How do I substitute an ingredient I do not have?
The substitutions that work, the ones that do not, and how to tell which category you are in before committing.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 5 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Ask what the ingredient is doing — flavour, structure, moisture, acidity or leavening. Flavour is usually swappable; structure and leavening usually are not. Baking is far less forgiving than cooking.
A substitution succeeds or fails on the ingredient's job, not its name. Swapping one herb for another is trivial because it only contributes flavour. Swapping bicarbonate of soda for baking powder is not, because it is doing chemistry.
Step by step
- Identify the ingredient's job first.Flavour, structure, moisture, fat, acid or leavening. This decides whether a substitution is safe before you look for one.
- Swap flavours freely.Herbs, spices, most vegetables, stocks, wines. The dish changes but it will work. Use roughly a third as much dried herb as fresh.
- Be careful with fats.Oil for butter works in many bakes but changes the texture, since butter contains water and creates structure. Use about 80% as much oil as butter by weight.
- Treat acids as interchangeable by strength.Lemon juice, lime, white wine vinegar and cider vinegar substitute for each other roughly one for one. Balsamic and malt are much stronger in flavour.
- Do not improvise leavening.Baking powder is bicarbonate of soda plus an acid. You can make powder from soda plus cream of tartar, but you cannot swap them one for one.
- Know the reliable dairy swaps.Buttermilk: milk plus a spoon of lemon juice, left ten minutes. Soured cream and natural yoghurt substitute well. Milk for cream changes richness and splits more easily.
- Use a real egg substitute for the right job.Eggs bind, leaven and enrich. For binding, ground flaxseed and water works. For leavening in a cake, it usually does not.
- Accept a different dish rather than a failed one.If the substitution is doing structural work, it is often better to make something else than to make a poor version of this.
Tips
- In cooking, substitute confidently. In baking, substitute cautiously — the ratios are doing chemistry, not just carrying flavour.
- Self-raising flour is plain flour plus about two teaspoons of baking powder per 150g. That one is reliably interchangeable.
- Cornflour and plain flour both thicken, but cornflour has roughly twice the power and gives a glossy rather than matt finish.
Questions people ask
Can I use baking powder instead of bicarbonate of soda?
Not directly. Baking powder is weaker and already contains acid. Roughly three times as much powder can work, but the result will differ.
What can I use instead of buttermilk?
Milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per 250ml, left for ten minutes. It is a genuinely good substitute.