by Sarah Shilhavy
Health Impact News

With the saturated fat myth slowly dying out, coconut oil has quickly risen to be a popular and ideal cooking oil. Coconut oil has a bounty of health benefits and is easily customizable. This versatile nature makes it ideal for many different styles of cooking and dishes.

However, not everyone is a fan of the flavor.

Depending on the type of coconut oil you get, the flavor may vary from a strong coconut scent and sharp flavor, or a much more mild, and even tasteless version that has only a slight coconut scent. The two most common types of coconut oil one can find are virgin, and expeller pressed (or refined).

Virgin and Expeller-Pressed Coconut Oil Flavor Difference

Virgin coconut oil is an unrefined coconut oil that will always have the strongest flavor and scent of any other type of coconut oil. This type of coconut oil is very popular and probably the most recommended oil to use. However, if you are looking for a flavorless option, virgin coconut oil is not the best choice.

While the flavor and scent may mellow out to a certain degree in cooking, the virgin coconut oils will still retain much of the original flavor, which may disrupt the flavor quality in certain delicate dishes. The same is true for baking, perhaps even a little more so. In many flour-based recipes, the natural flavor of virgin coconut oil will become stronger, possibly overpowering other flavors.

For the best tasteless option in coconut oil, try a refined coconut oil such as expeller-pressed coconut oil. Expeller-pressed coconut oils are deodorized and therefore have a very bland, mild scent and flavor, making it tasteless or almost tasteless. This makes expeller-pressed coconut oil perfect for those who do not want strongly flavored oils in cooking. Expeller-pressed coconut oil will act and can be used the same way as any other coconut oil, but will not overpower other flavors in the dish.

How to Make Coconut Oil Tasteless

Now that you have your expeller-pressed coconut oil all ready to cook with, keep a few other pointers in mind to really tone down any chance of a coconut flavor invasion:

1. Don’t use too much coconut oil. This may be a no-brainer, but if you use a whole lot of anything, you will eventually taste it.

2. Mix your coconut oil with other oils and fats. Olive oil and butter pair wonderfully with any type of coconut oil, and will help balance or eliminate any coconut flavor.

3. Cook with ingredients with strong flavors. Things like garlic, onions, peppers, red meats, and the like will take over in the flavor department and keep your mildly flavored cooking oil flavor in the backseat.

Keeping in mind that expeller-pressed coconut oil is the best choice for a mild to tasteless coconut oil, mixing the oil with other fats and oils, and choosing flavorful ingredients to work with will keep your cooking oil in the background and allow the other flavors of the dish to shine through.

Read the full article here.

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