Ingredient Substitutions: What to Use When You Don’t Have It
You’re halfway through a recipe and you don’t have the thing. This page is for that moment.
Cooking for Japanese seasonings specifically? That has its own page: Japanese Seasoning Substitutes.
The principle: replace the job, not the name
Almost every substitution question gets easier once you ask what the ingredient is doing.
Buttermilk in a pancake batter is doing two jobs — adding sourness, and reacting with baking soda to lift the batter. Plain milk covers neither. Milk with a spoon of lemon juice covers both. The swap looks odd until you know what you’re replacing.
Every entry below names the job first.
Dairy
| Missing | Use | Ratio | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buttermilk | Milk + lemon juice or vinegar | 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp acid, rest 10 min | Very close. Thinner |
| Heavy cream (for richness) | Whole milk + melted butter | ¾ cup milk + ¼ cup butter per cup | Fine in sauces. Will not whip |
| Sour cream | Plain full-fat yogurt | 1:1 | Tangier, thinner. Curdles more easily when heated |
| Whole milk | Any plant milk, unsweetened | 1:1 | Fine in most savoury cooking. Check it’s unsweetened |
| Butter (for cooking) | Neutral oil | Use ¾ the amount | Loses dairy flavour and browning |
| Butter (in baking) | — | — | Hard to replace well. Texture depends on it being solid |
| Parmesan | Pecorino, aged gouda | 1:1 | Pecorino is saltier — reduce salt elsewhere |
Heat is where dairy swaps fail. Low-fat yogurt and plant milks split when boiled. Add them off the heat, or stabilise with a little starch.
Eggs
Eggs do at least three different jobs, and each needs a different substitute. Working out which job matters is most of the answer.
| The egg is there to… | Use | Per egg |
|---|---|---|
| Bind (meatballs, burgers, fritters) | Ground flaxseed + water | 1 tbsp flax + 3 tbsp water, rest 5 min |
| Bind (as above) | Breadcrumbs + a splash of liquid | 2 tbsp + enough to moisten |
| Add moisture (dense cakes, brownies) | Unsweetened applesauce or mashed banana | ¼ cup |
| Leaven (light cakes, sponges) | — | Very hard. Consider a different recipe |
| Enrich (custards, sauces) | — | Not replaceable |
One rule worth knowing: flax and applesauce work up to about two eggs. Beyond that, the recipe was relying on eggs for structure, and no swap will hold it together.
Acids
| Missing | Use | Ratio | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lemon juice | Lime juice | 1:1 | Slightly more floral |
| Lemon juice | White wine vinegar | ½ the amount | Sharper, no citrus aroma |
| White wine vinegar | Cider vinegar | 1:1 | Fruitier |
| Rice vinegar | Cider vinegar + water | 3 parts vinegar : 1 water | Sharper. Rice vinegar is notably mild |
| Balsamic | Red wine vinegar + a little sugar | 1 tbsp + ½ tsp | Less syrupy |
Don’t swap in malt vinegar unless the recipe is British. It’s far more assertive than it looks.
Fats and oils
| Missing | Use | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral oil (frying) | Sunflower, canola, rapeseed, refined peanut | Any high smoke point oil |
| Olive oil (finishing) | — | The flavour is the point. Don’t substitute |
| Olive oil (cooking) | Any neutral oil | Fine. You lose a little fruitiness |
| Sesame oil (toasted) | — | Nothing else smells like it |
| Ghee | Clarified butter, or butter + a little oil | Nuttier when real ghee |
Never deep-fry in extra-virgin olive oil or butter. Both burn well below frying temperature.
Herbs and spices
Dried for fresh: use one third. 1 tbsp fresh = 1 tsp dried. Add dried herbs early so they can soften; add fresh herbs late so they keep their aroma.
Some herbs do not survive drying and are not worth substituting: basil, coriander/cilantro, parsley, chives, mint, dill. Dried versions taste like a different, duller plant. If the recipe leans on one of these, either buy it fresh or pick a different recipe.
| Missing | Reasonable stand-in |
|---|---|
| Fresh garlic | ⅛ tsp garlic powder per clove |
| Fresh ginger | ¼ tsp ground per 1 tsp grated. Warmer, less bright |
| Shallot | ½ small onion + a pinch of garlic |
| Coriander/cilantro | Flat-leaf parsley — for colour only, not flavour |
| Thyme | Oregano or marjoram |
| Chilli flakes | Cayenne, ¼ the amount |
Alcohol
| Missing | Use | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Dry white wine | Stock + a squeeze of lemon | Loses depth, keeps acidity |
| Red wine | Stock + ½ tsp vinegar per ¼ cup | Colour and body are gone |
| Sake | Dry sherry, 1:1 | Close |
| Shaoxing wine | Dry sherry, 1:1 | Close |
| Any of the above, alcohol-free | Stock or water | The dish still works. Meat and fish will smell stronger |
What alcohol is actually doing: dissolving flavour compounds that water can’t, and stripping odours from meat and fish. Replacing it with water keeps the liquid but loses both. That’s usually acceptable — just expect a flatter result rather than an identical one.
Thickeners
| Missing | Use | Ratio | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cornstarch | Potato starch | 1:1 | Glossier, sets softer |
| Cornstarch | Plain flour | Use twice as much | Cloudy, tastes of flour unless cooked out |
| Potato starch (frying) | Cornstarch | 1:1 | Crust is less brittle, browns faster |
| Roux | Cornstarch slurry | — | Faster, but no toasted flavour |
Starch slurries must be mixed with cold liquid before they go into anything hot, or they seize into lumps immediately.
Stocks
| Missing | Use | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken stock | Vegetable stock | Lighter. Fine almost everywhere |
| Beef stock | Chicken stock + a little soy sauce | Adds the colour and savour |
| Dashi | See the Japanese page | Kombu and dried shiitake |
| Any stock | Water + a pinch more salt | Honest and often fine. Just don’t pretend it’s the same |
Watch the salt. Shop-bought stock and stock cubes vary enormously in sodium. Taste before you season, not after.
When not to substitute
Some swaps change the dish into something else. That’s fine — as long as you decide it deliberately.
- The ingredient is the dish. Saffron in paella, miso in miso soup, basil in pesto. Without it you’re cooking something different.
- Baking, structurally. Flour, eggs and fat in a cake are a chemical system. Savoury cooking forgives; baking often doesn’t.
- The substitute changes the cuisine. Shaoxing wine in a Japanese dish, or fish sauce for soy sauce, will taste fine but taste of somewhere else.
When in doubt, make the swap, taste, and adjust the seasoning. Most dishes survive one substitution comfortably. It’s the third and fourth that turn it into a different meal.
