Salty & Clever
The Substitutions
Seventy-nine ingredients you are out of, what each one is actually doing in the recipe, what genuinely replaces it, and what you give up by swapping. Four have no substitute, and it says so.
The Substitutions
You are missing one thing and the store is closed. This is the page for that.
Seventy-nine ingredients, what each one is actually doing in the recipe, what genuinely replaces it, and what you give up by swapping. The mechanism comes first, because an ingredient you understand is one you can work around, and a table of equivalents is one that fails the moment your situation is not the situation on the chart.
Four of these have no substitute. Those say so, and then say what to make instead. A page that promises everything can be swapped is a page that will lie to you at the worst possible moment.
The other seventy-five are trades rather than equivalents. Something is always given up — body, or acid, or the ability to take heat — and the question is never whether a swap exists but whether the thing it costs you is the thing this dish was built on.
- Dairy
- Eggs and leavening
- Flour, sugar, starch
- Fat
- Acid and wine
- Aromatics and seasoning
- Chocolate and vanilla
The one rule under all of this
Ask what the ingredient is doing before you ask what replaces it. Nearly everything in a recipe is doing one of four jobs: it is fat, it is acid, it is water, or it is structure. Buttermilk is acid. Butter is fat and water at the same time. An egg is structure and water and a little trapped air. Once you know which of those jobs is the one that matters in this dish, the substitution stops being a lookup and starts being obvious.
Dairy
Fat, acid and water in different proportions. Read the percentage and most of these swaps answer themselves.
Buttermilk
What it is doing Two things at once. Its acid gives baking soda something to react with, and that same acid weakens gluten, which is why a buttermilk biscuit tears soft instead of chewing tough.
Use instead Stir a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into a cup of whole milk and leave it ten minutes, until it looks slightly thickened. Closer still is plain yogurt loosened with milk until it pours like heavy cream, about ¾ cup yogurt to ¼ cup milk.
What changes Soured milk carries the acid but not the body, so the crumb comes out a little drier and the rise a shade lower. Leaving it out is the answer that fails outright: with no acid the soda has nothing to work on, and the dough sits flat.
Heavy cream
What it is doing Fat, about 36 percent of it, still held in intact globules. That is what lets it whip into a foam that stands, and what keeps it from breaking as it reduces in a hot pan.
Use instead For whipping there is nothing else, so serve the dessert with something other than whipped cream. For cooking, ¾ cup whole milk with ¼ cup melted butter stirred in stands in for a cup of cream in soups, pan sauces and baked custards.
What changes Milk and butter is a loose emulsion rather than a true one, so it enriches but will not thicken by reduction, and it splits more readily under heat. Chilled evaporated milk does foam, and then collapses within minutes of leaving the beater.
Sour cream
What it is doing About 20 percent fat plus lactic acid. The fat softens crumb and carries flavor; the acid feeds baking soda and keeps a spooned sauce from tasting flat.
Use instead Full-fat plain yogurt, cup for cup, and Greek yogurt is nearer still. Going into anything hot, stir a teaspoon of cornstarch into each cup of yogurt first, warm it with a ladle of the cooking liquid, then add it off the heat.
What changes Yogurt is leaner and wetter, so the cake is a touch less tender, and it curdles at a simmer where sour cream holds. Nonfat yogurt breaks almost on contact with heat; if it does, the repair is on The Rescue.
Crème fraîche
What it is doing Cultured cream at roughly 30 percent fat and mild acidity. That much fat shields the proteins, which is why it can go into a boiling pan sauce and stay smooth.
Use instead If you want to make cultured cream at home, use a tested culturing process rather than leaving cream at room temperature until it merely looks thick. Current extension guidance heats the cream, inoculates it with an active culture, and incubates to a verified pH of 4.6 or below before chilling. Tonight, sour cream carries the tang and plain heavy cream carries the body without turning a substitution into an improvised fermentation.
What changes Sour cream curdles if the sauce boils, so add it off the heat and expect a thinner coat on the spoon. Heavy cream holds but leaves the dish sweeter and rounder, and it wants a squeeze of lemon at the end to stand in for the culture.
Whole milk
What it is doing Water, about 3¼ percent fat, and the protein and lactose that brown a crust. The fat is there for tenderness; the sugar and protein are why a milk-washed top goes deep gold.
Use instead A cup of skim or 1 percent milk with 1½ tablespoons of heavy cream stirred in. Equal parts evaporated milk and water is the same idea run backward. Or ⅓ cup half-and-half topped up to a cup with water.
What changes Very little, once the fat is matched. Unsweetened soy milk is the closest plant substitute because it has protein to brown with; almond milk has little protein and little sugar, so the crust stays pale and the crumb reads slightly gummy.
Half-and-half
What it is doing Milk and cream premixed to about 11 percent fat, rich enough to stay smooth in hot coffee and to enrich a custard without weighing it down.
Use instead ¾ cup whole milk with ¼ cup heavy cream, which lands within half a point of the real thing. Undiluted evaporated milk, at roughly 8 percent fat, is close enough for cooking and steadier than either one under heat.
What changes Nothing worth naming. This is the rare swap that costs you none of the dish, since half-and-half is only those two things stirred together. What does not work is milk with a spoon of melted butter: in coffee the fat beads on the surface rather than dispersing.
Evaporated milk
What it is doing Milk with most of its water boiled off, then sterilized in the sealed can, which denatures the proteins enough that it will not curdle in a hot or acidic dish.
Use instead Simmer 2 cups of whole milk gently down to 1 cup, stirring so it does not catch, and cool it before it goes in. Where the recipe wants richness more than concentration, ¾ cup whole milk with ¼ cup heavy cream will do the same work.
What changes Home-reduced milk has not had the same heat treatment, so it is more fragile in an acidic filling. Plain milk from the carton is the swap that shows most: a pumpkin pie made with it sets loose and weeps, because the missing solids were the setting agent.
Sweetened condensed milk
What it is doing Milk reduced by about half and carrying sugar to roughly 45 percent of its weight. In a no-bake filling the sugar concentration is what sets the thing; add lime juice and the proteins firm up on the counter, with no oven involved.
Use instead Nothing on the shelf swaps in. Evaporated milk with sugar stirred through stays liquid, because the water is still in it. Cook a batch or change the dessert: 3 cups whole milk with ¾ cup sugar, simmered down to a scant 1¼ cups over about 40 minutes, chills to roughly the right place.
What changes A homemade batch runs thinner and darker and sets a key lime pie softer, so give it an extra hour cold. In fudge and caramel, which get cooked regardless, the difference disappears.
Cream cheese
What it is doing Acid-set curd at about 33 percent fat, firm when cold. In cheesecake it sets with the eggs into a dense custard; in frosting its tang is what keeps a pound of powdered sugar from tasting like candy.
Use instead Neufchâtel, cup for cup, is the true drop-in. Mascarpone works in frosting and at the richer end of cheesecake. Whole-milk ricotta, drained an hour and blended smooth, holds up in a baked filling with a tablespoon of lemon juice added per pound.
What changes Neufchâtel has a third less fat and a little more water, so the cake sets softer. Mascarpone brings no acid at all, which leaves a frosting sweet and flat, and it grains if you beat it hard, so bring it together slowly.
Ricotta
What it is doing Fresh, barely salted curd that holds water and stays in soft grains. In a lasagna layer that is what keeps the filling loose and creamy rather than melting into strings the way mozzarella does.
Use instead Whole-milk cottage cheese, drained in a sieve and pulsed a few times, is the nearest thing. Whole-milk plain yogurt drained an hour on cheesecloth works in a savory filling. Farmer’s cheese mashed with a spoonful of cream holds its shape well.
What changes Cottage cheese is saltier and tangier, so cut the salt in the filling by about half and taste before adding more. Drain whatever you use: the substitutes all carry more water, and a cannoli or a cheesecake made with them weeps.
Mascarpone
What it is doing Cream set with acid, 40 percent fat or better, with almost no tang. The fat is what lets it hold whipped air in a tiramisu and stay spoonable rather than rubbery straight from the refrigerator.
Use instead Beat 8 ounces of cream cheese smooth and fold in ⅓ cup of heavy cream. For a closer match, whip 1 cup of heavy cream to soft peaks and fold that into the 8 ounces instead, which puts the fat back up where mascarpone keeps it.
What changes Cream cheese is sour where mascarpone is sweet, and the gums in block cream cheese set firmer. Either one grains if you overwork it, and mascarpone goes from smooth to curdled in about five seconds, so fold rather than whip.
Plain yogurt
What it is doing Milk set by live cultures into a soft acid gel. The acid gives baking soda its reaction and tenderizes meat slowly; the gel is why a yogurt marinade clings to a thigh instead of sliding off it.
Use instead Sour cream, cup for cup, in batters and on the table. Buttermilk works where the batter can take a thinner liquid: use ¾ cup for each cup of yogurt and hold back a little of the other liquid. Greek yogurt is strained, so thin it with milk until it drops off a spoon.
What changes Sour cream is fattier and less sour, so a soda-leavened cake rises a little less; add ½ teaspoon of lemon juice per cup to make up the acid. Meat marinated in it browns better and tenderizes less.
Eggs and leavening
The section where the arithmetic is checkable and getting it wrong is visible from across the room.
A whole egg, in a cake or quick bread
What it is doing Three things at once, and which one dominates decides the swap: it is water, it is protein that sets into structure, and it holds a little air. In a butter cake or a muffin it is mostly moisture and binding.
Use instead Per egg, ¼ cup of unsweetened applesauce, mashed banana, or plain yogurt, plus ¼ teaspoon of baking powder to cover the lift it was giving. A tablespoon of ground flaxseed stirred into 3 tablespoons of water and left ten minutes until it thickens binds better and moistens worse.
What changes A denser, damper crumb that stays soft a day longer. Two eggs is the ceiling. A sponge or an angel food cake is egg foam with flour in it, and there is nothing there to stand in for.
A whole egg, as the binder in meatballs or a burger
What it is doing Less than it is given credit for. The egg sets around 150°F and glues the mix together, but salt has already done most of that work by dissolving muscle protein into a tacky paste.
Use instead For meatballs, a panade: ¼ cup of breadcrumbs soaked in 3 tablespoons of milk per pound of meat, mashed smooth before the meat goes in. It binds as well as the egg and keeps the inside moist through a long simmer. For a burger, leave the egg out and put nothing in its place; salted ground beef holds together once it is shaped.
What changes The panade version is softer and less springy, and it browns a shade faster from the milk sugars. A burger with egg in it was always denser than it needed to be.
Egg whites
What it is doing Protein and water with no fat at all. The protein unfolds at the wall of each air bubble to hold a foam, then sets in the heat. The absence of fat is the point: a speck of yolk will keep whites from whipping.
Use instead Aquafaba, the liquid drained from a can of chickpeas, 3 tablespoons per white, whipped with ⅛ teaspoon of cream of tartar. For sealing a pastry or gluing seeds to a loaf, a brush of milk or cream browns nearly the same.
What changes Aquafaba takes two to three times as long to reach stiff peaks and the foam is weaker once anything is folded into it, so meringues weep sooner. It is not a drop-in for structure: an angel food cake built on it will not hold its height.
Egg yolks
What it is doing Lecithin, which holds fat and water together, and protein that thickens a stirred custard at 175 to 180°F, well below a simmer, with no flour in it at all.
Use instead For a pudding, cornstarch: 2 tablespoons per 2 cups of milk for a pourable custard, 3 for one that holds a spoon mark. If whole eggs are on hand, one does roughly the thickening of two yolks in a baked custard. For richness in a dough or a dressing, a tablespoon of heavy cream or soft butter per yolk.
What changes Starch sets by swelling rather than by protein coagulating, so the texture is cleaner and blander and never gets the clinging body of a yolk. Nothing stands in for a yolk in mayonnaise or hollandaise; those sauces are lecithin holding an emulsion and little else.
Baking powder
What it is doing Baking soda and a dry acid packed together with starch to keep them apart in the can. Water starts the gas, and in a double-acting powder a second acid waits for oven heat.
Use instead Per teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda plus ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar, one part soda to two parts tartar, whisked through the dry ingredients at the last minute. If the batter already carries acid from buttermilk, yogurt, sour cream, molasses or natural cocoa, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda per teaspoon of powder is enough on its own.
What changes Homemade powder is single-acting. All the gas arrives at mixing, so the pan goes into a hot oven immediately or the rise is spent on the counter.
Baking soda
What it is doing A base. It needs an acid in the batter to give up its gas, and whatever is left over raises the pH, which is what makes a soda cookie spread wide and brown dark.
Use instead Three to four times the volume in baking powder, since powder is roughly a quarter soda by volume: a teaspoon of soda becomes 3 to 4 teaspoons of powder. Hold back a pinch of the salt, because the rest of the powder carries sodium of its own.
What changes The extra powder brings starch and a faint metallic edge, and the batter’s own acid now goes unneutralized, so the crumb tastes sharper and bakes paler. Browning is what you lose first, and a pretzel or a dark chewy cookie will not read right without soda.
Cream of tartar
What it is doing A dry acid, the same one packed into baking powder. In whipped whites it lowers the pH so the foam climbs faster and is much harder to overbeat.
Use instead For whites, ½ teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per white in place of the usual ⅛ teaspoon. For leavening, use baking powder: a teaspoon of it supplies what ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar and ¼ teaspoon of soda would have. In a sugar syrup, where it keeps crystals from forming, a tablespoon of corn syrup per cup of sugar does that job.
What changes Liquid acid thins the whites, so they take longer to climb and the meringue is a shade softer. The sour edge in a snickerdoodle is the cream of tartar itself, and baking powder does not bring it back.
Self-rising flour
What it is doing Soft low-protein flour, around 8.5 percent, with baking powder and salt already stirred through it.
Use instead For each cup, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1½ teaspoons of baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon of table salt, which is ½ teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher. Whisk it a full ten seconds; powder that sits in a clump bakes a bitter spot. For biscuits, trading 2 tablespoons of that cup for cornstarch brings the protein down toward Southern soft wheat.
What changes All-purpose is the stronger flour, so biscuits and pancakes come out chewier. A recipe written for self-rising lists no leavening of its own, so do not add any on top of this.
Active dry yeast
What it is doing Dormant yeast in coarse granules, each wrapped in a jacket of dead cells, which is why it is dissolved in warm liquid first instead of stirred in dry.
Use instead Instant yeast at ¾ the volume: the 2¼ teaspoons in a packet becomes 1¾ teaspoons, mixed straight into the flour. Fresh cake yeast at about ⅔ ounce, 17 g, per packet, crumbled into the liquid.
What changes Nothing in the finished loaf. Instant wakes up sooner, so the first rise can finish 10 to 15 minutes ahead of what the recipe says; judge it by the size of the dough and not by the clock. Liquid above about 140°F kills either kind.
Instant yeast
What it is doing The same organism dried faster and finer, so each particle rehydrates inside the dough itself. It needs no proofing and goes in with the flour.
Use instead Active dry, a third more by volume: 1¾ teaspoons of instant becomes the 2¼ teaspoons in a standard packet. Stir it into ¼ cup of the recipe’s liquid warmed to about 105°F, wait ten minutes for a foamy head, then take that ¼ cup out of the liquid added later so the dough is not slack.
What changes The first rise runs 10 to 15 minutes longer and the bread is otherwise the same. If no foam appears in ten minutes the yeast is dead, which is worth learning before the flour is in the bowl.
Buttermilk powder
What it is doing Cultured buttermilk dried so it can live in the dry half of a mix. It carries the acid the baking soda needs and the milk solids that brown the crust and soften the crumb.
Use instead Liquid buttermilk, standing in for the water the powder would have been reconstituted with; the package ratio is ¼ cup of powder to 1 cup of water for 1 cup of buttermilk. Failing that, 1 cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar stirred in and left ten minutes, or plain yogurt thinned with milk to the thickness of heavy cream.
What changes Nothing worth naming, if the batter is mixed and baked the same day. Dryness is the only thing the powder was for, and a pancake mix meant to sit on a shelf still needs it.
Gelatin
What it is doing Collagen that dissolves hot and sets into a mesh that melts again at body temperature. That melt is the entire point of panna cotta, marshmallow and a clear jelly.
Use instead Nothing else melts on the tongue that way, so a set dessert built on gelatin cannot be rescued with cornstarch, which thickens a pudding and never unmolds. Agar can set a liquid firmly, but the concentration and heating method depend on the agar product, the liquid, acidity and the texture you want. Follow the manufacturer’s ratio and activation instructions rather than treating one teaspoon per cup and a one-minute boil as universal requirements. If the texture is the dish, make a different dessert.
What changes Agar cuts to a clean brittle edge and holds at room temperature, which is either useful or wrong depending on the dish. Fresh pineapple, kiwi, papaya and figs contain proteases that can weaken or prevent a gelatin set; heating denatures those enzymes. Agar is a polysaccharide rather than a protein gel, so those proteases do not attack it in the same way, although acidity and the particular agar formulation can still change gel strength.
Flour, sugar and starch
Protein percentage decides what flour does. Everything else here is about how much water the sugar is holding on to.
All-purpose flour
What it is doing Carrying 10 to 12 percent protein, which is the middle of the range: enough gluten to hold a cake together, not so much that a muffin turns rubbery. The starch does the rest of the work, which is bulk.
Use instead Equal weights of cake flour and bread flour land almost exactly on all-purpose, and that is the closest swap there is. Bread flour on its own is fine for anything yeasted and for cookies; add a teaspoon of water per cup and knead less. Cake flour on its own needs 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons to stand in for 1 cup of all-purpose, since it sits lighter in the cup.
What changes Bread flour gives a chewier cookie and a taller loaf. Cake flour gives a tender, crumbly result that will not take much handling.
Cake flour
What it is doing Seven to 9 percent protein, milled fine and usually chlorinated. It builds a weak gluten network, and the damaged starch holds more sugar and liquid than all-purpose can, which is what makes the crumb fine and tender.
Use instead Measure 1 cup of all-purpose flour, take out 2 tablespoons of it, and put back 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift the two together three times: unmixed cornstarch shows up as pale streaks in the baked crumb. Scale the same way for any amount, 2 tablespoons swapped per cup.
What changes The cornstarch dilutes the protein and gets you most of the way. Chlorination is not something a home kitchen can reproduce, so a very sweet, high-ratio cake sets a shade denser and domes more.
Bread flour
What it is doing Twelve to 14 percent protein. The extra gluten builds a strong elastic net that traps gas and holds its shape under pressure, which is the climb in a loaf and the chew in a bagel.
Use instead All-purpose flour, measure for measure. Hold back a tablespoon of water per cup at the start, because it absorbs less and the dough will run slack. If you keep vital wheat gluten, 1 teaspoon whisked into each cup of all-purpose brings the protein back up to roughly bread-flour range.
What changes Less oven spring, a softer crust, a more open crumb. For sandwich loaves and pizza the gap is small. For bagels and pretzels, where chew is the whole point, all-purpose reads as bready.
Whole wheat flour
What it is doing Bran, germ and endosperm together. The bran comes in sharp particles that cut gluten strands as the dough is worked, and it drinks water steadily; the germ carries the oil and most of the flavor.
Use instead All-purpose flour, measure for measure, with about 2 teaspoons less liquid per cup since there is no bran to absorb it. Two tablespoons of wheat germ or oat flour per cup returns a good part of the flavor and almost none of the weight. Rye returns flavor but cuts gluten as hard as bran does.
What changes Lighter, sweeter, blander, and faster. The dough rises higher and sooner than the recipe expects, so watch the dough rather than the clock.
Cornstarch, as a thickener
What it is doing Its granules swell and burst as the liquid nears a boil, trapping water in a mesh that sets clear, sets firm, and holds when cold.
Use instead All-purpose flour at twice the amount: 2 tablespoons of flour for every 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, whisked into cold liquid or cooked in fat first, then held at a bare simmer until the raw cereal taste is gone, which is 10 to 20 minutes and not the two the box implies. Arrowroot or tapioca starch goes in measure for measure, stirred in off the heat at the end.
What changes Flour clouds the sauce and tastes of flour if hurried. Arrowroot sets softer, thins on reheating, and turns slippery with dairy. A sauce that has gone lumpy is not lost; that repair is on The Rescue.
Brown sugar
What it is doing Granulated sugar with molasses in it. The molasses is acidic, so it gives baking soda something to react with, and it holds onto water, which is why a brown sugar cookie is still chewy on day three.
Use instead One cup of granulated sugar with 1 tablespoon of molasses for light brown, 2 tablespoons for dark. Rub it together with your fingers until no streaks are left, then use it exactly as written. Honey at the same amounts brings the acid and the moisture, though not the color.
What changes With plain granulated sugar and nothing added, cookies spread wider, bake up crisp and pale, and harden overnight. Where baking soda is doing the lifting, losing the acid costs rise as well.
Powdered sugar
What it is doing Sugar ground to a dust and cut with about 3 percent cornstarch. Fine enough to dissolve with no heat and no liquid, and the cornstarch keeps it dry and gives an icing body.
Use instead One cup of granulated sugar with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in a blender or a spice grinder, run a full minute, left to settle before you open the lid. Grinding fluffs it, so measure after rather than before, or weigh it. A food processor is too wide to do this well.
What changes Home grinding stops one step short of commercial, so a thin glaze can read faintly sandy on the tongue. In buttercream, where butter coats every crystal, nobody finds it.
Superfine sugar
What it is doing The same sugar in smaller crystals. More surface area for its weight, so it dissolves in cold liquid, in egg whites, and in creamed butter without leaving grit behind.
Use instead Granulated sugar pulsed in a food processor for 30 seconds. Weigh it rather than scooping, since grinding changes the volume. Plain granulated sugar also works nearly everywhere if you give it time: beat creamed butter and sugar two minutes longer, or warm the whites and sugar over simmering water to about 110°F before whipping.
What changes Very little, when you take the time. Rushed, the meringue weeps a syrup as it sits and a cold drink or a shortbread stays gritty.
Honey or maple syrup, where the recipe wants granulated sugar
What it is doing Granulated sugar is dry and sharp-edged. Those edges cut air pockets into butter during creaming, and because the sugar brings no water of its own, the recipe’s liquid balance is whatever the recipe says.
Use instead Three-quarters of a cup of honey or maple syrup for each cup of sugar, with the other liquid cut by 3 tablespoons and the oven dropped 25°F. Honey is acidic; add ⅛ teaspoon of baking soda per cup to hold the chemistry near where it was. Where the recipe creams butter and sugar for lift, expect to lose height.
What changes Both brown early and hold water, so the crumb comes out moister, chewier and darker. Neither hides. You will taste which one you used.
Molasses
What it is doing Acid, water and bitterness at once. It reacts with baking soda, it holds moisture so gingerbread is still damp a week on, and it carries a mineral edge no other sweetener has.
Use instead Nothing replaces it where its flavor is the recipe. For gingerbread, shoofly pie or Boston brown bread, bake a spice cake instead and wait until you have a jar. Where it is 2 tablespoons for color and moisture in a cookie dough or a barbecue sauce, dark brown sugar with a spoonful of honey covers the job.
What changes The stand-ins are sweet without being bitter, and bitterness is half of what molasses is for. A gingerbread built on honey tastes thin no matter how much ginger goes in.
Breadcrumbs
What it is doing Two unrelated jobs. Inside meatballs and meatloaf they are a panade: starch that holds liquid and physically keeps the meat proteins from contracting into a tight mass. Outside, they are a dry porous surface that browns.
Use instead For a panade, torn fresh bread soaked in milk beats dry crumbs outright, at 1 slice and ¼ cup of milk per pound of meat. Quick oats work too. For a coating, crush crackers, pretzels or cornflakes, or tear stale bread, dry it at 300°F for 15 minutes and pulse it.
What changes Cracker and pretzel crumbs bring their own salt and fat, so pull the salt back in the coating and watch the pan, because they color early.
Panko
What it is doing Crustless bread baked without browning and shredded into large jagged flakes rather than ground into crumbs. The flakes are mostly air, so they take up less oil and stay crisp well after they leave the pan.
Use instead Grate crustless white sandwich bread on the large holes of a box grater, then dry the shreds at 300°F for about 10 minutes and stop before they take any color. Coarsely crushed cornflakes are close on crunch. Ordinary dry breadcrumbs coat fine and behave differently.
What changes Fine crumbs pack tight against the food, drink more oil, and brown before the inside is hot. Do not answer that by cooling the oil, which only makes it drink more: hold 350°F and pound the cutlet thinner so the inside is done before the crust is dark.
Fat
Butter is 80 percent fat and the rest is mostly water. Almost every swap in this section turns on that one number.
Which is why oil for butter is not a straight trade. Cup for cup you have put in a quarter more fat and taken the water out altogether, and the water was doing something: it was the steam that lifted the crumb. The cake still works. It is denser, and it keeps better, and it is not the cake on the page.
Butter, in baking
What it is doing Being 80 percent fat and 16 to 18 percent water at once. Creamed with sugar it traps air; in pastry the solid pieces melt and that trapped water flashes to steam, which is what pushes the layers apart.
Use instead Per stick, 4 ounces or 113 g, use 6½ tablespoons of neutral oil plus 1 tablespoon of milk, which replaces the fat and the water separately. Shortening and lard go in cup for cup and stay solid; add ¼ teaspoon of table salt per ½ cup to cover what salted butter was bringing.
What changes Oil coats the flour more thoroughly, so cookies spread thin and cake stays moist for days. Pastry is where oil fails outright: with no solid pieces there is no steam and no flake, only a short, sandy crumb.
Butter, in a pan
What it is doing Timing and flavor. The water boils off in a noisy foam, and when the foam settles the pan is ready; then the milk solids brown into the nutty taste, and a little past 300°F they burn.
Use instead A tablespoon of neutral oil with a tablespoon of butter dropped in beside it: the oil carries the heat and the butter still browns. Above medium-high, for a steak or a hard-fried egg, use ghee, clarified butter or a refined oil alone, all good past 400°F, and swirl cold butter in off the heat at the end.
What changes Oil browns food faster, since none of its heat is spent boiling water away, and it tastes of nothing, so a pan sauce built on that fond will want the butter back at the finish anyway.
Neutral oil
What it is doing Pure fat, refined until it has no flavor and no smoke below 400 to 450°F. The silence is the job: in a vinaigrette or a fried batter, nothing should taste of the fat itself.
Use instead Any other refined oil, cup for cup: canola, vegetable, corn, sunflower, grapeseed, refined peanut. Light or refined olive oil is nearly as quiet and holds past 450°F. Melted shortening and lard fry well too, and they should be measured melted rather than solid or the pot comes up short.
What changes Nothing, so long as the label says refined. Unrefined oils such as extra-virgin olive, toasted sesame and virgin coconut start smoking around 350 to 375°F, and in a fry pot they scorch and take the food’s flavor down with them.
Olive oil
What it is doing Carrying flavor. It is fruit pressed for its fat, and the bitterness and pepper in a good bottle are the reason it goes onto the finished plate rather than into the pan.
Use instead Raw, there is no substitute, so leave the drizzle off rather than pour something bland where it went, and reach for butter, toasted nuts or a squeeze of lemon instead. For cooking, any neutral oil trades cup for cup, and so does melted butter if the dish can take dairy.
What changes Little in a hot pan, because heat above about 375°F destroys most of what the good bottle was for. In a cake the two oils trade by volume; the olive leaves a green note that citrus and dark chocolate carry well.
Shortening
What it is doing Being 100 percent fat with no water, no flavor and a melting point near 117°F. That high melt is why a shortening cookie stands tall and a shortening frosting keeps its ridges on a warm table.
Use instead Lard, cup for cup, is the true drop-in. Butter needs 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons for every cup of shortening to match the fat, and hold back 2 tablespoons of the recipe’s other liquid to account for the water butter brings with it.
What changes Butter melts more than 20 degrees sooner, so cookies spread wider and thinner and the dough wants a spell in the refrigerator before rolling. Frosting shows the swap worst: butterfat melts at body temperature, which tastes better in the mouth and slumps on the cake.
Lard
What it is doing Rendered pork fat, effectively all fat, with large soft crystals that stay in flat sheets as the dough is rolled. Those sheets are what make a lard crust flake in long layers.
Use instead Shortening, cup for cup, for the same structure and none of the taste. Butter at 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons per cup, with 2 tablespoons less liquid elsewhere. Beef tallow or bacon fat where a savory note belongs, and in refried beans or tamales a few tablespoons of either beats a neutral oil.
What changes A butter crust browns darker and flakes in shorter, finer layers. Shortening gives up the faint pork sweetness that was the point of a lard biscuit, and both substitutes have to be worked cold, where lard forgives warm hands.
Bacon fat
What it is doing Lard with salt, smoke and a little browned protein left in it. Those suspended solids are also why it starts smoking around 325°F, lower than the clean lard it came from.
Use instead Lard or butter, tablespoon for tablespoon, with ⅛ teaspoon of smoked paprika stirred in per tablespoon to stand in for the smoke. Duck fat is nearer in body and richness. Salt at the end rather than the start: bacon fat carries salt of its own, and how much depends entirely on the bacon.
What changes Smoked paprika reads as smoke but never as pork, so braised greens and cornbread come out a dimension flatter. Strain what you save; the crumbs left in the jar are what turn the fat bitter in the refrigerator.
Ghee
What it is doing Butter with the water boiled off and the milk solids browned and strained out, which leaves nearly pure fat that holds to about 450°F and keeps for months out of the refrigerator.
Use instead Make it. Melt a stick over low heat, let it foam and go quiet, cook until the solids on the bottom smell nutty and turn amber, then pour it through a coffee filter. A stick yields about 6½ tablespoons. Otherwise, butter at medium heat or below, or a refined oil where only the high heat matters.
What changes Plain butter is that same fat plus its water, so it spatters, browns food more slowly and burns above 300°F. Oil takes the heat and gives nothing back; ghee tastes toasted because the solids were browned before they were strained away.
Coconut oil
What it is doing Standing in for butter without dairy. It is about 90 percent saturated fat, firm at 68°F and fully liquid by 76°F, a far sharper melt than butter’s slow softening.
Use instead Shortening, cup for cup, is the closest by behavior, both solid and both all fat. Butter, also cup for cup, wherever dairy is allowed. In a batter that calls for it melted, any neutral oil pours in by volume. Refined coconut oil holds to about 400°F, virgin to about 350°F.
What changes The narrow melting range is the whole difficulty. A dough made with it turns greasy in a warm kitchen and cracks when cold, so roll it straight from the refrigerator. Virgin oil tastes of coconut and refined does not, which decides most savory uses.
Nonstick spray
What it is doing Laying down a film of oil thinner and more even than a brush manages, with lecithin in it so the film clings to a vertical wall instead of running down it.
Use instead A teaspoon of neutral oil or melted shortening wiped over the pan with a folded paper towel. For a bundt or tube pan, a paste of equal parts flour, oil and softened shortening, brushed into every crease, releases better than the can does. Parchment on a sheet pan makes the question moot.
What changes Butter is the swap that disappoints, since its water and milk solids glue the cake to the pan; use it only under a dusting of flour. On a nonstick skillet the spray is the worse choice anyway, because the lecithin bakes into a brown varnish that will not scrub off.
Acid, wine and alcohol
Table vinegars are 5 percent acid, so they trade one for one. Wine is doing a second job that vinegar does not do, and the entries say which dishes notice.
Lemon juice
What it is doing Acid at roughly 5 to 6 percent citric, riding on a volatile perfume from the peel oil that burns off in a minute of heat. In a batter it is also what sets off baking soda.
Use instead Lime juice, one for one, closer than anything. White wine or cider vinegar, both 5 percent acetic, one for one where the juice is seasoning rather than the flavor itself. Bottled lemon juice brings the acid and none of the perfume, so save it for doughs and brines. Where extra liquid is a problem, ⅛ teaspoon citric acid powder in a tablespoon of water carries about the acid of a tablespoon of juice.
What changes Vinegar tastes sour in a flat, pointed way; lemon tastes sour and bright at once. Over fish or in a vinaigrette that gap is the whole seasoning, and a strip of zest closes more of it than a second spoon of vinegar will.
White wine vinegar
What it is doing Acid at 5 percent acetic, with almost no fruit of its own. That neutrality is why it is the default in vinaigrettes and pan sauces, where the vinegar is not meant to announce itself.
Use instead Champagne vinegar or cider vinegar, both 5 percent, one for one; cider carries a faint apple sweetness. Rice vinegar runs 4 to 4.5 percent, so use about a quarter more of it. Distilled white vinegar is the same strength but far blunter: start at ¾ the amount and taste. Lemon juice stands in one for one in a dressing and in a pan sauce.
What changes Only distilled white is a real step down, and only raw, where it reads harsh and faintly chemical next to the wine vinegars. Simmered into a sauce with shallot and butter it settles into the background like the rest of them.
Red wine vinegar
What it is doing Acid at 5 to 7 percent acetic, plus tannin and color carried over from the wine. The tannin is why it holds its ground against beef, lentils and raw onion when a paler vinegar would disappear.
Use instead Sherry vinegar, one for one, and it is arguably the better bottle. Cider vinegar one for one, lighter and a little sweet. White wine vinegar one for one gives the acid without the depth; a ½ teaspoon of pomegranate molasses per tablespoon puts some of that back. Balsamic carries sugar, so use ¾ as much and drop any honey from the dressing.
What changes The acid matches; the color and the slight grip on the tongue do not. In a vinaigrette over bitter greens that grip is doing real work, and a dressing built on cider vinegar will taste rounder and shorter than the one you meant to make.
Rice vinegar
What it is doing It is the mildest vinegar in common use, 4 to 4.5 percent acetic where most are 5, with a soft edge and a trace of sweetness. That low strength is what lets a cucumber salad or a bowl of sushi rice take it in quantity.
Use instead Any 5 percent vinegar cut with water, 4 parts vinegar to 1 part water, which lands at 4 percent. White wine vinegar makes the closest match and cider is next. If the recipe wants seasoned rice vinegar, stir 2 teaspoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of fine sea salt into ¼ cup of the plain kind.
What changes Nothing in an American supermarket has rice vinegar’s particular faintly malty softness, so a cut vinegar tastes correct rather than identical. In a dipping sauce with soy and ginger nobody finds the difference.
Balsamic vinegar
What it is doing Supermarket balsamic is wine vinegar plus cooked grape must: about 6 percent acid carried on a great deal of sugar. The sugar is what makes it cling to a roast vegetable and reduce to a glaze.
Use instead Per tablespoon of balsamic, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar with ½ teaspoon of brown sugar stirred in until it dissolves. Sherry vinegar and the same sugar sits nearer the nutty end. For a glaze, simmer 3 tablespoons of that mixture down to a scant tablespoon rather than buying a bottle of glaze.
What changes You get the sweet and sour and the body, not the raisin and molasses that come from cooked must. Aged traditional balsamic, the syrupy kind in the small bottle, has no stand-in at all: leave it off the cheese rather than pouring the supermarket bottle over it.
White wine, in a pan sauce or a braise
What it is doing Three things. Acid, at roughly 0.6 percent tartaric. Solvent work, since ethanol dissolves aromatic compounds that neither water nor fat will lift off the pan. And a liquid thin enough to reduce to almost nothing.
Use instead Dry vermouth, one for one, better than a bottle of wine that has been open a week. Otherwise stock plus measured acid: for each ½ cup of wine, ½ cup of stock and 2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar or lemon juice, added early with the stock rather than stirred in at the end. White grape juice alone is far too sweet; use ¼ cup of it, ¼ cup stock, and the same 2 teaspoons of acid.
What changes The acid you can match exactly. The solvent you cannot, and it shows most in a mushroom or shallot sauce, which comes out cleaner and shorter than it should.
Red wine, in a braise
What it is doing Acid, tannin, color, and enough ethanol to pull flavor out of browned meat and tomato paste that water leaves sitting there. Across three covered hours nearly all the alcohol goes, and most of the harshness with it.
Use instead For each cup of wine, a cup of beef or chicken stock plus 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar, in at the start. Taste when it is done and add a second tablespoon if the pot reads flat. For the color and the tannin, unsweetened cranberry or pomegranate juice: ½ cup of juice with ½ cup of stock, and no vinegar, since both juices are already sour.
What changes Paler and thinner, and short on the low bitterness that keeps a long braise from tasting merely rich. A tablespoon of tomato paste browned in the pan first is the nearest thing to a cure.
Dry vermouth
What it is doing White wine fortified to 16 or 18 percent and steeped with botanicals. The fortification is why an open bottle keeps for months in the refrigerator, which is the whole argument for having one.
Use instead Dry white wine, one for one, in a pan sauce, a risotto or a pot of clams; the vermouth was standing in for wine to begin with. Drop in a bay leaf or a strip of lemon peel to cover the botanicals. Dry sherry works one for one and reads nuttier. With no alcohol in the house, ½ cup of stock with 2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar per ½ cup of vermouth.
What changes In a pan, almost nothing; wine is the honest equivalent. In a martini the vermouth is half the drink, and white wine is not a substitute for it at any ratio.
Mirin
What it is doing Sweet rice wine, around 40 percent sugar and 14 percent alcohol. The sugar is what makes a teriyaki glaze gloss and cling; the alcohol carries off the raw smell of fish and helps the glaze set as it reduces.
Use instead Per tablespoon of mirin, a tablespoon of sake plus a teaspoon of sugar. Dry sherry or dry white wine with the same teaspoon of sugar is nearly as good. Without alcohol, a tablespoon of water, a teaspoon of sugar and a few drops of rice vinegar. If the bottle says aji-mirin it already carries salt and corn syrup, so pull back on both in the dish.
What changes The sake version is close enough that nobody at the table names it. The water version glazes without the same shine, and on broiled fish it leaves behind the smell the alcohol would have taken with it.
Dry sherry
What it is doing Fortified wine aged on purpose in contact with air, which is where the dry, nutty, almost saline note comes from. In mushrooms or a Chinese marinade it is doing that flavor plus the solvent work of the alcohol.
Use instead Shaoxing wine one for one, the exchange running in both directions. Dry vermouth one for one. Dry white wine one for one, cleaner and less nutty. Without alcohol, stock with 1 teaspoon of rice vinegar per ¼ cup. Cooking sherry runs about 1.5 percent salt, so ¼ cup brings close to a gram: hold back a generous ⅛ teaspoon of table salt.
What changes Wine and vermouth give you the acid and the alcohol but not the oxidized note, and nothing in the pantry does. It matters in a cream and mushroom sauce, and vanishes under garlic, ginger and soy.
Bourbon or brandy, in a dessert
What it is doing Two jobs, and only one is flavor. Ethanol dissolves aromatics that water will not, it lowers the freezing point of a custard, and it keeps a soaked cake soft and slow to spoil.
Use instead For flavor in a batter or custard, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract plus 2 teaspoons of water per tablespoon of bourbon; the extract is about 35 percent alcohol itself. For poached fruit or a sauce, apple cider boiled down by half, or strong black tea with a little brown sugar. In ice cream, where the liquor was keeping it scoopable, use 1 tablespoon of corn syrup per quart instead.
What changes A cake soaked in juice is a different keeping proposition: refrigerate it and eat it inside four days rather than feeding it for a month. In a batter or a custard the swap costs a little length of flavor and nothing else.
Aromatics, herbs and seasoning
Three parts fresh to one part dried, and when it goes in matters more than how much.
The timing is the part people skip. Dried herbs need heat, fat and a few minutes to give anything up, so they go in with the onions. Fresh herbs go in at the end, because those same few minutes are what flatten them. Same plant, opposite instruction.
Fresh herbs
What it is doing Fresh herbs are volatile oil in water. They are aroma more than flavor, and heat drives that aroma off, which is why they go in at the end.
Use instead Dried, at one third the volume: 1 teaspoon dried for 1 tablespoon chopped fresh. The hardy ones carry the swap, thyme, oregano, marjoram, rosemary and sage, and they go in early, into the fat or the simmering liquid, where they have time to rehydrate. The tender ones dry badly; dried parsley, basil and dill give you dust. For a finishing handful, use scallion greens, celery leaves or lemon zest.
What changes You lose the top notes and gain something earthier and flatter. Cilantro is the exception worth naming: nothing replaces it, and a dish built on it becomes a different dish without it, which is good news for the people whose genes make it taste like soap.
Dried herbs
What it is doing Dried herbs are the same oils, concentrated and locked in dry leaf. They need time and moisture to come out, which is why they go in early rather than at the end.
Use instead Fresh, at three times the volume: 1 tablespoon chopped fresh for 1 teaspoon dried. The timing matters more than the ratio does. Where the dried herbs would have gone into the fat at the start, hardy fresh herbs go in as whole sprigs partway through and come out before serving, and tender ones go in off the heat. If the dish cooks only a few minutes, chop them fine and add half early, half at the end.
What changes Fresh reads greener and less woody, and it fades if you cook it as long as you would have cooked the dried. A long braise seasoned with fresh herbs at the start tastes of nothing by the time it is done.
Fresh garlic
What it is doing Cutting garlic ruptures its cells and makes allicin, the raw bite. Heat turns that into the sweet, round sulfur flavor sitting under most savory cooking.
Use instead Garlic powder, about ¼ teaspoon per medium clove, stirred into the liquid or into the fat off direct heat, since it scorches in seconds on a hot dry pan. Granulated garlic runs coarser, so use about ½ teaspoon. Jarred minced garlic goes in at roughly a teaspoon per clove and is already acidified, so add it later than you would fresh. Shallot or the white of a scallion covers the aromatic base but not the garlic.
What changes Powder has no allicin, so nothing about it is sharp. In raw work, an aioli, a rubbed salad bowl, a dressing, that absence is the whole difference.
Shallots
What it is doing A shallot is a milder, sweeter allium with less sulfur and less water than an onion, which is why it melts into a pan sauce and does not shout in a raw vinaigrette.
Use instead Yellow onion chopped fine, at equal volume: one medium shallot is about 2 tablespoons. Add a quarter clove of garlic per shallot to stand in for the sulfur note. For anything raw, soak the chopped onion in cold water for ten minutes, or let it sit in the vinegar while you build the rest of the dressing. Red onion is closer raw; scallion whites are closer for a quick pan sauce.
What changes Onion is more assertive and carries more water, so a sauce takes longer to reduce and the finished dish tastes of onion rather than of itself.
Onion
What it is doing Onion is the bulk of an aromatic base: water, sugars and sulfur compounds that brown into sweetness and give a dish body as much as flavor.
Use instead Leeks, white and light green only, at equal volume, are the closest and the mildest. Shallots at equal volume are sweeter and finer. Fennel bulb makes a sweeter base, and scallion whites work when the onion was only there for a quick sauté. Dried minced onion stands in at 1 tablespoon for ¼ cup chopped fresh, softened in the pan liquid first. With onion powder, start with ½ teaspoon for that same ¼ cup and taste.
What changes The dried forms bring flavor and no mass, so a soffritto or a braise built on them is thinner. Nothing browns, and the browning was the part you wanted.
Fresh ginger
What it is doing Fresh ginger is gingerol: a hot, resinous pungency that softens under heat into something warm and nearly sweet.
Use instead Ground dried ginger, ¼ teaspoon for every tablespoon of grated fresh, added early with the fat rather than at the end, because it needs heat and moisture to open up. Ginger paste from a tube goes in about volume for volume. A frozen knob grates finer than a fresh one and is a better answer than the dried whenever you have it. Galangal looks like a stand-in and is a different flavor.
What changes Drying turns gingerol into shogaol, which is sharper and drier and reads as gingerbread rather than as stir-fry. In a raw dressing or a ginger tea, the powder is not close.
Tomato paste
What it is doing Tomato paste is tomato with the water taken out: glutamate, sugar and color concentrated enough to deepen a dish without thinning it. Browned in fat until it darkens, it does most of that work.
Use instead Canned tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes, 2 to 3 tablespoons for each tablespoon of paste, cooked in the pan until it sticks and turns brick colored, with that much liquid taken out of the recipe elsewhere. Ketchup goes in volume for volume where the dish already carries sugar and vinegar; cut both a little to compensate.
What changes Reduced sauce is weaker in glutamate than paste, so the savory floor sits lower. Ketchup brings its own sweetness and sharpness, which a long braise absorbs and a quick pan sauce does not.
Stock or broth
What it is doing Stock is water carrying gelatin, glutamates and aromatics. The gelatin is the part people forget: it gives body, and it is what makes a reduced pan sauce cling.
Use instead Water, plus whatever would have flavored the stock: a smashed clove, half an onion, parsley stems, a bay leaf, a parmesan rind, a spoonful of miso or a splash of soy sauce. Bouillon cubes and jarred base work at the dilution on the package, but they are salt first, so hold back the recipe’s salt until you have tasted. For a risotto, a pot of beans, or a braise with meat in it, plain water is an honest answer.
What changes Water has no gelatin, so a reduction stays thin and slick instead of glossy, and it is likelier to split when you push it hard.
Fish sauce
What it is doing Fish sauce is anchovy fermented in salt. It brings free glutamate and inosinate together, which is savory depth, and a great deal of salt along with them.
Use instead Soy sauce, volume for volume, with one anchovy fillet mashed into the pan, or ½ teaspoon of anchovy paste, for each tablespoon. The anchovy is what makes it close; soy alone covers about half the distance and brings a roasted, wheaty note that fish sauce does not have. Both are salt forward, so taste before you add any of the recipe’s salt.
What changes You lose the funk, which in a braise or a marinade barely registers. In a dipping sauce, where fish sauce is the flavor and not the seasoning, the swap makes a different sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
What it is doing Worcestershire is several seasonings at once: fermented anchovy for savory depth, tamarind and vinegar for sourness, molasses for sweetness, onion and garlic behind them.
Use instead For each tablespoon, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, 1 teaspoon cider vinegar and a pinch of brown sugar. One mashed anchovy fillet or ¼ teaspoon of tamarind paste closes most of what is left. Soy sauce alone at equal volume covers the savory side and leaves the dish flat where the acid should be. Fish sauce with the same vinegar and sugar works the same way.
What changes The mixture has no aged, fruity edge, which a marinade or a stew hides and a Caesar dressing or a bloody mary does not.
Dijon mustard
What it is doing Two jobs. Ground mustard seed wetted with acid makes the compounds that carry the heat, and mustard mucilage and seed particles hold oil and vinegar together in an emulsion.
Use instead Any prepared mustard emulsifies as well as Dijon does. Yellow mustard at equal volume is milder, sweeter and more vinegary, and it turns the dressing pale. Dry mustard powder works at 1 teaspoon powder mixed with 1 teaspoon water or white wine for each tablespoon of Dijon, rested ten minutes for the heat to develop. For emulsifying alone, ½ teaspoon mayonnaise holds a vinaigrette and adds no heat.
What changes The substitutes are all blunter or sweeter. Heat drives mustard’s pungency off anyway, so a sauce that simmered has lost most of the difference.
The salt the recipe names
What it is doing Salt is the one ingredient where a teaspoon is not an amount. Crystal shape decides how much salt fits in the spoon, so the brand the recipe names is part of the measurement.
Use instead Match the weight, not the volume. A level teaspoon is 2.8 g of Diamond Crystal kosher, 4.8 g of Morton kosher, 5.6 g of fine sea salt, 6.0 g of table salt. Diamond Crystal to table salt is a factor of about 2.1, so 2 teaspoons of Diamond Crystal is a scant 1 teaspoon of table salt, and going the other way doubles it. The Salt Calculator converts any pair.
What changes Nothing, in a dough or a braise. Finishing salt is the exception: coarse flakes are texture, and table salt dissolves on contact and gives you none of it.
MSG
What it is doing MSG is free glutamate by itself, the same savory signal that aging, fermenting and long simmering build in food. It reads as depth and body rather than as salt, and carries about a third the sodium of table salt.
Use instead Anything already high in free glutamate: soy sauce, a spoonful of miso, a parmesan rind, anchovy, tomato paste, kombu, dried shiitake. For ¼ teaspoon of MSG, start with a teaspoon of soy sauce or ½ teaspoon of miso and give it time to cook in. Dried shiitake and bonito add nucleotides, which multiply glutamate’s effect rather than adding to it.
What changes Every one of those brings flavor and color of its own, and MSG’s usefulness is that it brings neither. In a clear broth or a pale dressing, that shows.
Chocolate, vanilla and the sweet extras
Cocoa is a leavening decision before it is a flavor one. That is the trap in this section.
Unsweetened chocolate
What it is doing It is cocoa solids and cocoa butter and nothing else, so it carries the full weight of chocolate flavor and, since roughly half of it is cocoa butter, a good deal of the recipe’s fat.
Use instead For each ounce, 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon of melted butter, oil, or shortening, stirred smooth before it goes into the batter. Bittersweet also works: use 1½ ounces per ounce and take about 1½ tablespoons of sugar out of the recipe.
What changes The cocoa and fat version is close to exact in a brownie or a cake, where the chocolate only has to dissolve into something wet. It is not the same in anything that has to set firm at room temperature, because melted butter will never give you cocoa butter’s snap.
Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
What it is doing Three things at once: cocoa solids for flavor, sugar, and cocoa butter, which is the fat that lets a glaze or a ganache set firm and break cleanly.
Use instead Unsweetened chocolate and sugar melted together. One ounce of unsweetened plus 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar stands in for 1½ ounces of bittersweet. Chocolate chips substitute by weight anywhere the chocolate is folded into a batter. Milk chocolate does not: it is far sweeter and its milk solids make a soft, loose set.
What changes Semisweet and bittersweet are one legal category in the United States, both 35 percent cacao at minimum, so the word on the wrapper tells you less than the percentage does. Read that number and match it.
Cocoa powder
What it is doing Cocoa solids with most of the cocoa butter pressed out, leaving 10 to 12 percent fat. It is flavor, and because what remains is largely starch and protein, it also counts as part of the dry ingredients.
Use instead For every 3 tablespoons of cocoa, 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate, melted, with 1 tablespoon of fat taken out of the recipe to pay for the cocoa butter that came along with it. Where the cocoa is dusted or rubbed on dry, there is no swap; leave it off.
What changes The batter is looser and the crumb slightly denser, since you have traded a dry ingredient for a wet one. Buy natural cocoa rather than Dutch unless a recipe says otherwise: natural is the acidic one, and most American recipes are built around that.
Dutch-process cocoa
What it is doing Cocoa treated with alkali until it is close to neutral. That is a leavening decision before it is a flavor one: alkalized cocoa will not react with baking soda, so a Dutch recipe gets its lift from baking powder or from some other acid.
Use instead Natural cocoa, weight for weight, and leave the leavening alone. This is the safe direction: the extra acid finds the soda and reacts. A scant ⅛ teaspoon of baking soda per 3 tablespoons of natural cocoa will alkalize it partway if you want the darker color.
What changes Redder and lighter in the pan, sharper and fruitier on the tongue. The reverse swap is the one that breaks: Dutch cocoa in a recipe leavened by baking soda alone leaves the soda unreacted, and the cake comes out flat and faintly soapy.
Chocolate chips
What it is doing Staying put. A chip has less cocoa butter than a bar and added stabilizers, so it softens in the oven without flowing, and every one stays a discrete bead.
Use instead Bar chocolate chopped into rough ½-inch pieces, weight for weight; 1 cup of chips is 6 ounces. Chop it on a board with a serrated knife and put the dust in too. In the other direction, when a recipe wants chips melted for a ganache or a glaze, chop a bar instead.
What changes Chopped bar chocolate melts into seams and puddles rather than beads, the dust tints the dough, and the flavor is better. Chips melted for a ganache stay thick and dull, because the same stabilizers that hold their shape in a cookie keep the sauce from flowing.
Vanilla extract
What it is doing Alcohol holding vanilla’s aromatics in solution. Most of it evaporates in the oven and what stays behind works as background, making butter and sugar read as rounder and sweeter than they are.
Use instead Vanilla bean paste, measure for measure. Or the seeds of one bean per tablespoon of extract. Or bourbon, dark rum, or brandy at two to three times the volume, which is only worth doing in something baked, where the alcohol cooks off. Or leave it out.
What changes In a chocolate cake or a spice batter, almost nothing; the vanilla was propping up flavors that can stand alone. In a sugar cookie, a plain buttercream, or a custard, it is not the background, it is the flavor, and its absence is the whole dish.
A vanilla bean
What it is doing Two jobs. The scraped seeds are visible, which is the point of a flecked custard or ice cream, and the split pod steeped in hot cream gives up a wider range of aromatics than alcohol pulls into extract.
Use instead For the flecks, nothing replaces it. Vanilla bean paste is not a substitute so much as the same seeds suspended in syrup, 1 tablespoon per bean, and it is the only thing that looks right. With neither on hand, use 1 tablespoon of extract stirred in off the heat and serve a pale custard, or make one that never claimed to be vanilla: butterscotch, coffee, bay.
What changes Extract gets you most of the flavor and none of the look. Add it after the custard comes off the stove, since the top notes are the first thing heat takes.
Espresso powder
What it is doing Instant espresso ground fine enough to dissolve in a batter. Its roast bitterness overlaps chocolate’s own, so a small amount lengthens the chocolate rather than tasting of coffee.
Use instead Instant coffee, about twice as much, crushed to a powder between two spoons so it does not leave specks. Or strong brewed coffee replacing an equal volume of the water or milk already in the recipe.
What changes Instant coffee is thinner and can turn sour at the doses that would match espresso powder, so taste the batter. Brewed coffee brings liquid, which a cake batter absorbs happily and a cookie dough or a ganache will not. Leaving it out costs depth, not the recipe; the chocolate reads shorter.
Almond extract
What it is doing Almost all of it is one compound, benzaldehyde, which is also what stone-fruit pits smell of. That is why it reads as cherry and marzipan as much as almond, and why ¼ teaspoon flavors a whole cake.
Use instead Amaretto or another almond liqueur, starting at four times the volume and tasting, in a batter with liquid to spare. Almond paste grated in works in a cake or a filling and gives something nuttier and less sharp. Vanilla at the same amount is not the flavor, but it keeps the thing from tasting bare.
What changes Less than you expect. Most recipes use more of it than they need, and a cake missing its almond extract tastes like a plain cake rather than a broken one. Measure over the sink, not the bowl; a slipped extra ½ teaspoon takes the whole batter.
Where this comes from
Every weight and percentage on this page is the same number the rest of the site runs on. The canon lives on The Numbers: salt densities, brine percentages, pull temperatures, pan volumes. The salt conversions here are the ones The Salt Calculator uses.
This page answers the question before the mistake. The Rescue answers the one after it: 113 ways a dish goes wrong, what actually happened in the pan, and what to do about it now.
Something has already gone wrong
Nothing here is a chart scraped from somewhere else. Where a ratio is arithmetic, the arithmetic is stated. Where it is a judgment, it says so, and where there is no honest answer it says that instead of inventing one.
Where this goes next
You have the number. Now use it.
Put the number to work
Black Pepper Is Not Married to Salt
Salt is a necessity. Black pepper is an ingredient. Use grind size, timing, and a working coarse bag so pepper seasons the dish instead of covering it.
Board
The Watch-Party Board: three hours long, nothing cooked, still good at the end
Pantry