I love young coconuts, but since I moved this past summer, I haven’t found a local source for them… and have had plenty of other recipes options that I haven’t been motivated to put a request into my local grocer to order a case for me. I’ll get to it… because I surely love them.

But yesterday I was shopping with a dear friend of mine at an organic market near her home (not in my neck of the woods) and we came across some lovely young coconuts! See she picked one up and back at her place I showed her how to whip up a delicious smoothie with it. Wishing right now I had the rest of it to polish off while I write this. Dang, it was yummy. But here’s the recipe for it… made with utterly pedestrian ingredients (except for the young coconut).

Young coconut is a great energizer and replenisher of electrolytes, so excellent either before or after a workout, and wonderful for breakfast, or for a late-day energy kick. A fun fact most people don’t know is that the water in young coconuts was used for transfusions of blood plasma during WWII in the south pacific. It’s bio-identical to human plasma. Gotta love that.

What IS a young coconut?

A young coconut is NOT the hard-shelled brown coconut most of us are familiar seeing in the grocery stores. The shell is actually smaller and more delicate, and is thus cut down to the white fibery protective layer beneath the green husk, in a sort of pyramid shape, and then it’s shrink-wrapped in plastic. The coconut water is sweeter, and the flesh is very delicate, with the texture ranging from firm jello to firm custard to soft cheese, depending on that maturity of the coconut.

There is just so much one can do with that flesh, I could do a different recipe every day and never get exhausted. Whipped cream, puddings & pie fillings, “cheeses”… oh dear me, what a culinary resource young coconut is. But the healthifying aspect of young coconuts is equally as exciting! If you can manage to have one a day, do go for it! There are some excellent resources of quality young coconuts online… if you have the pocketbook for it.

How To Open A Young Coconut

Here are a few resources for how to open young coconuts. Personally, I prefer a sharp meat cleaver. I press the lower edge into the flesh around the top of the coconut, give it a good whack against the countertop or floor, do that a few times around the top, then peel the loosened flap back.

To scoop out the inner flesh, a simple metal spoon scraped against the shell is all that’s required.

From Rawguru.com (where you can find some excellent young coconuts for sale…).

(When I use my meat cleaver, I do not lift it away from the coconut. So proceed with the technique above at your risk… and a steady hand!)

And here’s yet another technique & tutorial…

Enjoy!

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