Skip to main content

Tropical Fruit Salad with Coconut Cream

An easy, rich, and creamy fruit topping using coconut milk! (A clean, whole, vegan dessert or snack.)

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Coconut and mango match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 221 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 10
Prep25 min

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Peel and cube the watermelon (rind removed), pineapple, and mango, and slice the kiwi. Place all the fruit in a large bowl.

  2. In a small saucepan, whisk the cornstarch with a splash of the coconut milk until smooth. Whisk in the remaining coconut milk.

  3. Heat over medium, stirring constantly, for about 3 to 4 minutes until thickened and glossy. Remove from the heat.

  4. Whisk in the confectioners sugar, vanilla extract, and lime zest until smooth. Let the coconut cream cool for 10 minutes.

  5. Gently fold the kiwi into the fruit, then spoon the cooled coconut cream over the fruit or serve it on the side. Chill for at least 30 minutes before serving.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Coconut + mangotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together221 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pineapple + mangotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Lime + mangotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coconut, milk, sugar, vanilla, pineapple, mango):

  1. Bananabetter flavor fit
  2. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Peachbetter flavor fit
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, milk, sugar, vanilla, pineapple, mango. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).