Recipe for a vegan Coconut Panna Cotta made out of coconut milk! Topped with a wonderful Blueberry Topping. So rich and creamy! You’ll only need 5 ingredients!
I loved Panna Cotta before I went vegan. So of course, I had to veganize it. And this Coconut Panna Cotta is the perfect plant-based alternative to the otherwise dairy-loaded dessert.
I’ve topped the Coconut Panna Cotta with a quick and easy blueberry sauce for which you’ll need only frozen blueberries and maple syrup. I love the combination of the cold Panna Cotta and warm blueberry sauce. Or top it with this Caramel Sauce – it’s so good!
How to make Panna Cotta without gelatin?
For this vegan Panna Cotta, we’re using agar powder, which is the perfect alternative! I find agar (or agar-agar) even easier to work with than gelatine sheets. Agar is obtained from algae. You can buy it in powder or flakes. The powder is much more powerful, so if you want to use agar flakes for this recipe I’d recommend using 3x the amount.

Coconut Panna Cotta with a Blueberry Topping
Ingredients
- 12 oz full-fat coconut milk
- 3/4 teaspoon agar powder
- 1/4 cup white sugar (make sure it's vegan)
- 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
Instructions
- In a pot, heat the coconut milk, the agar powder, and the white sugar.
- Bring it a boil, then reduce the heat. Let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes after that.
- Pour it into your dishes and let it cool off before placing it in the fridge for at least 4 hours. (You could also make this the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight - This is what I did)
- To make the blueberry topping, heat the blueberries in a small pot and add in the maple syrup. Let it cook for about 5 minutes until soft and saucy.
- Top the Coconut Panna Cotta with the Blueberry topping before serving and enjoy!
Miss Polkadot
This looks totally amazing. My mum has been asking me to prepare coconut panna cotta for years yet we somehow kept forgetting whenever it came to choosing vegan desserts for celebrations. I might forward this to her.
Oh, and as a first time commenter: hi!
bianca
Hi! Thank you so much for your sweet comment. I’d love to hear how it turned out, if you decide to make it. :)
Gwen @ Delightful Adventures
This looks delicious, I love coconut-based desserts. Pinned and making this soon :) Thanks!
bianca
Thank you so much for your comment and pin! :) If you do try it, I’d love to hear how it turned out!
sandi ramirez
Not understanding what you mean in the step about the vanilla bean. Where exactly are we putting the scrapped seeds from the beans? Into the pot /pan where we are warming our coconut milk and other ingredients?
Bianca
Sorry, I could have been clearer about that. Yes, add the scraped vanilla to the coconut milk in the pot :)
Donna B
I can’t see vanilla as an ingredient. Am I missing something?
Bianca
Sorry for the confusion! I updated the recipe a few months ago and removed the vanilla. That way, the panna cotta is perfectly white without black spots of the vanilla :) You can add vanilla extract if you want vanilla taste!
Monica
Hi! Can I use stevia instead of sugar? Thank you
Bianca
Hi Monica,
I haven’t tried these with stevia yet but I’m pretty sure they will work with stevia too!
Nicks
Hey! I have a question. What do you mean with “full fat milk”? Is it the same as coconut cream? Can I use coconut milk instead? Thank you :D
Bianca
Full-fat coconut milk is coconut milk that is canned. It’s 60% coconut and the rest is water.
Thin coconut milk (to drink) won’t work for this panna cotta because it contains much more water.
Julie
Hi! We made this panna cotta last week-end, and we had the strangest thing happen: the coconut cream completely separated from the rest of the mixture and we ended up with a grayish jelly, really firm, covered by a top layer of coconut cream. It wasn’t pleasant at all… We used the exact ingredients and method mentioned, so we’re really wondering what went wrong! Any idea?
Alena
Use a hand mixer to mix the coconut milk after it all has been heated and cooked. I also made this recipe and the coconut milk was in pieces so I used mixer and it turned out 👌🏼
Karen
Dying to try this
Have you tried that coconut condensed milk out now, available on the Internet but unfortunately not seen in supermarkets round here yet. It is amazing
Gentle
Can I use cornstarch instead of agar powder?
Thank you so much!
Emily
Hi! I haven’t tried the recipe but cornstarch and agar powder behave very differently, so I doubt it would work. The cornstarch wouldn’t set it. Agar acts more like gelatine.
Paula
You can do it woth corn starch. It will have a different texture but it works. I come from Brazil where we have a very popular ahd traditional desert that is male with coconut milk and corn starch. You can try to check online for manjar de coco (coconut manjar)
Susan
I’d love to try this recipe but I’ve found Agar Powder to be quite costly. Do you know if this will work with Pectin as well? Thanks!
Bianca
I haven’t tried it with pectin, so I don’t know. sorry! If you have an Asian market nearby, they usually have cheap agar powder.