Best Egg Substitutes for Baking and Cooking (With Exact Measurements)

Running out of eggs mid-recipe is one of the most common kitchen frustrations — and one of the easiest to solve. Whether you are baking a cake, binding meatballs or whipping up pancakes on a Sunday morning, there is almost always a swap in your fridge or pantry that will get the job done. The trick is knowing which substitute works for which job, and using the right amount.

Quick Reference — Egg Substitutes by Use

Here are the nine most reliable egg substitutes with exact measurements per egg, and the kind of recipe each one is best suited to.

For instant swaps on any other ingredient, use our ingredient substitution calculator.

Why Eggs Are Hard to Replace

Eggs are doing a lot of work in a recipe. They bind ingredients together, add moisture, provide structure when they set, lift batters with trapped air, and enrich both flavour and colour. No single substitute does all five jobs at once — which is why the right swap depends entirely on what the egg is doing in your recipe. A flax egg is brilliant for binding muffins but useless in a meringue. Aquafaba whips like magic but adds no richness. Applesauce keeps a quick bread moist but cannot lift a sponge.

The good news is that most home baking recipes use eggs for one or two jobs at most — usually binding and moisture — and almost any of the substitutes below will cover that role.

Best Egg Substitutes for Baking

Flax egg

Mix 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons of water and let it sit for 5 minutes until it forms a thick, gel-like consistency. Use as a 1:1 replacement for eggs in muffins, cookies, quick breads and pancakes. Adds a faint nutty flavour.

Chia egg

Identical method to a flax egg — 1 tablespoon chia seeds with 3 tablespoons water, rested 5 minutes. Slightly more neutral in flavour and slightly grittier in texture. Best in darker bakes like brownies and banana bread where the seeds disappear visually.

Unsweetened applesauce

Use 60g (¼ cup) per egg. Adds moisture and tenderness — perfect for muffins, quick breads and dense cakes. Reduce other liquid in the recipe slightly to compensate. Works best where a little extra moisture is welcome.

Mashed banana

Use 65g (¼ cup) per egg — roughly half a medium banana, mashed smooth. Adds binding, moisture and a mild banana sweetness. Ideal in pancakes, muffins and quick breads. Avoid in delicate vanilla cakes where the banana flavour would dominate.

Aquafaba

The starchy liquid drained from a tin of chickpeas. Use 3 tablespoons per whole egg or 2 tablespoons per egg white. Whips to stiff peaks just like egg whites — the best substitute for meringues, mousses, macarons and light sponge cakes. Completely flavourless once baked.

Best Egg Substitutes for Binding (Savoury)

In savoury cooking the egg is almost always doing one job — holding things together. Meatballs, burgers, fritters, breaded coatings and stuffings all rely on egg as a binder, and the swaps are simpler than in baking.

For meatballs, burgers and meatloaf, use 60g (¼ cup) of plain yogurt or silken tofu blended smooth per egg. Both add moisture and bind reliably without affecting flavour. A tablespoon of cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with 3 tablespoons of water also works well in a pinch, particularly in vegetable fritters.

For breading, dip food in a slurry of 3 tablespoons of plain plant milk plus 1 tablespoon of cornstarch or flour, then coat in breadcrumbs as usual. Avoid sweet substitutes like banana or applesauce for any savoury dish — the flavour will give you away.

How Many Eggs Can You Substitute?

Most substitutes scale cleanly up to two eggs. Past two eggs you start to push the limits of what a non-egg ingredient can do — the recipe is leaning hard on egg structure and lift, and replacing all of it with banana or applesauce will give you something dense and gummy.

For recipes calling for 3 or more eggs, you have two good options. Either find a recipe specifically designed to be egg-free (most modern baking sites have excellent vegan equivalents for popular bakes), or split your substitute — use aquafaba for the eggs providing lift, and applesauce or yogurt for the eggs providing moisture. A whisked tablespoon of vinegar plus a teaspoon of baking soda added at the end can help recover some of the rise lost from missing eggs.

A Note on Baking Results

Egg substitutes work — but they do not produce identical results to eggs. Expect bakes to be slightly denser, slightly more moist, and slightly less golden on top than the original. This is almost always fine for muffins, quick breads, cookies, brownies and pancakes. It is more noticeable in delicate cakes, soufflés and choux pastry, where eggs are doing structural work that nothing else can fully replicate.

For best results, weigh your substitute in grams rather than measuring by volume — the difference between a "scant" quarter cup of applesauce and a heaped one is enough to throw off a delicate batter. Our recipe converter and cooking measurements guide cover the conversions in detail.

Out of buttermilk too? See our guide to the 5 Best Buttermilk Substitutes for the same treatment with exact measurements.

Frequently Asked Questions