For those who may be new to our site, we’ve been sharing posts devoted to specific sugar alternatives. We want these sweeteners to seem accessible and not completely scary or unknown! Please see the Natural Sweetener Guide for a list of all the sweeteners we use.
What is Coconut Sugar?
Coconut sugar is made from the flowers of the coconut tree. Coconut sugar can be called by two names, coconut sugar or coconut palm sugar. In addition to that, there is a product called Palm Sugar which is a very popular in Asian cuisine. Coconut palm sugar is the most common name used by US companies. We have used products that use both names of “coconut sugar” or “coconut palm sugar” in their titles.
The first question you might have about coconut sugar is “does it taste like coconut?” The answer is a big fat “NO”. Coconut sugar does not taste, smell or look like coconut at all! In the above picture, you might find it has a similar appearance to brown sugar, because of it’s rich brown color. It can clump together and has a sweet scent similar to brown sugar. For this reason, coconut sugar has become a favorite sweetener! Especially for it’s nice sweet caramal-y flavor to baked goodies.
Why Coconut Sugar is Healthy
Coconut sugar is a whole, pure and completely natural sugar. It doesn’t through the extensive refining process as sugar does, so it is a whole, pure food. It will not give you sugar high’s and low’s and won’t make you feel sluggish or bloated. It’s naturally full of vitamins and minerals like amino acids, potassium, magnesium, iron and zinc and is a completely safe as a diabetic sugar substitute. Coconut sugar has a low glycemic index (35), making it safe and convenient for any one concerned with blood sugar levels. Not all natural sweeteners are perfect for those who are concerned with this, but coconut sugar is one that is safe!
Why We Love Coconut Sugar
Aside from the health benefits, we love coconut sugar because it tastes good! It’s doesn’t taste like coconut sugar, despite the name! Coconut sugar is a great sugar alternative for many reasons. It bakes very well (similar to sugar) and helps give an amazing texture to all our favorite dishes! It caramelizes like sugar, thus making great brownies or chewy cookies. It’s substituted for sugar 1 to 1 and it mimics the taste of brown sugar. This flavor combines so well with chocolate for healthy Nutella or almond for almond cookies. It’s sweet enough to replace regular white sugar in, but healthy enough to call it a “whole nutrient rich” food. Coconut sugar is so amazing, even Dr. Oz loves it!
How to Use Coconut Sugar
Coconut sugar is a wonderful natural sweetener that can be used in many ways!
Because of coconut sugar’s properties, it’s the perfect natural sweetener for baking and cooking. Here are some of our favorites:
Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Creme Brulee
Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting
Coconut sugar is great for lots of different dishes, but it’s not perfect for everything. It’s color and flavor is not ideal for every dessert you make. We don’t use coconut sugar in white, light or delicate flavored treats like whipped cream or white frosting. So sometimes we combine coconut sugar with other sweeteners to achieve the look and taste we want!
 Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies
Where to Buy Coconut Sugar
The best place to find coconut sugar is either at local health food stores (sometimes they go on sale for great deals) or online! We love buying coconut sugar through amazon.com. The products we often purchase are shown in our amazon products list on our blogs sidebar. You can always subscribe to items through amazon.com, helping to save a little money. You can also check out health food sections in any regular grocery store. We also just discovered that you can buy coconut sugar at Costco! If you would like to try out this natural sweetener but don’t want to commit to the cost, split it between you and a few friends. You won’t regret the price nor the delicious health benefits and you’ll be helping to share a healthy sugar substitute with your friends!
Questions: Have you tried coconut sugar before? What do you love about it?
Based on 1 Review(s)
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Danis Garcia says
I love coffee and some of my favorite varieties like Kona and Guatemalan (organic, single source) are perfect for using coconut sugar. The nuttiness of the sugar goes really well with the floral tones of Kona and the subtle cocoa tones of Guatemalan. I love using it on oatmeal, and have even powdered it to dust on donuts.
Maria says
Hi. I just bought coconut sugar and would like to try it on an ice cream recipe. I hope ot caramelizes enough to hold the ice cream consistency as I will not be adding jello. Anybody tried it on ice cream?
Stephanie Levesque says
Can you use this in place of white sugar in a hard candy recipe? I am looking for a better, healthier choice for my candy making
Natural Sweet Recipes says
Yes, coconut sugar is fantastic in candy recipes!
kathy first says
can you use coconut sugar in place of brown sugar
Natural Sweet Recipes says
Yes!
Marie says
We’ve been using coconut sugar exclusively after we found out about its low glycemic index. I use it in everything, substituting one for one, loose, for white sugar and packed for brown sugar.
The only recipe we do not like with coconut sugar is lemonade.
John Marris says
Coconut has many benefits including our health and also our skin,hairs also.We daily use coconut sugar in our daily routine while making any recipe.Thanks for sharing that you have provided us many uses of coconut sugar in making many recipe.Thanks for sharing.
Lisa says
Can I use coconut sugar in place of honey or maple syrup? If so is it the same measurement?
Marie says
You would need to use 1 1/4 C coconut sugar for each cup of honey and add 1/4 C to your liquids for each cup of honey replaced.
Angelique says
I was wondering if you could use coconut sugar like white sugar in making snow cone syrup. A basic snow cone syrup uses 2 cups white sugar, 1 cup water, and flavoring. We have recently gone healthy and I was hoping I could still make a syrup using coconut sugar, water, and maybe some food grade Essential Oils or some pureed fresh fruit or something for flavor…but I don’t know if that would work so well. I could use the powder form of stevia, but that would be really expensive. Any thoughts?
Annie says
Hello! I do think coconut sugar would work fine in a snow cone syrup, but it would highly depend on the flavor that you’re looking for. Coconut sugar does yield a stronger brown sugar flavor that wouldn’t be conducive to most fruit flavors. We’ve found the best (and easiest) substitute for snow cones are using fresh fruit juice. We shared how we like to make them here: http://www.naturalsweetrecipes.com/healthy-lemon-snow-cones/
If you are really just wanting a syrup, I would probably use honey or agave, since those sweeteners can be cooked and heated similarly to sugar and you can add other flavors to it. I hope that helps you! Good for you for making some healthy changes!
Marie says
As I shared on another post, we have found that coconut sugar does not marry well with fruit flavors, like lemonade or fruit syrup. When my kids were younger, I used to melt a little honey (1 tsp. honey per litre of fruit, mixed with 1 tsp. hot water.), liquefy fruits in my blender and mix with the honey. My kids loved that on snow cones.
Hope says
I have been browsing through the recipes. Lots of them call for pink salt. Does it have to be pink salt, or can you use regular iodized salt?
Annie says
Hi Hope, you can use any salt you would like. We prefer pink salt or a good sea salt because they are high in trace minerals. If you don’t want to use a sea salt, I would suggest kosher salt. Thanks!
Joan Sanford says
I tried making orange marmalade using partially regular sugar and a smaller amount of coconut sugar. It did not jell. Why? Should have checked first but can’t find a source.
Annie says
It’s hard to say why it didn’t jell when we haven’t seen the recipe or what method you used. In all of our experiences with coconut sugar, it is one of the few sweeteners that reacts like sugar. It caramelizes and thickens, so we use it many, many recipes. Something else may have gone wrong with the orange marmalade – especially if a large portion of it was with regular sugar. We do know of people having success with honey in jams and marmalades. You may just want to try the marmalade out again. It sounds like a delicious experiment! :)
Marie says
Maybe it’s because coconut sugar does not caramelize like regular sugar.
Whitney says
I get it at Trader Joes (we just got one here in Baton Rouge). I just finished baking our Thanksgiving pecan pies using it in place of the regular sugar. I found the syrup with no fructose too. Feeling much better about eating some this year!
Aniqa says
I just bought some from Walmart!!! Go Walmart! Who knows, maybe we might getting gmo labeling…Walmart can surprise you, you know! Not
Chelsea says
That is amazing!!! Wow, we will look for it at our Walmarts! Thank you so much for sharing!
Angie says
We love coconut sugar! My husband really loves its flavor in cinnamon or coffee treats. SOooo good! We love your caramel popcorn too!!
Sophie33 says
Thanks for the big shout out for coconut sugar! You know, that I love to use this coconut sugar a lot & now, we also can buy powdered coconut sugar, it is sometimes more easy to use! :) Check it out in your food health stores!
Sarah says
We love coconut sugar because it tastes so similar to white sugar. We use it in almost everything, from pancakes to cookies to cakes. I love how it is a natural sweetener and does not cause all that ‘hyperness’ after eating desserts containing it.