Recipe - Help! I Don'T Have Any... Cooking Substitutions To Help When You Can'T Get To The Store

For a lot of cooks, there are occurences when we don’t have the exact ingredients in the pantry to make our intended dish. If you find yourself in this situation, don’t despair, you probably have a suitable substitution on hand, saving the cook a drive to the store. Here are some hints.

Milk
Many recipes call for milk. If you realize yourself out of milk or don’t have enough to finish a specific recipe, make sure you have a supply of evaporated milk readily available. Evaporated milk or reconstituted milk can be kept for long periods of time and once combined with water and usually a bit of butter, can easily taste as fresh and delicious as regular milk.

Baking Powder
If you don’t have baking powder readily available, mix baking soda and a drop of buttermilk. For a tablespoon of double acting baking powder, substitute 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and a 1/2 cup of buttermilk.

Self Rising Flour
Self rising flour is simple to create at home, just combine one cup of all purpose flour with 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

Butter Milk
Out of butter milk? You can easily create your own. You can substitute 1 cup of butter milk with 1 cup whole milk and a tablespoon of vinegar. You can also substitute 1 cup of butter milk with 2/3 cup of plain yogurt and 1/3 cup whole milk.

Garlic
Ran out of garlic? Substitute garlic powder instead. About 1 clove of garlic equals 1/8 of a teaspoon of garlic powder.

Honey
You can quickly replace honey with sugar and water. 1 cup of honey is equal to about 1 and 1/4 cup of sugar and a 1/4 cup of water.

Substituting Sugar
If you are short on sugar on hand or would like to replace it due to health problems, here are some tips to replace sugar:

Sugar can be substituted with maple syrup, corn syrup, brown sugar, honey, stevia, and molasses. Although, some recipes will call for sugar or a granular sweetener instead of syrup due to baking and texture requirements.

If you would like to reduce the amount of sugar you eat due to health issues, look for the many sweeteners, sometimes called sugar alternatives at your grocery store. These sweeteners include but are not limited to, Sweet and Low, Splenda, Equal, and plant based Stevia.