Sometimes you just don’t have the ingredient a recipe calls for… or you want to replace ingredients you don’t like for one you do like!
Check out the list below for some of our most common substitutions!
SD Substitution Guide
Almond Butter:
You could use peanut butter, sunflower butter, cashew butter or even tahini.
Sugar:
The best sweeteners are going to be, dates, coconut sugar/nectar or maple syrup. If you are switching a liquid sweetener make sure you replace it with another liquid sweetener. And dry sweeteners with dry sweeteners. See Coconut Sugar Pricing on Amazon
Whole Wheat flour:
You could use brown rice flour.
Tomato Sauce:
You can blend up a few tomatoes in the food processor with your favorite seasonings.
Cheese:
Nutritional Yeast. Nutritional yeast is perfect for sprinkling over Mexican dishes or pizza. You can even make a nacho cheese sauce with it. See Pricing on Amazon
Milk:
Almond milk, coconut milk, hemp milk or rice milk. Non-dairy milks taste best when made at home. Check out our YouTube videos to see how easy it is to make non-dairy milks.
Butter:
Try coconut oil; in most recipes it works in the place of butter.
Canola Oil:
Olive oil or coconut oil, depending on the flavor you want.
Peanuts:
Almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. Usually peanuts are used for texture or added protein, therefore any tree nuts or seeds would work well in its place.
Tamari:
Soy sauce, coconut aminos, Bragg’s liquid aminos.
Dates:
Dried fruit like raisins or apricots will usually work. Make sure your dried fruit is soft if you are going to be blending it or processing it. Soften hard dried fruit by soaking it in hot water for 3 hours before using.
Flax Oil:
Olive Oil, flax has health proprieties that olive oil doesn’t, that’s why we use it but if you’re out of Flax use olive.
Garlic:
Granulated garlic, this is our go-to! It’s similar to powder but it doesn’t get dried out and stuck together. 1 clove garlic = ½ tsp. granulated garlic.
Buttermilk:
Butter milk is just soured milk; create this effect by adding 1 Tbsp. of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to every 1-3 cups of non-dairy milk.
Pasta:
Use brown rice noodles/pasta or Quinoa Pasta. We like the Ancient Harvest Brand.
Chocolate Chips:
Use a dark chocolate bar. Sometimes non-dairy chocolate chips can be expensive, loaded with ingredients or you might not want an entire bag. If that’s the case pick up your favorite dark chocolate bar and chop it up. It works great!
MORE GENERAL SUBSTITUTION IDEAS
Go Oil-free
Substitute oil in baked recipes with, apple sauce, mashed avocado (try it), pumpkin puree, banana or even mashed sweet potato.
Switch-out the Sugar with Fruit
Dates and bananas work great!
- Make date paste by placing soft dates in the food processor with water, process until a paste is created.
- Mush up a banana with the back of a fork and add to baked goods like brownies and muffins.
Zucchini Instead of Noodles
Use a spiralizer to create zucchini noodles for spaghetti or pesto recipes. You can also use a mandolin to slice noodles for lasagna, like these:
Vegetables Instead of Cheese
Load your pizza/nachos up with seasonal veggies and you won’t even miss the cheese.
Switch-out the Brown Rice with other Grains
Variety is what keeps cooking and eating interesting. Try quinoa, or millet in place of brown rice in recipes.
Switch-up Your Kale Smoothies
Kale is a nutrient powerhouse but so is Chard and Spinach, mix it up!
Go Gluten-free
Brown rice flour works in most recipes calling for whole wheat or white flour. We also use cornmeal, buckwheat flour, almond flour, and sometimes coconut flour as coconut is more difficult to use.
