Cook with Kre

Missing an Ingredient Mid-Recipe? What to Do

Updated

A missing ingredient substitution while cooking works when the swap does the same job as the original: acid for acid, fat for fat, binder for binder. Stop, work out what the ingredient is there to do, pick something from your kitchen that does that job, and adjust at the end. In baking and preserving, where the chemistry is tighter, it’s often better not to swap at all.

Stop and check the job it does

Before you reach for anything, take the pan off the heat if something is about to catch, then ask what the missing ingredient is for. Most ingredients do one of a handful of jobs:

  • Acid brightens and balances: lemon juice, vinegar, wine, yogurt, buttermilk.
  • Fat carries flavour, browns and enriches: butter, oil, cream.
  • Structure holds things up or together: flour, eggs, starch.
  • Lift makes bakes rise: baking powder, baking soda, yeast, whipped eggs.
  • Aromatics and seasoning build flavour: onion, garlic, herbs, spices, stock.
  • Bulk is simply more of the dish: the vegetables in a stew, the beans in a chilli.

Bulk is the easiest to replace; almost any vegetable that cooks in a similar time will stand in. Structure and lift are the hardest. How much the recipe uses matters too. A teaspoon of something in a big pot of soup can often be left out; the main ingredient of the dish can’t.

Safe swaps by job

These are well-worn kitchen swaps. Add a little less than you think, then taste and adjust at the end.

Acid

  • Lemon juice and vinegar stand in for each other in dressings, sauces and marinades. Vinegar is sharper, so start with less. Lime and lemon swap one for one.
  • Buttermilk: stir 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into 1 cup of milk and leave it for 5 to 10 minutes. Plain yogurt thinned with a little milk also works.
  • Sour cream: plain, full-fat yogurt. Stir it in off the heat, because yogurt splits if it boils.

Fat

  • Butter and oil swap when you’re frying or roasting. Butter browns and burns sooner, so lower the heat a little if you go from oil to butter.

Aromatics and seasoning

  • Shallot and onion: use a little less onion and chop it finer.
  • Dried herbs for fresh: about 1 teaspoon dried for each tablespoon of fresh, added early so it has time to soften. For herbs scattered at the end, such as basil or parsley, there’s no good dried stand-in; leave them out.
  • Stock: water plus a little more salt and a spoonful of something savoury, such as soy sauce or tomato paste, depending on the dish.
  • Wine in a pan sauce: stock with a small splash of vinegar for the acidity.

Structure and lift

  • Cornstarch to thicken a sauce: use about twice as much flour, and simmer a couple of minutes longer to cook out the raw taste.
  • Self-rising flour: 1 cup of all-purpose flour plus 1½ teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt.
  • Baking powder: ¼ teaspoon baking soda plus ½ teaspoon cream of tartar for each teaspoon of baking powder.
  • Brown sugar: 1 cup of white sugar with 1 tablespoon of molasses mixed in.
  • Egg as a binder in meatballs or burgers: breadcrumbs soaked in a little milk.

When not to substitute

Some swaps are a bad bet even when the job matches.

  • Baking with structure at stake. In cakes, bread and pastry, the flour, eggs, fat and leaveners balance each other. Swapping bread flour for cake flour, oil for creamed butter, or leaving out an egg changes the texture in ways you can’t fix once it’s in the oven. If you’re missing a main baking ingredient, bake something else.
  • Preserving and canning. Tested canning and pickling recipes depend on their acid and timings for safety. Don’t change the vinegar, lemon juice or ratios in them.
  • Raw or lightly cooked eggs. If a swap would put raw egg into something that isn’t cooked, such as a mousse or a homemade mayonnaise, use pasteurised eggs, or choose a different dish. Dishes made with eggs should reach 160 °F (71 °C).
  • Allergies at the table. Never swap in nuts, sesame, dairy, gluten or shellfish without checking with the people you’re feeding. Check the labels on stock cubes and sauces too.
  • The ingredient the dish is named for. A lemon tart without lemons is a different tart. Change the plan rather than the ingredient.
  • More than one thing missing. One swap is usually fine. Three in one recipe and you’re cooking a new recipe without a method; pick one that fits what you have.

Asking while you cook

The hardest part of a mid-recipe swap is that it happens mid-recipe, with something on the heat. A few habits help:

  • Read the recipe once before you start, so you find the gap at the counter and not at the stove. How to read a recipe before you start cooking covers what to look for.
  • Note what you changed on the recipe, so next time you know whether the swap worked.
  • Adjust amounts carefully if you’re also scaling. If you’re cooking for more or fewer people than the recipe says, work out the new amounts first; see how to scale a recipe up or down.

You can also ask as you go. With Cook with Kre, you tell Kre you’re missing something, for example “I’m out of cream”, and it helps you adapt the recipe in the conversation, without a separate step to approve the change. See how Kre cooks with you.

Sources

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