Coconut milk

One US cup of coconut milk weighs between 226 and 241 grams, depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. That range is the answer; a single number would not be. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Also called canned coconut milk, full-fat coconut milk, santan.

Coconut milk is a stable oil-in-water emulsion pressed from grated coconut meat, canned with fat content typically between 17 and 24 percent for full-fat products. Sources disagree by 6.4%, which is a real disagreement rather than a rounding artifact. USDA FDC 170173 (Nuts, coconut milk, canned, liquid expressed from grated meat and water) gives a cup at 226 g (0.9552 g/ml).

A liquid this fatty sits below water in density, as coconut oil does, and USDA's figure is consistent with a full-fat product at that composition. King Arthur's Ingredient Weight Chart gives 241 g per cup, or 1.0186 g/ml. That is above water and matches what a lower-fat, more diluted coconut milk would weigh.

The King Arthur figure is exactly 8.5 fluid ounces at 28.35 grams per fluid ounce, which is the fluid-ounce mass equivalent, not a density measurement. Their chart lists the same product as 8 1/2 ounces, which is the volume expressed as fluid ounces, and the gram figure appears to be that number converted as if the fluid ounces were weight ounces. This is the same pattern that led to the rejection of King Arthur's whole milk figure in an earlier entry, where 227 g per cup was 8 fluid ounces converted as weight and produced a density lighter than water, which is physically impossible for milk.

Coconut milk sits closer to water than milk does, so the same conversion happens to fall inside a physically plausible range, and the King Arthur figure cannot be rejected on physics alone. It is recorded here as a source without a rejection flag, but the underlying method appears to be a volume-to-weight conversion rather than a bench measurement, and this is noted in the ref. Canned coconut milk products vary widely in fat content and therefore in density.

Full-fat brands like Chaokoh, Aroy-D and Thai Kitchen declare 24 percent fat and sit near the USDA figure. Light coconut milk removes cream and water and sits near or above the King Arthur figure. Carton coconut milk marketed as a dairy alternative is a different product entirely, typically 1 to 3 percent fat and much closer to water in density.

This entry is for canned coconut milk in the full-fat sense that recipes usually intend when they call for it in curries, sauces, ice cream and baking. Well shaken matters because coconut milk separates on standing into a solid cream layer on top and a thin water layer on the bottom. Both King Arthur and USDA specify or imply well-shaken measurement, and the density above assumes the product has been homogenised before measuring.

Coconut cream, sweetened condensed coconut milk, coconut milk powder and cream of coconut are separate products with their own weights and are covered by separate entries. No standards body publishes a density for coconut milk. Codex Alimentarius CXS 240-2003 covers aqueous coconut products including coconut milk and specifies composition requirements for fat, protein and total solids, but does not specify density.

The Asian Regional Coconut Community publishes similar composition standards without density. Two sources only, and the range is published because no third source arbitrates between what appears to be a genuine measurement (USDA) and what appears to be a volume-to-weight conversion (King Arthur).