Don't Skip This Key Step After Defrosting Coconut Milk

Coconut milk is one of the best ingredients for everything from rich baked goods to luxuriously creamy curries, like this coconut curry mussels recipe. Its mildly nutty flavor is as versatile as dairy cream and, as a canned product, it lasts a lot longer. If you don't use the whole can, you can freeze leftover coconut milk for up to one month. However, the key step after defrosting frozen coconut milk is mixing it with a hand emulsifier.

Just as the oil in natural peanut butter or even homemade vinaigrette recipes will separate from the water-based ingredients, the coconut milk cream will collect at the top of the storage container with the coconut water freezing underneath it. Separation is a natural occurrence that you'll see upon opening a fresh can of coconut milk. A quick stir or shake of the can will combine the separated fat and liquid components at room temperature or heated in a saucepan. Freezing coconut milk, however, changes the texture more drastically, so even after you thaw, stirring isn't enough to fully emulsify the liquids and fat solids. To avoid an unpleasantly grainy texture, a hand emulsifier from a brand like Turelar provides adequate power to return defrosted coconut milk to its uniformly creamy and thick consistency. You'll want to first thaw the coconut milk slowly by placing the frozen milk in the fridge overnight. Then, blend the thawed coconut milk for 30 seconds with a hand emulsifier or this Ninja Professional blender.

Correct storage practices will make for a smoother thawing and emulsifying practice. You can use freezer safe Ziploc bags, glass jars, and even plastic Tupperware to store large amounts of coconut milk — just ensure that the containers are air-tight, as exposure to oxygen will result in freezer burn. If you want to proportion your coconut milk for more efficiency, an ice cube tray is especially useful.

Glass is the most eco-friendly storage medium, and heat-treated jam, olive, and pickle jars are the best for storing frozen coconut milk. Because liquid expands when frozen, you can avoid cracking the glass storage containers by leaving the screw-on tops ajar for the initial freezing. It's also especially important that the coconut milk be cool or room temperature before adding it to storage containers to place in the freezer.

A slow, overnight thaw in the fridge is ideal because it protects milk from potential bacterial growth. That said, you can submerge the container of frozen coconut milk in room temperature water to defrost more quickly. You can also use your microwave's defrost mode or microwave the milk for 15-30 second intervals until thawed.