Figure 1a shows the amounts of destabilized oil in coco- nut oil-in-water emulsions after emulsions being frozen at -20 °C for 22 h and thawed. Emulsion samples with addition of ESL at different concentrations of 1 wt% to 9 wt% had lesser than 10 wt% of destabilized oil. The amounts of desta- bilized oil were not significantly different in all emulsions with different concentrations of ESL. Figure 1b and Supple- mentary Fig. 1 show mean oil droplet sizes and corresponded oil droplet size distributions of initially prepared emulsions and freeze thawed emulsions. The initial mean droplet sizes of emulsions varied with ESL concentrations. By increas- ing ESL concentrations, the initial mean droplet sizes (d3,2) of emulsions gradually decreased. The decrease in mean droplet sizes was corresponding to reduction of interfacial tension as emulsifier concentrations increased. From Fig. 1b, the mean droplet size of emulsions approached a minimum of ~ 0.5 μm when ESL concentration reached 5 wt%, and the mean droplet sizes did not significantly alter after addi- tion of ESL at higher concentrations. Saturated adsorption of ESL at oil–water interface might had been occurred at this concentration. Some excess amounts of ESL would be presenting in the bulk emulsions when applying ESL at a concentration higher than 5 wt%. After the freeze–thaw process, the mean droplet sizes of emulsions stabilized by 1, 3, 5, and 7 wt% ESL significantly increased. The mean droplet sizes of emulsion stabilized by 1 wt% ESL increasedby a factor of ~ 3, while emulsions stabilized by 3, 5, and 7 wt% ESL became more stable and the sizes increased by a smaller factor (Supplementary Fig. 1). The mean droplet sizes (d3,2) of freeze thawed emulsions stabilized by 9 wt% remained stable at 0.58 ± 0.13 μm, not significantly different from the initial emulsion size of 0.51 ± 0.06 μm (Table 1). Figure 1c shows that droplet size distributions of emulsions stabilized by 9 wt% ESL remained at the same position before and after freeze–thaw process (Fig. 1c), indicated that coconut oil-in-water emulsions stabilized by 9 wt% ESL were freeze thaw stable.