01
Olive Oil
10.01 cup : 1 cup
Adds slight coconut flavor, good for sauteing
10.0
coconut oil substitutes
15 substitutes · avg score 6.6 · Solid at room temperature, this white oil pressed from coconut meat has a sweet tropical aroma when unrefined or a neutral profile when refined. Used in baking, sauteing, curries, confectionery, and dairy-free cooking.
why you reached for it in the first place
Coconut oil is unusual among plant fats: it is solid at room temperature and melts over a narrow range not far above it. That single property is why it can do jobs that liquid oils cannot — it creams, it sets, it gives a vegan cookie the snap that shortening gives a dairy one, and it firms up again as a chocolate coating cools.
It also comes in two quite different products. Unrefined (sometimes called virgin) coconut oil carries a real tropical aroma that comes through clearly in anything delicate. Refined coconut oil has been stripped of that flavour and is essentially neutral, with a higher smoke point to go with it. A recipe that says coconut oil rarely says which, and the answer usually depends on whether you want to taste it.
Because coconut oil is a deliberate choice rather than a default, the useful question when substituting is why it was chosen. There are three common reasons: the recipe is dairy-free and needed a solid fat, the pan is going to get hot and needed something stable, or the flavour was wanted. Whichever reason applies to you narrows the list below sharply — and the reasons do not overlap much.
choosing
solid fat, high heat, or flavour
If you needed a solid fat — creaming, cutting into pastry, setting a raw slice or a chocolate shell — then only the entries that are solid at room temperature will do. Palm oil at 7.5 is the closest match, described exactly that way. Shortening at 6.7 has the same solid texture and works well in baking. Margarine at 6.7 keeps the dish dairy-free while staying solid, and butter at 6.7 has the same solid-at-room-temperature behaviour with added richness, at the cost of the recipe no longer being dairy-free. Lard at 5.0 is solid too, though it is an animal fat and rules out anything vegetarian.
If the reason was heat, the list is different and the scores are higher than you might expect. Avocado oil at 6.7 is called out for high-heat cooking with a neutral taste. Grapeseed oil, also 6.7, has a light flavour and a high smoke point. Peanut oil at 6.7 works if you use the refined kind, which stays neutral when hot. Ghee at 6.7 has the highest smoke point of the group and adds a nutty richness that is very welcome in baking and less welcome in something meant to taste clean.
If the reason was flavour, nothing on this list replaces it, and that is worth saying plainly. Almond oil at 10.0 is the one entry that engages with the question at all: refined almond oil is neutral, unrefined brings its own character. If a recipe's coconut oil was chosen because a macaroon or a curry should taste faintly of coconut, a spoon of coconut extract or some toasted desiccated coconut does more for you than any fat swap will.
For everything else — a muffin batter, a tray bake, a sauté where the oil was simply the medium — the liquid oils do fine. Olive oil scores 10.0 here and works well in savoury cooking, though its own fruitiness carries into sweet baking. Vegetable oil and sunflower oil both sit at 3.3, and the low scores make sense once you read the vegetable oil instruction: measure the coconut oil melted and match that volume. They are neutral and cheap and they will never give you a fat that is solid when it goes into the tin, which is precisely what the score is registering.
convert coconut oil measurements
quick swaps (averaged across uses)
02
Almond Oil
10.01 tbsp : 1 tbsp
Refined type is neutral; unrefined adds flavor
10.0
03
Palm Oil
7.51 tbsp : 1 tbsp
Solid at room temp, similar texture
7.5
04
Butter
6.71 cup : 1 cup
Similar solid-at-room-temp texture, adds richness
6.7
05
Avocado Oil
6.71 cup : 1 cup
Good for high-heat cooking, neutral taste
6.7
06
Shortening
6.71 cup : 1 cup
Same solid texture, works well in baking
6.7