38 Egg Substitutes You Probably Don't Know
free egg sub cheatsheet, and waffles
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
Inner monologue: 38 surprising egg substitutes / the function of an egg in baking
Recipe: Egg-free waffles (using baking powder as the egg sub)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- I am running a daily meditation challenge in my Discord community. Come join! It’s free!
- We are also doing weekly cooking challenges now and the winner each month gets to choose a charity for me to donate $50 to. For the first week, the challenge is to make something with baking soda. A baked good, perhaps?
Egg Substitutes
I hate flax eggs. But more on that later.
In case you haven’t heard, eggs have doubled in price since last year. Americans on average consume 278 eggs per year (jfc that’s a lot), and on average at $2.52 per dozen, that’s about 20 cents per egg, so about $55 per year. So now the average American will have to spend $110 per year on eggs. (Someone please check my math, although I do have 2 degrees in math lol).
Obviously this doesn’t matter aaaas much if you’re vegan.
The silver lining? Everyone’s talking about egg substitues!
Maybe the egg “crisis” will result in the following:
>Non-vegan Person researchers egg substitutes in an effort to save money
>Person learns you can make waffles by using baking powder as the egg sub
>Person realizes these waffles are delicious and they don’t miss the egg
>Person thinks, “What other egg-based baked goods can I make without eggs?”
>Person stumbles upon veganism
>Person starts to research veganism, and likes what they learn
Or maybe not, but one can hope.
Egg substitutes can be tricky, depending on what you’re making
Let’s talk about baking.
If cooking is art, then baking is science. Baking typically revolves around 5 central components: flour, sugar, fat, liquid, and eggs. Unlike cooking, baking requires a high degree of precision when measuring these 5 key ingedients, and a careful mix in order to produce a product as intended.
Think of a conventional cookie versus a cake. They both contain the same 5 components. But the cookie is dense and chewy, while the cake is light and fluffy.
Central to this is eggs. Sugar always makes a baked good sweet. But the function of an egg depends on the company it keeps.
I’ve come up with a method to determine the function of an egg (which I used for my now sort of defunct website foodshake that converts recipes from non-vegan to vegan), but I’m going to share that in an ebook later this year called Vegan Made Friendly or something like that.
The function of an egg
Leavning makes baked goods light, rather than flat. An egg leavens a baked good because its liquid gets converted into steam as the product is heated. Cake is a classic baked good that has enjoyed the leavening effect of an egg. You can replace one egg with:
1 tbsp baking powder + 3 tbsp water
1 tsp baking powder + 1 tbsp vinegar + 2 tbsp water
1 tsp baking powder + 1 1/2 tbsp oil + 1 1/2 tbsp water
I prefer to use baking powder and water as it’s the simplest.
Binding makes sure the baked good does not fall apart.. The fat content in an egg yolk helps bind fat and liquid together via the process of emulsion. Cookies are a typical baked good that have enjoyed the binding effect of an egg. You can replace one egg with:
1 tbsp ground flax seed (sub chia) mixed with 3 tbsp water - let it sit for 5 minutes to congeal
1 tbsp creamy nut butter
3 tbsp chickpea flour and 3 tbsp water
You can’t just always use a flax egg. You need to think about the function of the egg in the context of the recipe that it is in.
38 Egg Substitutes
If you’d like to learn about more egg substitutes for both baking and cooking, check out my cheatsheet of 38 egg subs here. (I haven’t formatted it that well yet, but hopefully the content is valuable that it doesn’t matter if it’s pretty).
Want more recipes?
If you want more vegan recipes to show your friends how easy egg-free baking is (Chocolate Chip Rice Krispie Cookies or Starbucks Lemon Loaf maybe?) then check out my recipe website at friendlyveg.com.
I add recipes every week, so you can think of it like a cookbook that’s ever increasing. It’s $5 per month. Thank you!
^ A screenshot of friendlyveg.com. There are currently 52 recipes on there, and I’m always adding more!
I veganized this from allrecipes.com using the swap I mentioned above. Keeping in mind that eggs act as a leavening agent in waffles, we use 2 tbsp baking powder plus 6 tbsp water to replace the 2 eggs. Trust me, you won’t taste the baking powder.
The ingredients for the original recipe cost $4.30. But the ingredients for the VEGAN version costs $3.56 (using average prices in Toronto in Feb 2024)!
Waffles (Egg-free of course!)
Yields: 10 waffles
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Tools:
A waffle maker
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 teaspoons + 2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups warm dairy-free milk
6 tablespoons water (or just more milk)
1/3 cup melted vegan butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
In a medium sized bowl: Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.
Add all the ingredients: in the non-dairy milk, water and melted butter (I like using soy milk). Add in the vanilla.
Mix until just incorporated.
Cook in a waffle maker until golden crisp. You’re done!
Link to printer version.
There’s so much baking powder. Will I taste it? I have used baking powder as an egg sub in dozens of recipes and have only gotten compliments on my baked goods. No one has noticed it. But the salt in the recipe helps cut the baking powder taste!
Do I need to use a waffle maker? You could probably cook these on a pan like pancakes if you want?
Try adding some mix ins: Strawberries, chocolate chips, blueberries - all tasty options!
White sugar: Sub any sugar you like. I don’t recommend maple syrup, but if you do use that, use 1.5 tbsp as it’s sweeter than white sugar.
White flour: feel free to use whole wheat, or half and half.
Melted butter: You could use oil if you like! That would be more affordable too.
Vanilla: Omit, if you want.
I only use flax egg because I am lazy and don't do any research. Will try the baking soda hack!