Paleo diets are simple, effective, and have helped countless people lose weight and live healthier lives. Unfortunately, for modern humans, the paleo diet feels restrictive. If you follow the paleo diet 100% to the letter, you’re only allowed to eat grass-fed meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and anything else that early humans would have had access to. Noticeably absent from that list is coffee and dairy products.
Coffee is technically not paleo, but it is somewhat of a gray area since coffee beans are just seeds of a naturally occurring fruit and don’t contain any chemicals or preservatives. Creamer, however, is not in a gray area at all and is definitely not paleo-friendly. So what should you do if you’re interested in following a paleo diet and also a coffee drinker that takes their hot bean water with creamer? In this article, we’re going to give you a recipe for paleo coffee creamer but be forewarned: hardcore paleo dieters look away because we’re going to bend some rules. Let’s get started!
Dairy: The Enemy of Paleo
Most people are willing to cheat a little on the paleo rules when it comes to coffee, but including dairy in a paleo diet defeats the purpose entirely. No matter how you slice it, milk and cream are not paleo, so our creamer recipe will have to find an alternative. There are several good candidates among the alternative milk options, but we chose coconut milk for our creamer. Coconut milk is dead simple, consisting of only coconut and water, making it the perfect candidate base for a paleo coffee creamer.
As a bonus, coconut milk is one of the easier non-dairy kinds of milk to whisk and froth, which will help create a paleo coffee creamer with body and thickness.
Dairy-Free Paleo Coffee Creamer Recipe
- Small saucepan with lid
- Strainer
- Glass jar for storage
- 1 can of coconut milk (~13.5 ounces)
- 1 vanilla bean pod
- A pinch of salt
Steps
- Combine the coconut milk and a pinch of salt in a small saucepan.
- Heat the coconut milk and salt on low to medium heat until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat well before boiling!
- Open 1 vanilla bean pod and pour the seeds into the heated coconut milk. After you’ve added the seeds, add the pod.
- Stir the vanilla seeds and vanilla pod into the coconut milk. Note: they will usually not dissolve.
- Cover the saucepan and let the mixture cool for at least 30 minutes. The longer you leave it, the more vanilla flavor you’ll wind up with.
- Use a strainer to remove the vanilla bean pod and seeds from the coconut milk.
- Decant the creamer into a glass jar, cover it with a lid, and store it in the refrigerator. The creamer will keep in the fridge for up to one week.
Helpful Tips
Sometimes coconut milk creamer will freeze and clump in the refrigerator, depending on how much salt you added and the temperature of your refrigerator. One way to smooth out your coconut milk creamer’s texture and prevent freezing is to add a bit of almond milk to the creamer in the first step. You can play around with how much almond milk to use, but we recommend starting with 1-3 tablespoons.
Our recommendation is to use unflavored almond milk since some flavored varieties can violate paleo diet principles. The safest bet is to go with an unflavored, unsweetened version since we’re already bending the rules by drinking coffee in the first place.
You can use any storage container you like, but make sure you choose one with a lid. If you do not seal your creamer tightly, it won’t last as long. We recommend glass over other materials like plastic since glass won’t stain or retain flavors, meaning you can reuse the jar for other purposes. We made the mistake of storing coconut creamer in a plastic container once, and it has become the coconut creamer container exclusively due to lingering flavor.
Paleo Coffee Creamer Recipe
Equipment
- Small saucepan with lid
- Strainer
- Glass jar for storage
Ingredients
- 1 can Coconut milk (~13.5 ounces)
- 1 Vanilla bean pod
- A pinch of salt
Instructions
- Combine the coconut milk and a pinch of salt in a small saucepan.
- Heat the coconut milk and salt on low to medium heat until it starts to bubble. Remove from heat well before boiling!
- Open 1 vanilla bean pod and pour the seeds into the heated coconut milk. After you've added the seeds, add the pod.
- Stir the vanilla seeds and vanilla pod into the coconut milk. Note: they will usually not dissolve.
- Cover the saucepan and let the mixture cool for at least 30 minutes. The longer you leave it, the more vanilla flavor you'll wind up with.
- Use a strainer to remove the vanilla bean pod and seeds from the coconut milk.
- Decant the creamer into a glass jar, cover with a lid, and store it in the refrigerator. The creamer will keep in the fridge for up to one week.
Nutrition
Final Thoughts
Paleo diets are restrictive by design, but that does not mean you have to forgo coffee entirely. While coffee is a borderline gray area, creamer is firmly non-paleo, so you’ll have to make your own out of non-dairy milk. We recommend coconut milk as a base for paleo coffee creamer since it is simple, ingredient-wise, and delicious. If you have problems with lumpiness and freezing, you can add a little unsweetened almond milk to smooth out your creamer’s texture.
Featured Image Credit: Pixabay
