There’s nothing more frustrating than starting to bake or cook something delicious only to find that a key ingredient is missing. Ugh! But there’s no need to scrub a recipe and sulk in frustration. If you know what you’re doing, you can just substitute it with something else! Here are some easy ingredient substitutions that are bound to be in everyone’s pantry or fridge and are sure to save the day.
Read on to see the complete list, or or by clicking on the image below. (I recommend hanging it up somewhere in your kitchen for easy reference!)
Vegetable oil
Substitute with butter, margarine, coconut oil or apple sauce
Apple Cider Vinegar
Substitute with white vinegar
Balsamic Vinegar
Substitute with apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
Tomato Sauce
Substitute by mixing one part Tomato Paste and one part Water. Or substitute with canned tomatoes and adding onions, garlic and some herbs.
Baking Powder (1 tsp)
Substitute with 1/4 tsp baking soda + 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
Bread Crumbs
Substitute with cracker crumbs, crushed cornflakes, ground oatmeal, or even cooked quinoa.
Brown Sugar (1 Cup)
Substitute with 1 cup white sugar and 2 Tbsp molasses.
Butter
Substitute with margarine, oil or shortening
Buttermilk (1 cup)
Substitute with 1 Tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar and enough milk to make 1 cup Or substitute with 1 cup plain yogurt
Corn Syrup
Substitute with honey, maple syrup, or brown rice syrup
Ricotta Cheese
Substitute with cottage cheese or cream cheese.
Fresh herbs (1 Tbsp)
Substitute with 1 tsp dried herbs
Honey (1 Cup)
Substitute with maple syrup, corn syrup or 1 1/4 cup white sugar and 1/4 cup liquid (whatever is called for in the recipe)
Lemon Juice
Substitute with white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
Mayonnaise
Substitute with sour cream or plain yogurt
Wine
Substitute with beef broth, chicken broth, vegetable broth, apple cider (not vinegar), water, tomato sauce, white grape juice or non-alcoholic wine.
Yeast (1 tsp)
Substitute with 1/2 tsp Baking Soda and 1/2 tsp Lemon Juice
Rice
Substitute with Quinoa. (Quinoa also provides twice as much protein and fiber which promote a healthier digestive system.)
Eggs
Substitute with 1 Tbsp ground Flax Seeds or Chia Seeds and 3 Tbsp Water. Mix until gelatinous. Or substitute with silken tofu. Or substitute with apple sauce or mashed banana
Pastry Flour (1 cup)
Substitute with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch combined with enough all-purpose flour to make a cup.
Salt
Often times, substituting salt for herbs and other seasonings like onions, lemon or lime can make a dish taste really flavourful.
Sugar
Substitute with 1 and 3/4 cup of powdered sugar.
I hope you find this easy ingredient substitutions list useful! I’ll leave you with the link to download a free printable PDF copy of the list, in case you missed it earlier in the post! 🙂
I don’t know about you, but all this cooking at home has me constantly looking for shortcuts. While I don’t hate cooking, I don’t like spending hours upon hours in my kitchen. I want easy, fast, flavorful and cheap!
That brings me to rotisserie chickens. Time and time again, grocery store rotisserie chickens have saved my sanity when it comes to dinner time. They are easy, already seasoned, already cooked, and can be used in a lot of different recipes. There are so many ways to use a rotisserie chicken!
On that note, I have rounded up a list of easy and cheap rotisserie dinners! I hope you enjoy!
Looking for a simple dinner solution to get you through the summer? Enter... freezer meals!
I don’t know about you, but I want to spend time creating amazing memories and moments to cherish forever, than sweat away in the kitchen during the summer months. I’d much rather spend an hour in the kitchen getting a bunch of meals pulled together, than not have to think about or worry about what’s for dinner at the end of an exhausting day of summer fun.
It’s about more than time too…it’s about money. I know, for me, the temptation to hit the drive thru is much higher in the summer months. And that gets expensive, fast! I want your meals this summer to be simple and easy, and I know you do too.
Welcome back to the Eating from The Pantry & Freezer Challenge! Here’s what it’s all about or you can read the post from Week 2.
Here’s my update from last week
I took a little hiatus last week since we had family visiting and we were all over the place! We feasted on burgers, hot dogs, pizza… all the healthy stuff 😉 Needless to say, we still have quite a bit of stuff in our pantry and freezer!
This week should be different so we should be going through quite a bit of stuff.
Getting creative with what you haveleft
At this point in the challenge you may have come to a point where you need to be creative when it comes to using up what you have an abundance of and filling the spaces of those things you wish you could go out and buy.
There are a few great websites out there that will come up with some recipes for the ingredients you already have on hand. All Recipes is one of them. Simply input the ingredients you have and the ingredients you don’t have and it will pull up a list of recipes you could make! Recipe Matcher, Supercook and Ingredient Chef are also good resources!
Here’s what we’ll be eating this week:
Since not many of my planned meals got made last week, you’ll see some recycled meals on this week’s menu.
Welcome to the second week of the Eating from The Pantry & Freezer Challenge! Here’s what it’s all about or you can read the post from Week 1.
Here’s my update:
As it seems with all my weeks, not every meal I had planned got made. Things just come up or we have more leftovers than we thought!
But I did manage to rid our freezer of a few things! Some taco meat is gone, a couple of bags of frozen fruit are gone, along with quite a few frozen bananas.
It’s time to start the Eating from the Pantry & Freezer Challenge!
I told you last week that I’d be sharing my goals and plans, so here’s what I’ve got in mind:
My number one goal is to clean out the pantry and freezers, especially the freezers! It seems like we’re always throwing stuff out because it gets lost for far too long. 🙁
Also, I think it’s important to say to make this challenge your own. Decide what will work best for you to help you clear out your pantry and freezer while still making it a challenge. Maybe this means you won’t be buying any household items (toilet paper, toothpaste..etc) because you really do have enough to get you through until the end of the challenge. Or maybe you realize that you have a ton of stuff to go through so you can actually do the challenge for 5 weeks. Make it yours!
Now, how am I going to make this happen?
I took inventory of our pantry and freezers (and discovered that I don’t have as much meat as I thought)! Here’s what I’ll be working with:
Some shredded chicken
a couple of packs of Ground beef
Taco meat
Ham
Shrimp
Pulled pork
Plenty of flour, oatmeal, rice, pasta, quinoa
Lots of dried beans and lentils
Lots of frozen fruit (peaches, strawberries, mixed berries, raspberries)
Frozen vegetables
Chicken nuggets/fries
Puff pastry
Crackers
Apple sauce
Premade butter chicken and Coconut curry (No one will eat it but me!)
Frozen bananas
And lots more!
I’m actually quite shocked at how much I found and I’m sure I could do this challenge for longer than I have planned!
