Toasted Coconut

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing a lot of recipes calling for toasted coconut. I love coconut and toasted coconut is just that more delicious! Little crunchy bites of toasted flakes and a pop of coconut essence gives any recipe an exquisite tropical taste with texture.

Toasted coconut is available in select stores and is quite pricey if you’re like me and living on a budget. I found toasted coconut at Amazon.com selling at a price of $11.95 for 9 ounces. That’s quite a hefty price for shredded coconut that is already toasted when you can buy 14 ounces of shredded coconut under $2.00 and toast it yourself in less than 10 minutes time!

Not only are you saving money by making it yourself but you also know that no artificial coloring or preservatives are added in. I don’t know about you but I would much rather make my own toasted coconut at home.

Like I said, it takes less than 10 minutes to make your own toasted coconut and you only make how much you need, which means nothing wasted. If you like, you can make a little more than needed and store the rest in an air-tight container for up to 1 week.

All you really need to make your own toasted coconut at home are two ingredients – shredded coconut and coconut oil. That’s it! How simple is that? And it really is quite tasty sprinkled over ice cream, fruit, yogurt, or anything else you want to add it to.

Toasted Coconut

Serving – 1 cup of toasted coconut flakes

Ingredients

1 cup shredded coconut

2-3 Tablespoons of Coconut oil, melted

Directions

In a medium skillet over low to medium heat, add approximately 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (enough to coat bottom and sides of pan) and heat until its melted.

Add 1 cup of shredded coconut flakes. Turn heat down between low and medium setting. A medium to high setting will burn the coconut flakes.

To help prevent burning the flakes, you will have to stir often. Not continuously, but often enough to keep the flakes turning over so they will not burn.

If needed while cooking, pour a little more melted coconut oil over coconut flakes.

Continue cooking the coconut flakes until desired coloring. Note – flakes should be a slight tan color around the edges, but for the most part still white.

Turn off heat and remove pan from burner. Continue to stir flakes as they will continue to brown in pan.

Place pan on a hot pad and let cool. Once coconut is cooled, store in an air tight container.

*Helpful Hints*

I also use a coconut oil spray to help coat the flakes evenly while cooking. Pam makes a coconut oil spray that I just love to use for baking too!

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