Ingredient substitutes.

You’re mid-recipe and something is missing. Search it, get the measured swap, and see what it changes before you commit.

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Substitutes, measured

Each swap with its ratio, what it changes in the result, and when no swap will save the recipe.

15 ingredients, with every measured swap.

Buttermilk

Swaps for 1 cup (240ml)

1 tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar topped up to 1 cup with milk. Stand 10 minutes until it curdles.
Closest match. The acid does the same job of reacting with baking soda and tenderising gluten.
Best for Pancakes, biscuits, soda bread, marinades
¾ cup plain yogurt thinned with ¼ cup milk or water.
Slightly thicker and tangier. Adds a little more fat.
Best for Cakes, muffins, dressings
1 cup milk + 1¾ tsp cream of tartar.
Works, but whisk the cream of tartar into the dry ingredients or it clumps.

Egg (in baking)

Swaps for 1 large egg

1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 3 tbsp water, rested 5 minutes until gelled.
Binds well, adds a faint nuttiness and a denser, chewier crumb.
Best for Cookies, muffins, quick breads, brownies
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce.
Adds moisture and a little sweetness, but no lift. Use for at most 2 eggs.
Best for Cakes, muffins, loaf breads
3 tbsp aquafaba (chickpea tin liquid), whipped if the recipe wants volume.
The only swap that whips to a meringue-like foam.
Best for Meringue, mousse, macarons, glazes
¼ cup silken tofu, blended completely smooth.
Rich and heavy. Great structure, but it will not lighten a batter.
Best for Cheesecake, custards, dense cakes
Won’t work: Anything where eggs are the whole dish — omelettes, custard-set quiche, or a sponge that relies on 4+ whipped eggs for its rise.

Heavy / double cream

Swaps for 1 cup (240ml)

¾ cup whole milk + ¼ cup melted butter, whisked together.
Matches the fat for cooking, but it will not whip. Fine stirred into sauces and soups.
Best for Sauces, soups, ganache, baking
1 cup evaporated milk.
Thinner and slightly cooked-tasting, but stable in heat and won't split.
Best for Savoury sauces, gratins
1 cup full-fat coconut cream.
Whips well and stays dairy-free, but carries obvious coconut flavour.
Best for Desserts, curries, dairy-free whipped topping
Won’t work: Whipped cream from any milk-and-butter swap. Whipping needs ≥30% butterfat held in an intact emulsion.

Sour cream

Swaps for 1 cup

1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt.
Nearly identical in baking. Slightly tangier and a touch less rich.
1 cup crème fraîche.
Richer and far more heat-stable — it won't split in a hot sauce.
Best for Pan sauces, anything simmered
1 cup blended silken tofu + 1 tbsp lemon juice.
Dairy-free and workable, but noticeably flatter in flavour.

Baking powder

Swaps for 1 tsp

¼ tsp baking soda + ½ tsp cream of tartar, mixed fresh.
Chemically equivalent. Mix it in at the last moment — it starts reacting immediately.
¼ tsp baking soda + ½ cup buttermilk, with ½ cup of another liquid removed.
Works, but you have to rebalance the liquid or the batter turns runny.
Won’t work: Baking soda on its own. Without an acid it produces almost no lift and leaves a soapy, metallic taste.

Baking soda

Swaps for 1 tsp

3 tsp baking powder.
Triple the amount, and cut added salt slightly. Can leave a faint aftertaste at this dose.
Won’t work: Recipes leaning on soda for browning — pretzels, some cookies. Powder is less alkaline, so they come out paler.

Butter

Swaps for 1 cup (227g)

1 cup margarine or plant butter (choose a stick, not a tub).
Closest one-to-one. Tub spreads carry extra water and slacken doughs.
¾ cup neutral oil.
Moister and softer, but no creaming, so cakes lose lift and cookies spread flat.
Best for Quick breads, muffins, brownies
1 cup coconut oil, solid for creaming.
Behaves like butter structurally. Leaves a mild coconut note.
Won’t work: Laminated doughs — croissants, puff pastry, flaky pie crust. Those need butter's specific melting point and water content.

Brown sugar

Swaps for 1 cup packed

1 cup granulated sugar + 1 tbsp molasses, rubbed together with your fingers.
Indistinguishable from the real thing. Use 2 tbsp molasses for dark brown.
1 cup granulated sugar.
Works, but you lose the moisture and caramel notes — cookies come out crisper and paler.
1 cup coconut sugar.
Similar caramel depth, drier, and it won't pack the same way.

Self-raising flour

Swaps for 1 cup (120g)

1 cup all-purpose flour + 1½ tsp baking powder + ¼ tsp salt.
Exactly equivalent. Whisk thoroughly so the powder distributes.

Cornstarch

Swaps for 1 tbsp

2 tbsp all-purpose flour.
Cloudier and slightly pasty. Cook it out for a minute to lose the raw taste.
Best for Gravies, roux-based sauces
1 tbsp arrowroot or tapioca starch.
Clearer and glossier. Arrowroot breaks down if boiled hard or held hot.
Best for Fruit pies, glazes, freezer-bound sauces
1 tbsp potato starch.
Thickens fast at lower heat. Add it off the boil.

Vanilla extract

Swaps for 1 tsp

1 tsp vanilla bean paste, or ½ a scraped vanilla pod.
Stronger and visibly speckled. An upgrade in anything pale.
1 tsp maple syrup, bourbon, or dark rum.
Different flavour, but it fills the same aromatic gap in a batter.

White wine (for cooking)

Swaps for ½ cup

½ cup chicken or vegetable stock + 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice.
Recovers both the liquid and the acidity that wine was there for.
½ cup dry vermouth.
Arguably better — more aromatic and it keeps for months open.
Won’t work: Dishes where wine is the flavour, not a background note — coq au vin, risotto al vino, a proper beurre blanc.

Milk

Swaps for 1 cup (240ml)

1 cup unsweetened oat or soy milk.
The closest plant swaps for baking — enough protein and body to brown properly.
½ cup evaporated milk + ½ cup water.
Essentially reconstituted milk. Faintly cooked in flavour.
1 cup water + 1 tbsp melted butter.
Emergency only. Fine in bread dough, thin and sad in a custard.

Honey

Swaps for 1 cup

1¼ cup granulated sugar + ¼ cup extra liquid from the recipe.
Honey is sweeter and wetter than sugar, so both sides need adjusting.
1 cup maple syrup or agave nectar.
Direct one-to-one. Maple browns faster, so drop the oven 15°F / 10°C.

Breadcrumbs

Swaps for 1 cup

1 cup crushed crackers, pretzels, or cornflakes.
Crunchier and saltier — cut the salt elsewhere in the recipe.
Best for Coatings, casserole toppings
1 cup rolled oats, briefly blitzed.
Softer. Good as a binder in meatballs, poor as a crust.
Best for Meatballs, meatloaf
1 cup almond flour or crushed pork rinds.
The low-carb route. Both brown much faster, so watch the pan.

Substitute for the job, not the name

The useful question is never “what is like buttermilk?” but “what was the buttermilk doing?” Usually it’s acid, fat, moisture, binding or lift. Once you know which job is empty, the replacement is obvious and the result is predictable.

One swap at a time

Substitutions add up. Replacing the eggs, the butter and the milk in one bake stacks three approximations, and when it fails you can’t tell which one did it. Change one thing, note the result, then change the next. To resize the recipe as well, use the recipe scaler.

Real recipes, one swap each.

Three published recipes with something missing, and the first swap from the list above.

Chicken and rice casserole

Recipe from Mediterranean Recipes 2026, from their Instagram reel. Out of sour cream.

½ cup sour cream½ cup full-fat Greek yogurt

Open the recipe

Fried chicken tenders, fries, toast and dipping sauce on a plate, from Ben Chelin’s reel

Raising Cane’s chicken at home

Recipe from Ben Chelin, from his Instagram reel. Out of buttermilk.

2 cups buttermilk2 tbsp lemon juice, topped up to 2 cups with milk

Open the recipe

Rigatoni in a creamy cajun sauce with sliced chicken, from Ben Chelin’s reel

Creamy cajun chicken pasta

Recipe from Ben Chelin, from his Instagram reel. Out of heavy cream.

1 cup heavy cream¾ cup whole milk and ¼ cup melted butter

Open the recipe

Know how much you needed in the first place.

Half the problem is a video that never said the amount. ReelsMeals writes down the quantities the creator says or shows in the caption, description or voiceover, so the card has real numbers on it.

Try one reel Browse recipes

Common questions

What is the best substitute for buttermilk?

One tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar, topped up to one cup with milk and left for ten minutes until it curdles. The acid is the point: it reacts with baking soda for lift and tenderises the gluten, which is what the buttermilk was doing in the recipe.

Can I replace eggs in any recipe?

In most baking, yes: flaxseed, applesauce, aquafaba and silken tofu each cover a different part of what an egg does. You can’t replace eggs where they are the dish: an omelette, a set custard, or a sponge that relies on four whipped eggs for its whole rise has nothing left once the eggs are gone.

Will substituting change how the recipe turns out?

Almost always, at least a little. Every entry here says what changes, like a denser crumb, more tang or faster browning, so you can decide whether the trade is worth it before you commit.

Is it safe to substitute in bread and pastry?

Be more careful than with cakes. Bread depends on gluten and fermentation, and pastry depends on butter’s melting point and water content. Swapping the fat in a laminated dough is the substitution most likely to fail outright.

How do I halve a substitution?

Every entry states the amount its swaps are measured against, so scale from there. If you’re resizing the whole recipe, the recipe scaler does the arithmetic and gives back usable fractions.

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