Adapting recipes is often unavoidable when cooking, but sometimes changes are made for health reasons, not because ingredients are unavailable.
Heather Winn, family and consumer science educator for Ohio State University’s Cherokee County Extension Office, said there are a few key ways to create meal replacements.
“Most people will use a substitution if they’re cooking or meal prepping and realize they’re missing an ingredient. Lots of people are trying to eat healthier, so they might use a substitution to make a family favorite recipe healthier,” Wynn says. “For example, [you may use] Use applesauce in place of butter or oil in recipes. Substitutions are equal parts, but if the recipe also calls for water or milk, you can use less of the other liquid.
Common healthy recipe substitutions include replacing sour cream with yogurt, switching between different types of flour, or using applesauce instead of butter or oil in baked goods.
“Switching between different flour types takes some practice, and often when adapting a recipe for someone with a gluten intolerance, you have to use more than one type of flour,” says Wynn. “Gluten-free flours are great, but mixing your own flour can be daunting.”
Cooking with herbs and spices can help reduce salt intake and add flavour to meats and vegetables, Wynne said. She thinks the changes in appearance, texture and flavour that come with using substitutions could be the most problematic.
“Don’t expect it to taste the same as the original when you change ingredients,” Winn says. “It might be close, but there will almost always be slight differences. Sometimes in baking, you have to learn how to adjust things to get the consistency of the food just right.”
Wynn said there’s really no limit to substitutions because they’re different for each person. Some substitutions may be easy to make, but others may not suit personal tastes or may not fit the consistency of foods people prefer.
If a particular ingredient needs to be substituted and a cook is stumped for a solution, a quick Google search can provide the answer, Wynn says. Most cookbooks also have a section detailing substitute ingredients and the ratios needed to make the substitution.
“Try a substitution, and if you don’t like it, try another substitution,” says Wynn. “Food substitutions are like any other substitution in life: try it, and if you like it, try it again. If you don’t like it, there are other substitutions to try.”
