turns out!
Yes, exactly. My point was that coconut in some variations might be a little less expensive than in some other variations….shreds might cost more than powder, and the powder was a generic variety. Certainly, though, any kind of coconut that has not been altered (defatted), should work fine.
No, it’s DEFINITELY not coconut flour! Coconut flour is ground much finer and defatted. It would not work in this application. Coconut powder is full fat, and you must have full fat to get the “butter.”
Then it is just finely ground shredded coconut. Any type of coconut will work – you just need to get enough of it in the Vitamix to get it to churn properly. Thanks again!
If you dont’ have or can’t find the coconut shreds, or if it is very expensive, try this:
I found some “coconut powder” in an Indian food store…a big bag of powder (nothing in it but coconut, ground very small) for about $10.00. So I dumped about 3 cups of it in my (wonderful) Vitamix and guess what – it did a GREAT job of making coconut butter. I used the same method as you mention here. It’s practically magic!
For my $10 bag, I am going to get probably 6 or 7 16-ounce containers of the expensive stuff. I only make one jar at a time. No need to blend it all up in advance.
Hmmm…I wonder if coconut powder is coconut flour? Now that would be a money saver! Can you figure out what it is and let us know? Thanks! It’s typically $6 per pound!
As I understand it, coconut flour is ground up from what is left after making coconut milk. If you dry the coconut in your dehydrator and then grind in your Vitamix or grinder, I think you would end up with coconut flour. It can’t hurt to try.
Katherine, I think you are correct. I have read similar info on the internet. I sounds to me like a lot of work for very little output. And as a matter of fact, there isn’t really anything left after making the milk in the Vitamix. Some, but not a lot. Take care,
~Adrienne
Does it need to be a dry vitamix container or will the wet one work?
I just use the one that came with it (the wet). I actually tried the dry container and didn’t find it to be very helpful, even for grinding spices. And for grinding of grains, it doesn’t do a good enough job.
thank you for posting this- I was about to spend $45 on a gallon of coconut butter thinking it was a good buy- as soon as I read your blog I went to wholefoods and bought the raw unsweetened shredded coconut, took it home and poured it into my vitamix- it tastes exactly like the stuff I was spending $10.99 for a 16 oz jar- you saved me lots of $$$$. Love your site
Yippee! Thanks for letting me know! Isn’t it great when you can make something yourself for so much less:-)!