Can coconut milk be used as a substitute for regular milk in cooking and baking?

[Ripryno]

I can no longer really use dairy but an unsure how coconut milk will do in things like mac n cheese, puddings, baking, ect. Anyone have any experience substituting with it?

 

[Steve Kroll]

Coconut milk is not anything like milk. As a substitute in mac & cheese, it sounds particularly horrendous. And if you can't have dairy, then that pretty much rules out the cheese part of it as well. You may have more luck in things like puddings, or in baking, though the flavor is completely different than milk.

Can you explain why you can't have dairy? Are you lactose intolerant? Maybe there are other options.

Something you may want to consider is giving up dairy altogether. Dairy is not something that our bodies really need as adults.

 

[GLC]

You can use it as a substitute in basic recipes of that kind. But you may want to select the brand carefully. Well prepared coconut milk will have little coconut flavor, but many brands have a rather distinct flavor of coconut, which is not a bad thing, if you happen to want it. It will not, of course, substitute in anything where you depend on the characteristic reactions of milk that allow you to create cheese, yogurt, etc. You more often see the reverse substitution, milk used in combination with other things as a substitute for coconut milk. So don't commit to a large batch or baked goods without testing. And remember that there's coconut milk and coconut cream that rises when the milk is left to sit. One nice feature, compared to other common milk substitutes, is that coconut cream can be whipped into a credible whipped cream substitute..

(And cheese and butter are usually no problem for the lactose intolerant, as they contain relatively little lactose.)

 

[Oldvine]

There are other milk substitutes that might work better in mac and cheese. I'm wondering about the coconut flavor in mac and cheese. Can you use soy milk?

 

[Effington]

If you think about coconuts, which are really just a large nut or fruit, coconut milk is actually... coconut juice.