Ingredient substitutes that don't ruin the recipe

Which ingredient can you swap for which? How to pick a substitute that does the same job, and adjust the quantity, cooking time and temperature.

By Lydia LouterPublished on 19 October 20265 min readCooking

A wooden kitchen table with a bowl of yoghurt, a block of butter, half a lemon and a bunch of fresh parsley next to an open recipe notebook, in daylight.

How do you substitute an ingredient without ruining the recipe?

Choose a substitute that does the same job as the original, and then work out what that means for the rest of the recipe. In five steps:

Step 1: look at what the ingredient does

Every ingredient has a job in the dish: flavour, moisture, fat, acid or structure. Cream gives fat and richness, lemon juice gives acidity and an egg binds. If you know the job, you know what to watch for. If you replace buttermilk, you are mostly replacing acidity and moisture.

Job	Examples	Watch out when swapping
Fat and richness	cream, butter, mascarpone	Choose something with fat, because low-fat swaps make it thin
Acidity	lemon juice, vinegar, yoghurt	The sharpness differs, so taste
Moisture	milk, stock, wine	Keep the total amount of liquid the same
Protein	chicken, mince, tofu	The cooking time changes
Structure	egg, flour, breadcrumbs	Hard to swap

Step 2: choose a substitute that does the same job

Look for something that does the same work. Replace cream with crème fraîche or full-fat yoghurt, not milk, because milk is too thin. Replace chicken with something that has protein and firmness, such as tofu, tempeh or chickpeas.

Step 3: adjust the quantity

A substitute is rarely 1 to 1. If it is stronger, like dried herbs or vinegar, start with less than the recipe says and taste. If it is milder, you can add more. If your substitute already contains a lot of salt, like feta or stock, leave out the salt in the recipe at first. Add more after tasting, because you can't take it back.

Step 4: adjust the steps, cooking time and temperature

A different ingredient cooks differently. Chicken needs a quarter of an hour in a curry, tinned chickpeas are already cooked and tofu only needs to colour. Adjust the order and the timings, and in the oven look at the temperature too.

Step 5: taste, note it down and save the variant

Write down what you did, for instance in a note on the recipe. If it was good, save it as a variant, so you don't have to work it out again next time.

Which ingredients are easy to swap?

Cooking is easier than baking, because you can taste and adjust as you go. The table below has our rules of thumb for a few common swaps. They are guidelines, not guarantees.

In the recipe	You can also use	Watch out
Fresh herbs	Dried herbs, about a third of the amount	Add them earlier, so they can swell
Buttermilk	Milk with a splash of lemon juice or vinegar	Let it stand for a bit; works mostly in baking and dressings
Cream	Crème fraîche or full-fat yoghurt	Yoghurt can split: add it at the end
Chicken	Tofu, tempeh or chickpeas	Cooks faster and has little flavour of its own, so season well
Lemon juice	Vinegar or lime juice	Vinegar is sharper, so start with less
White wine in a sauce	Stock with a splash of lemon juice or vinegar	It lacks some depth, so taste and add acidity
Milk in soup or sauce	Unsweetened oat or soya drink	Sweetened ones make the dish sweet
Butter for frying	Olive oil or another oil	That doesn't work in a cake or biscuit

What else changes when you swap something?

More than you think: the quantity, other ingredients, the steps, the timings and the temperature all move along. Take the meatballs in tomato sauce. If you swap the mince for chicken mince, it has less fat and the meatballs dry out sooner, so watch the time in the pan. If you swap it for a vegetarian substitute, the steps often change too, because such a substitute binds and cooks differently. If you use honey instead of sugar, it browns sooner, so turn the oven down a little.

Flavour can shift too. The feta in the shakshuka with feta gives salt and a sharp edge. If you take a milder cheese such as mozzarella, the dish loses both, so taste before you add salt and a splash of lemon juice.

That is why a swap is only finished when you have gone through the whole recipe: one different ingredient affects the steps, the timings and the rest of the ingredients.

What shouldn't you swap?

The things that hold a dish together. In bread, cake and biscuits, flour, eggs and raising agent determine the structure, and then a swap rarely works the way you hope. In any case, swap no more than one thing at a time, and you will see what the effect was. With an allergy, always read the label yourself: a substitute can contain an allergen itself, such as a nut drink instead of milk.

How do you swap an ingredient in Smaquli?

You type another ingredient yourself or choose from three or four suggestions. After that, quantities, other ingredients, steps, times and temperature adjust, with an explanation and the changes marked, so you can see what has changed and why. The suggestions come from AI, so read the explanation before you save it. If it was good, you save the recipe as a variant, for example 'with chicken'. If you want to know whether chicken would work in a vegetarian recipe, type 'chicken' and read what changes in the recipe.

If something is missing from your kitchen, tick what you already have at home. What is left is what you need to buy or swap.

On Free you can swap and have the method checked 5 times a month together, on Premium without limit. Prices are on Pricing. How swapping works in detail is on Swap ingredients. Quantities after a swap scale with the number of people as usual, as you can read in How to scale a recipe. The app is in Dutch for now. English is on its way.

Questions

What can I use instead of cream?

Crème fraîche or full-fat yoghurt. You can boil crème fraîche, but full-fat yoghurt can split if it boils. So add yoghurt at the end and don't let it boil any more. Milk is too thin to replace cream.

How much dried herb replaces fresh?

About a third of the amount of fresh herbs. Dried herbs are stronger. Add them earlier, so they can swell in the pan, and taste before you add more.

Can you replace eggs in a cake?

Sometimes, but it stays a gamble. In a cake, eggs provide structure and lightness. So replace just one ingredient at a time, and you will see what the effect was.

How does Smaquli swap an ingredient?

You type another ingredient yourself or choose from three or four suggestions. Quantities, other ingredients, steps, times and temperature adjust, with an explanation and the changes marked. On Free you can do that 5 times a month, together with having the method checked, and on Premium without limit.

About the author

Lydia Louter

Lydia Louter writes the recipes and articles on this site. She was driven mad by Instagram links to recipes she could never find again, by videos that suddenly went offline, and by recipes that were only told in the video and never written in the caption. When she cooks, she just wants a clear recipe she can follow. She loves cooking and baking, and keeps trying new things, preferably from kitchens of all kinds of countries and cultures. So she doesn’t need one cookbook: her inspiration comes from social media, and whatever tastes good goes into her own recipe book.

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