Dairy Questions: Egg Substitions
As though by magic, Covid-19 has transformed simple pictures of eggs in cartons into food porn!
I’m seeing a lot of questions from people about what to do if they still can’t get eggs, so I figured I should address that here this week. Yes, eggs really are counted amongst dairy products, despite being neither milk nor an (embryonic) animal that could produce milk once fully grown. It’s weird, it doesn’t make sense, and I am never going to understand it, but yes - eggs count as dairy. This will be the first of a two-parter on dairy substitutions!
BIG EDIT! It’s been asked in the comments (I’m assuming no one but me and Sabrina reads those), why eggs are counted as dairy when they cannot be counted as dairy. My answer was:
“It's based exclusively on how grocery stores handle it, that people generally consider it dairy. You are absolutely correct that this eggs have no possible way of being lumped in with proper, technical definitions. I'll edit the post to reflect that, and thank you for bringing up the fact that I did NOT mention this caveat originally!”
Apologies, y’all, for skipping over that very important fact while I was drafting, and thank you, Clintwb for pointing out a serious oversight in this post! I love it when someone tells me there’s an issue with what I’ve written!
My store is still out of eggs! Halp!
If you don’t have eggs and you aren’t trying to eat them for breakfast, you have several options of varying degrees of ease and simplicity:
Aquafaba
You may have heard of this enigmatic substance before, and wondered about it right before you dismissed it as hippie nonsense. But what is it?
Chickpea juice! Yes, straight up, the “juice” from your can of chickpeas is aquafaba! I have actually tried this with the cooking liquid of homecooked chickpeas and found it entirely ineffective. I assume what’s going on here is that the commercial canning process puts those beans in the cans dry and then ultra-pressure cans them, making this liquid a far more concentrated version than what you can get at home without canning your own beans. Ain’t no one got time for all that right now. Or maybe we do, since we’re all stuck at home!
Literally everyone I know who prefers to not consume actual eggs tells me that this is the best evar egg substitute, with 3 tablespoons of aquafaba being the same as a single fresh egg in your recipes. Works on meringues, brownie mixes, whatever you’re baking. They all swear by it, so I feel like we should trust them since they don’t debate the veracity of the claim at all ever. As I understand this, you can freeze your aquafaba. I personally would do this in 3 tablespoon increments so all your “eggs” are measured out for you!
I make my own beans from dry in most cases, so I haven’t tried the canned juice. Y’all tell me how it goes if you decide to concentrate your own bean juice cooked from dry. I also have no idea if this works for other kinds of canned beans, because no one seems to know (I assume chickpeas are everyone’s favorite, since they’re the best beans of all other than gigantes).
Use the juice for your baking adventures, then roast the beans at 450F/220C/Gas Mark 8 for 15-30 minutes for some lovely, crunchy, leblebi! Cloves or just salt and pepper are popular spice options for this treat.
Dried eggs
You probably can’t find these right now, but they are a thing. Whole eggs, white, and yolks can be spray dried and ground into powder so you can just use some of it with water to make your own. This is fine, in the “fresh eggs” arena, for scrambled or omelette. Otherwise, use for baking. I keep dried whites and yolks (but not whole) stocked in my kitchen year round, because my kid eats a lot of fresh eggs and so I’m used to needing a replacement.
Ground flax or chia seed
Yep, more hippie stuff that is absolutely true. Take around a tablespoon of your ground seeds and whisk with around 3 tablespoons of water. Some people do a scant tablespoon, or monkey with the water a bit, but on average you’re looking for a 1:3 ratio on that. This is only good for baking, and you probably don’t want to try to use it to replace fresh eggs in situations where eating an egg is what you want. These two seeds effectively just allow the structural benefits of eggs in a recipe to be maintained rather than “replacing” an egg in the breakfast sense.
These here are a type of flax flower, which is what produces your seeds!
Apple Sauce, mashed banana, mashed avocado, mashed gourd, and fruits in general
I have tried this with apple sauce, and I’m not gonna pretend I liked the end result. Many people do, however, so let’s make sure it’s on the list! A quarter cup of any of these mashed fruits will replace an egg in most recipes for brownies, cakes, cookies, and quick breads (breads you make with baking powder or soda instead of yeast). I haven’t tried the other vegan options of this type, but I do know many vegans who use the range of these options and are satisfied with the outcomes. Make sure you add in a half teaspoon of baking powder to keep the final product from being dense.
Egg Replacer
This is a cool mystery mix (not really; it’s on the ingredients list on the package) of various starches and seeds that you can use to replace eggs in baking. I keep this in the house as well, for times I don’t want to use fresh or dried eggs. Unlike banana, it will not affect the flavor of your final products.
If you’re cooler than me and like bananas, here’s the start of a beautiful friendship between bananas and your baked goods!
Vinegar and baking soda
This one is awesome. I’ve tried it a lot of times in Wacky Cake, a style of cake developed during WWII to deal with treats and war rations. There are, of course, other War Cakes that use a similar method of replacing all dairy. If you’re making a cake, this is my vote. The crumbs of these cakes are almost delicate and definitely do provide a smoother, silkier texture to the end product. The general formula here is 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon of vinegar per egg you need.
Tofu
I haven’t tried this one. I’ve only not tried it because I generally only eat tofu if it’s deep fried (because deep fried) or in miso soup, so I just don’t ever keep this in the fridge or pantry. That said, I know just as many people as y’all probably do who love this substitution. The general formula here is the same as most of these techniques: quarter cup of pureed silken tofu replaces an egg. I have no idea what the difference between silken and non tofu is, and I’m scared of looking it up. Y’all tell me if the answer isn’t scary! I’m told this is replaces fresh eggs entirely for omelettes and scrambled.
Peanut butter
Evidently you can use 3 tablespoons of peanut butter per egg replaced! There will obviously be flavor differences, so you’ll need to decide if peanut butter flavor is in conflict with what you’re doing. You can also use other nut butters in place of peanut.
Despite my generalized dislike of the texture of non-fried tofu, I really would like someone to put a container of this salad in front of my door.
Other dairy!
To be honest, this one threw me off a bit. Because I’ve been stocking and using dried eggs and egg replacers for a fair bit of time, I never really thought to look deeply into these matters until people started asking me. I initially planned to do eggs and milk in one post, but then I started researching and found out no way will that work!
You may use:
1/4 cup of yogurt or buttermilk to replace one egg in brownies, cakes, or cupcakes. I usually use yogurt or buttermilk to replace milk in recipes, but good to know!
1/4 cup of sweetened condensed milk (no way!) can be used in place of 1 egg in your cookie recipes! I will probably need to check that out this week!
Dulce de leche - the very very most yes thing you can do with sweetened condensed milk, other than replacing eggs with it!
Other types of replacers
Soy Powder
1 tablespoon powder to 3 tablespoons water for 1 egg!
Agar Agar, Xanthan Gum, and Vegetable Oil
Agar agar gets 1 teaspoon and a tablespoon of water per egg. Xanthan gets a teaspoon with no water added, and vegetable oil (only to use in recipes where the egg is what rises your bake) is 1 1/2 tablespoons oil + 1 1/2 tablespoons water + 1 teaspoon baking powder = 1 egg.
Arrowroot Powder
Arrowroot works here too! Who knew there were so many ways to get around the egg issue? 2 tablespoons of powder and 3 of water for a single egg.
Tomato paste, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, potato flakes, potato starch
3 tablespoons of any of these should perform the same binding action as an egg will.
Carbonated Water
Another for the “who knew?” files! It’s the standard quarter cup of carbonated water per egg being replaced. This is good for cakes and quick breads.
This is rather a lot of options to weigh for egg replacement, and I encourage you to evaluate not only what’s in your house right now, but how each option will affect the final product you’re looking for. Mostly because some of these really will change the color or flavor of your baked goods!
If y’all are aware of other substitutions my research didn’t reveal, please tell us all about them in the comments!
A roundup of some of these options (and a couple not covered) from Pintrest!
