01
Egg Substitute
10.01:1
Commercial egg replacer; follow box ratio, works for binding and lift in most baking
10.0
egg substitutes
12 substitutes · avg score 4.9 · Whole chicken eggs — versatile binder, structure builder, and moisture source in baking and cooking. A large egg is about 50 g and contains roughly 70 calories; used in scrambles, omelets, cakes, custards, meringues, and batters.
one ingredient doing three separate jobs
A large egg is about 50 g of three things your recipe might want, and it is almost never asking for all three at once. The white is mostly protein that sets as it heats — that is what holds a meringue up and what lets a baked custard slice cleanly. The yolk carries the fat and the lecithin, so it emulsifies, enriches, and keeps a crumb tender. And a whole egg is mostly water, which means it is also a wet ingredient: take three eggs out of a cake batter and you have removed about 150 g of wet ingredient along with the structure.
That is the whole reason there is no single egg substitute, and why the scores below fan out so far. Before you choose one, work out which job the egg is actually doing. One egg in a tray of brownies is binding and moisture. Four eggs in a sponge are structure and lift. An egg in meatloaf is glue. An egg beaten with a splash of water and brushed on pastry is there for browning and nothing else. A substitute that nails one of those roles will fail flatly at another, and the applicability data below shows it doing exactly that.
choosing
pick for the job, not for the score
For binding and moisture in baking — muffins, quick breads, brownies, drop cookies — the seed gels are the workhorses. Chia seeds and flaxseed both score 8.0, and both work the same way: 1 tbsp of seed (ground, in the case of flax) stirred into 3 tbsp of water and rested five minutes until it thickens into something loosely egg-white-like. They bind and they hold moisture. They do not lift, they leave faint speckles in a pale crumb, and their usefulness falls off a cliff outside baking — both are rated 1 for cooking, frying, sauces and dressings. That is the data telling you not to try scrambling them.
Commercial egg replacer is the only entry at a flat 10.0, and the reason is unglamorous rather than magic: it is blended from starch and leavening precisely so it can bind and lift in the same spoonful. Follow the box ratio rather than guessing. It is the safest pick when a recipe leans on eggs for both jobs at once.
Applesauce at 1/4 cup per egg and mashed banana at half a banana per egg both score 6.0. They restore moisture and some binding, but they also bring sugar and their own flavour, so they belong in sweet, tender bakes and nowhere near a frittata — both rate 1 for cooking and frying. Greek yogurt, also 1/4 cup per egg at 5.0, does the same work with tang instead of sweetness and is the one of the group that holds up in meatloaf.
Silken tofu is the interesting outlier. Blended smooth, 1/4 cup per egg, 5.0 — and it is the only entry here scoring 5 for savoury cooking and 4 for frying while scoring just 2 for baking. Reach for it when the egg was going to be scrambled, not stirred into a batter. And treat the two leavening entries as partial answers: 1/2 tsp baking powder per egg, or 1/4 tsp baking soda plus 1 tbsp vinegar, both sit at 1.7 because they replace exactly one of the three jobs. Pair them with a binder; never send them in alone.
quick swaps (averaged across uses)
02
Chia Seeds
8.01 tbsp : 1 tbsp
1 tbsp chia + 3 tbsp water per egg, rest 5 min
8.0
03
Flaxseed
8.01 tbsp : 1 tbsp
1 tbsp ground flaxseed + 3 tbsp water per egg, rest 5 min
8.0
04
Applesauce
6.01/4 cup : 1 cup
1/4 cup applesauce per egg, best in baking
6.0
05
Bananas
6.01/2:1
Half a mashed banana per egg, adds sweetness
6.0
06
Greek Yogurt
5.01/4 cup : 1 cup
1/4 cup per egg, adds moisture and binding
5.0