Coconut Cream Recommendation

I have many recipes which reference coconut cream as an ingredient. I prefer a coconut cream which has no ingredients beyond coconut and maybe water. Sometimes coconut creams add stabilizers so that the cream will stay uniform, but those stabilizers sometimes trigger inflammation (guar gum is an instant "no" for me as it makes my mouth feel a little fuzzy).

Currently, my preferred cream is Trader Joe's Coconut Cream (I can't find it on Trader Joe's website). There are complaints about consistency across cans (i.e. different proportions of coconut to water than others), but I typically use multiple cans at a time and blending them together helps reduce those consistency issues for me.

Trader Joe's inventory sometimes run out, so when they are stocked I buy several so that I have plenty in my pantry.

Coconut cream without a stabilizer tends to separate so that you have a watery portion of the can and a solid portion (predominantly coconut oil). To get a smooth cream, I recommend blending the contents of the container(s) for a couple of minutes at medium speed. The cream will look chunky for a while and will get smoother as you blend for longer. Initially, it will look like dairy cream which has broken, i.e. clumpy. But unlike cream which has broken, continuing to blend coconut cream will eventually fix the texture (continuing to whip or blend cream will just make butter). When the cream is no longer chunky or grainy in appearance, it is smooth and you can stop blending. I find that getting to this texture usually takes about 90 seconds at about half speed in my Blendtec.

In the past, I have also recommended Aroy D coconut cream. This brand has multiple different versions with different stabilizers. The one without stabilizers is not always available and is difficult to distinguish from those with stabilizers without reading the fine print. Amazon might not be clear on which you will get. You can often find these at your local Asian food store--and typically at a better price than Amazon--so be sure to read the ingredients when selecting them.

Costco and other stores carry other brands of coconut cream. If you are fine with the included stabilizers,  then those are probably great choices for you.