Cooking with Coconut Oil

Traditionally, I’m a butter/olive oil kind of gal. The whole paleo/primal obsession with coconut has always seemed odd to me. I didn’t grow up eating a lot of coconut. Sometimes I’d eat a slice or two of the creamy flesh, but that was it. And when I became a teenager, I thought coconut was bad. It was one of those bad fats that should be eaten in moderation or avoided altogether. But the paleo/primal communities postulate that coconut oil is good for you and their science seems to back them up.

I finally got the opportunity to try it this past week when my local co-op had a sale. So, how did I fare cooking with coconut oil?

I decided to make my standard eggs and spinach go-to meal. I usually eat this for breakfast or lunch a couple of days a week, subbing in whatever green veggies I have available and sometimes throwing in a handful of cheese.

I generally throw in a little bit of butter and a handful of chopped spinach and stir until the spinach wilts. So, instead I put a teaspoon of coconut oil into the pan, watched it melt and put in the spinach.

I was surprised how quickly the oil melted and realized that I might need a little bit more. The oil is in solid form in the jar, but apparently melts at 76 degrees F. So I added another teaspoon and when the spinach was sufficiently wilted, I added three beaten eggs seasoned lightly with salt and pepper.

The eggs took a little bit longer to cook than I expected. In fact, the oil behaved very differently in the pan than butter. Whereas I would expect the butter to melt, begin to froth and even brown, the oil just melted. And the eggs didn’t firm up as fast. I generally keep the heat low so I’ll have plenty of time to stir and allow the creamy curds to form, but with the oil, I had more than enough time.

So, the ultimate test – how did it taste? Well, right off the bat, I noticed something different. For some reason, I didn’t realize that coconut oil would smell and taste like coconut. Nor did I realize that it would be sweet. So the sweet coconut flavor was certainly different. Not necessarily bad, just different. And the texture of the eggs was definitely different. They were very creamy and the hint of sweetness actually paired well with the spinach and cheese.

The verdict? I’ll be cooking with coconut oil again, but I don’t know that it’s a replacement for butter. Ghee might be a better option for those who don’t like the taste of coconut like my husband. However, I’ll definitely be replacing the butter in my diet with coconut oil for the next 30 days as I go the Whole30 (more on that in my next post) since dairy is forbidden, and as I get used to cooking with it and start using it for more things (I’ll be interested to try it for high-heat cooking), I’m sure my opinion of coconut oil will only go up.