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Recipe

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Marshall Islands → Majuro
🥤 DRINK

Jekaro

The Marshall Islands' intensely sweet coconut sap, collected from the flowering stalk and drunk fresh, often diluted with water.
Marshallese · easy · serves 2
prep 5 min · cook 0 min
~637 cal · 5g protein · 27g carbs · 59g fat · 16g fiber · 11g sugars · 54g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Jekaro is the Marshallese name for the sweet sap of the coconut palm, drawn from the unopened flowering stalk exactly as toddy is across the Pacific. Twice a day, morning and evening, the tapper shaves a thin slice from the bound spathe and hangs a container to catch the milky-white sap that seeps out.
Fresh jekaro is prized for being genuinely, intensely sweet, so much so that many people dilute it with extra water to keep it from tasting like liquid dessert. Left a day or two it into a mild alcoholic drink and a bread leaven; boiled down instead, it becomes jekmai, a sweet coconut molasses, or is cooked further into a maple-like sugar.
Drunk fresh and cold, jekaro is an everyday treat sold at roadside stalls and served in restaurants around Majuro. It is the taste of the palm at its sweetest, and a reminder that on a low atoll the coconut tree is pantry, orchard, and drinks cabinet all at once.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
Serves 2
1 1/2 cups fresh coconut sap (jekaro)
Hard to find? chilled fresh coconut water sweetened with a little coconut sugar - stands in when no tapped palm is available; true jekaro is far sweeter and milkier
1/2 to 1 cup cold water, to taste
a handful ice
Instructions
1
Strain the freshly collected jekaro through a clean cloth into a jug.
✎ Chef’s note
Fresh jekaro is famously, almost overwhelmingly sweet, which is why locals routinely cut it with water.
2
Add cold water to taste to soften the sweetness to your liking.
3
Pour over plenty of ice in tall glasses.
4
Serve immediately, while it is fresh and before the wild yeasts turn it sour.
Majuro tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Majuro. Fermented breadfruit has a name and a method: bwiro. Green breadfruit is scraped and cored, soaked in seawater for days, kneaded and then buried in a leaf-lined pit, where it keeps for a year or more against a lean season or a storm. The dried forms, jaankun and manakajen, keep longer still.
🗺️
Marshall Islands. Marshallese food is Micronesian and reef-based, fish, breadfruit, taro, and coconut, with pandan and banana for sweetness. The atoll and the ocean shape a resourceful island table.
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Oceania. The staple crops here were carried on purpose. Lapita voyagers moving east from roughly three thousand years ago brought taro, yam, banana, breadfruit and coconut with them along with pigs and chickens, because most of the islands they settled had almost nothing edible growing on them. The earth oven travelled too, as umu, imu, hangi, lovo, mumu, motu and um.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Marshall Islands
Bwiro with FishPreserved-breadfruit dumplings in sweet coconut, served with grilled reef fish.
Marshallese Banana PancakesThick, sweet banana pancakes flecked with coconut, griddled golden, a modern Marshall Islands breakfast favorite.
Marshallese Macaroni SaladA cool, creamy macaroni salad with tinned tuna and crisp vegetables, the potluck staple of the Marshall Islands.
Browse all Marshall Islands recipes →

Good to know

Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.

Make it a Marshall Islands meal

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Frequently asked questions

What is Jekaro?

The Marshall Islands' intensely sweet coconut sap, collected from the flowering stalk and drunk fresh, often diluted with water.

Where does Jekaro come from?

Jekaro is a Marshallese dish from Majuro, Marshall Islands.

Can Jekaro be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?

This Jekaro recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.

Is Jekaro safe for people with food allergies?

Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.

How long does Jekaro take to make?

About 5 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 0 minutes cooking), serving 2.
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