Kitchen Substitutions
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Finding Substitutes for Less-Common Ingredients
Substituting ingredients and equipment in the kitchen is a delicate art, and you can’t always count on common sense to lead you to success. For instance, yogurt can often be substituted for buttermilk and sour cream for yogurt—but does that mean sour cream can be substituted for buttermilk? You should probably double-check before you ruin that batch of pancakes.* Still, no one wants to run out to the supermarket in the middle of a recipe for just one missing ingredient, so we’ve put together a guide to the substitution questions we’ve fielded over the years, both common and…creative, in the hopes that we can save you a trip to the store, or at least keep you safe from the possible disappointment of Thai curry made with coconut water instead of coconut milk.
* Actually, sour cream makes a great substitution for buttermilk in pancakes—you should try it. Just thin it with a little milk to get it closer to buttermilk texture.
Playing around with swapping replacement ingredients or tools in place of those listed in a recipe can be a dangerous game. Pick the substitutions that you think would actually work in a pinch.
1
Baking Powder for Baking Soda
SWAP or SKIP?
2
Club Soda for Seltzer
SWAP or SKIP?
3
Coconut Water for Coconut Milk
SWAP or SKIP?
4
Regular Limes for Key Limes
SWAP or SKIP?
5
Almond Butter for Peanut Butter
SWAP or SKIP?
6
Salted Butter for Unsalted Butter
SWAP or SKIP?
7
Dried Herbs for Fresh Herbs
SWAP or SKIP?
8
Whole-Wheat Flour for All-Purpose Flour
SWAP or SKIP?
9
Paper Towels for Cheesecloth
SWAP or SKIP?
10
Fresh Pumpkin for Canned Pumpkin
SWAP or SKIP?
I often keep bacon on hand, but rarely have pancetta in my refrigerator. Can bacon be substituted for pancetta?
It’s an imperfect substitution, but this can work if you make a few adjustments.
Bacon and pancetta are both cut from the belly of the pig, but the products are not identical. Bacon is cured with salt and then smoked. Pancetta (sometimes called Italian bacon) is cured with salt, black pepper, and spices and rolled into a cylinder. It is never smoked.
Replacing pancetta with bacon won’t ruin a dish, but because bacon is overtly smoky, many sources recommend blanching it before swapping it for pancetta. We tried this in a few recipes, first blanching the bacon in boiling water for two minutes and then proceeding with the recipe. As we prepared the recipes, we noticed that blanching had removed a considerable amount of the fat from the bacon. In fact, for a stew recipe, we had to supplement the bacon with a small amount of oil to properly sauté the aromatics. And when we tasted the finished dishes, we noticed that despite the blanching, subtle hints of smokiness remained. Even so, tasters deemed the substitution acceptable in each case.
I love cooking with bacon fat, but my girlfriend is a vegetarian. Is there a good meatless substitute?
Sorry, but nothing tastes like bacon fat except bacon fat.
In an attempt to build a vegetarian substitute that would mimic bacon fat’s savory, smoky, sweet, and fatty qualities, we tested a variety of fats (coconut oil, vegetable oil, olive oil, Crisco, and butter) flavored with a range of ingredients, including soy sauce, smoked paprika, chipotle chiles in adobo, miso paste, dried porcini mushrooms, liquid smoke, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and more. The closest substitute was a combination of ¼ cup of refined coconut oil, 2 teaspoons of miso paste, 1 teaspoon of maple syrup, and ¼ teaspoon of liquid smoke. The concoction was satisfactory as a cooking medium, but it lacked the unmistakable porky qualities of bacon, and was annoyingly complicated to make.
Because bacon fat’s smoke point is close to those of olive oil and canola oil, either will work as a substitute for cooking; they just won’t yield the same flavor results. Nothing else captures the complex combination of flavors of bacon fat.
Can I use “ground turkey breast” in a recipe that calls for “ground turkey”?
You might not even realize there is a difference between these two products, but there definitely is, and it’s an important one.
Ground turkey is typically 93 percent lean and is made by grinding both light and dark meat, including the skin and fat. Ground turkey breast (which often costs twice as much) is 99 percent lean and is made from only breast meat. To see whether we could use the two products interchangeably, we made batches of turkey burgers, turkey meatballs, and turkey chili using each. Our tasters preferred the fattier, richer ground turkey in every dish. The samples using the ultralean ground turkey breast were deemed “dry,” “chalky,” and “like cardboard.”
I don’t keep anchovies on hand. Is there anything I can substitute so I don’t have to buy a whole tin of anchovies just to make one recipe?
We’ve come up with a few simple, fishy pantry substitutions if you don’t want to keep anchovies around.
In the test kitchen, we often use anchovies in pasta sauces, stews, and even salad dressings to add a savory, indefinable flavor that isn’t identifiably fishy. To see whether other pantry ingredients could substitute for anchovies in a pinch, we gathered soy sauce, dried porcini mushrooms, fish sauce, and canned tuna (selected for their similar umami depth) and used them in place of the anchovies in pasta sauce and Caesar salad dressing.
The salty soy and intensely mushroomy porcini missed in both the sauce and dressing. The fish sauce (which is made from fermented anchovies anyway) was acceptable in the cooked sauce, but it made the dressing too thin. So in recipes where anchovies are used to add background flavor, feel free to substitute ½ teaspoon of fish sauce per anchovy fillet. To our surprise, finely chopped canned tuna was nearly indistinguishable from the anchovy in both the sauce and dressing. For a more all- purpose anchovy replacement, use 1 tablespoon of minced water-packed tuna per teaspoon of minced anchovy (about 2 fillets).
Is there a homemade vegetarian substitute for fish sauce?
We came up with a simple one that relies on the same compounds that give fish sauce its savory depth.
Fish sauce is rich in glutamates, tastebud stimulators that give food the meaty, savory flavor known as umami. Glutamates are often found in animal proteins, and in the case of fish sauce, they come from fermented fish.
Knowing that seaweed is a potent (and vegetarian) source of glutamates, we optimistically tried subbing a strong salted kelp broth for fish sauce in a Thai dipping sauce. When it failed to contribute sufficient depth, we turned to another source of savory flavor: nucleotides.
When flavor-boosting nucleotides are paired with glutamates, the perception of umami is significantly increased. Sure enough, a salty broth made with dried shiitake mushrooms (rich in nucleotides) and soy sauce (glutamates) provided just the right meaty punch as a one-to-one substitute for fish sauce. Here’s how to make it: In a saucepan, simmer 3 cups of water, ¼ ounce of dried sliced shiitake mushrooms, 3 tablespoons of salt, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce over medium heat until reduced by half. Strain, cool, and store in the fridge for up to three weeks.
I have a recipe that calls for prawns, but my grocery store sells only shrimp. Is there really any difference?
There is definitely a biological difference, but when it comes to taste, it’s not very noticeable.
Biologically speaking, there is a difference between shrimp and prawns, and it’s mainly about gill structure—a distinguishing feature that is hard for the consumer to spot. This simple fact may be why the terms are often used interchangeably or can vary depending on factors as random as custom and geography. “Prawn” is a term often used in the southern United States, for example, while northerners might refer to the same specimen as “shrimp.” In the United Kingdom and in many Asian countries, it’s all about size: Small crustaceans are called shrimp; larger ones, prawns. Size is actually not a good indication of a true shrimp or a true prawn, as each comes in a wide range of sizes, depending on the species. Taste won’t provide a clue either: Each type can sometimes taste more or less sweet, again depending on the species.
In our tests, we found no problem substituting one for the other in any recipe. The most important thing is to make sure that the count per pound (which indicates the size) is correct so that the same cooking times will apply.
I often see wild salmon for sale at the market. How does it differ from farmed salmon?
Several variables affect how different types of salmon behave in a recipe. We prefer wild salmon in every application.
Setting aside environmental and sustainability issues, we tasted fresh wild Alaskan king salmon alongside fresh farmed salmon from Norway in a basic pan-fried application as well as in a salmon cake recipe, noting variations in fattiness, flavor, aroma, and color. Sometimes labeled “Atlantic salmon,” farmed salmon is also widely bred in Canada, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
The wild salmon exuded more oil in the pan than the farmed salmon but tasted leaner overall, with a buttery texture and sweet, fresh flavor. The farmed salmon, which get less exercise and consume more fat than wild salmon, tasted fishy, with slimy, soft flesh and a musty, fatty aftertaste. In the salmon cakes, the same flavor and texture differences were noted. The leanest wild salmon also contains less fat, about half as much as farmed salmon, so there is less fat to provide lubrication and the perception of juiciness when cooked. Because of these differences, we prefer wild salmon cooked to just 120 degrees, while farmed salmon should be cooked to 125 degrees.
The flavor and texture of wild and farmed salmon will vary depending on a host of factors, including the species, season, and place of origin. In all our tests, however, we preferred the wild Alaskan salmon to the Norwegian farmed salmon.
If I have all-purpose flour, do I need to buy cake flour and bread flour? Can I just use all-purpose for everything (as the name implies)?
There are real chemical differences between various types of white flour—and they can make a big difference in your recipe.
The main difference between types of white flour is protein content. The amount of protein in flour affects how it will behave in a recipe: The higher the protein content, the more structure and chew in the end product; the lower the protein content, the more tender the end product. Besides texture, protein level also affects moisture retention, since proteins absorb moisture.
All-purpose flour is 10 to 12 percent protein. Bread flour has the highest protein, 12 to 14 percent. Then there is pastry flour, at 8 to 10 percent, and cake flour, at 6 to 8 percent. The names suggest the types of recipes each protein content is most useful for—lower protein means less structure and a softer crumb, which is ideal for a cake, while higher protein content generates height and chew, just what you need in a loaf of bread.
For best results, you should use the flour called for in the recipe whenever possible. However, if all you keep on hand is all-purpose flour, it can make an acceptable one-to-one substitute for bread flour and pastry flour. You can also make an approximation of cake flour: Simply use ⅞ cup of all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons of cornstarch for every cup of cake flour called for in a recipe. We don’t recommend using bread, pastry, or cake flour in a recipe that doesn’t specifically call for that type of flour.
Can I use whole-wheat flour in place of all-purpose flour to make my baked goods healthier?
Don’t do this if you want your baked goods to still turn out edible.
Whole-wheat flour is ground from the entire wheat berry—the outer bran layer, the germ, and the endosperm (the heart of the berry)—whereas all-purpose flour is ground from just the endosperm. While the germ layer gives whole-wheat flour more protein than all-purpose flour, it also inhibits the formation of gluten. Gluten provides lift and structure to baked goods, so less of it results in a denser crumb. Additionally, the germ and bran particles in whole-wheat flour contribute to greater chewiness. Thus, if you simply replace all the all-purpose flour in a recipe with whole-wheat flour without making other modifications, you’ll end up with dense, tough, chewy baked goods.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use any whole-wheat flour at all. We found that you can replace about 25 percent of the all-purpose flour called for in a recipe with whole-wheat flour without any adverse effects. If you want to bake with more whole-wheat flour than that, we recommend you seek out recipes specifically designed for that ingredient.
What is the difference between bleached and unbleached flour, and should I buy one over the other?
We prefer unbleached, especially for baking.
When flour is first milled, it has a yellowish cast that some consumers find unappealing. Within a few months after milling, however, the pigments naturally whiten. Because it is expensive to naturally “age” flour, some producers expedite the process chemically. In flours labeled “bleached,” benzoyl peroxide has likely been used to fade the yellow color. In baking tests, bleached flour was criticized for tasting flat or having “off” flavors, but we didn’t find any issues with the flavor of a savory sauce made with bleached flour. So it’s fine to use small amounts of bleached flour to thicken sauces, but avoid it for baking.
I hate to sift flour. Is it really necessary?
Sifting does more than just get rid of lumps, and skipping this step can cause major problems down the line.
Sifting not only removes lumps but also aerates flour so it can be incorporated more easily into batters. Additionally, sifted flour weighs 20 to 25 percent less per cup than unsifted flour. We’ve found that just one additional ounce of flour can cause a normally moist and level cake to bake up drier and with a domed top, so if you use unsifted flour, you might be dooming your cake to failure before it even goes into the oven.
If you really hate sifting, you can try whisking the flour instead. When we tested equal weights of sifted versus whisked flour in recipes, we found that both methods delivered similar results. Cakes made with sifted flour were a tad taller (sifting does aerate the flour more than whisking), but the differences were minimal.
Can I use white and yellow cornmeal interchangeably in recipes? Do they taste the same?
Feel free to swap white and yellow cornmeal, but pay close attention to the grind.
The color of cornmeal comes from the variety of corn from which it is milled. Besides the common white and yellow, some companies also mill red and blue varieties. To determine whether there was a noticeable flavor difference, we made corn muffins, hush puppies, and polenta with yellow cornmeal and then with white cornmeal. With the muffins, a few tasters detected sweeter notes, stronger corn flavor, and a more delicate crumb in the yellow cornmeal batch. However, in the hush puppies and polenta, we did not find strong flavor or textural differences (though many preferred the look of yellow cornmeal).
Our testing did confirm a more important distinction: Coarseness is key. When a recipe calls for a specific grind of cornmeal, be sure to use what’s called for. If the recipe does not specify, use finely ground.
I’ve seen recipes calling for masa, masa harina, and masarepa. Can I just use whichever is easiest to find?
While all three come from corn, they are actually three quite different products.
Masa and masa harina are made from hominy, which is dried corn that has been soaked or cooked in a solution of water and calcium hydroxide to remove the germ and hull. This process, called nixtamalization, imparts a distinctive flavor that differentiates masa-based products from other forms of dried corn like cornmeal.
Masa is a moist dough made from finely ground hominy. It can be flattened into rounds to make corn tortillas or enriched with other ingredients to make tamales and pupusas. Fresh masa is hard to find outside Mexico and the American Southwest. More commonly available, masa harina is made by drying fresh masa and processing it into a flour. It can be cooked with water and used in place of fresh masa to make tortillas, tamales, or pupusas, but it has a less intense corn flavor.
Unlike masa and masa harina, masarepa, a form of instant precooked corn flour, has not been treated with calcium hydroxide. In the test kitchen, we found that it had the weakest flavor of the three products. Masarepa is typically mixed with cold water to make arepas, corn cakes that are split and filled like a sandwich, and then grilled, fried, or baked.
What are the differences between old-fashioned and quick-cooking oats? Which should I use for baking? Which is best for homemade oatmeal?
Choose old-fashioned rolled oats for all your baking needs, as well as your morning oatmeal.
Both old-fashioned and quick-cooking oats are flattened between rollers to speed cooking. For even faster cooking, quick oats are steamed, toasted, and cut into smaller pieces before packaging.
After making and tasting two batches of oatmeal cookies, one with quick oats and the other with old-fashioned rolled oats, we found that the cookies made with old-fashioned oats were more attractive and had a fuller oat flavor and a pleasing chew. The cookies made with quick oats were acceptable, though, even if we did have to peer long and hard to spot the oats. They were lighter and cakier while still retaining their chew. So if the only oats you have in the cupboard are quick oats, go ahead and use them.
We also prepared quick oats and old-fashioned rolled oats as simple oatmeal and found that they both tasted fine, but the quick oats turned out a bit mushy. In the microwave, the quick oats take 90 seconds to cook, while the old-fashioned oats take about a minute longer. Given all this, we recommend that you buy old-fashioned oats. They have the best texture and take only a minute longer to cook.
Are there differences between long-, medium-, and short-grain rice aside from the length of the grains?
When picking rice, keep in mind that there is a correlation between length of grain and stickiness.
Generally speaking, the shorter the grain, the stickier the rice. In long-grain rice, the grains are more than three times as long as they are wide. Well-known varieties include basmati, jasmine, and Carolina Gold. Both medium- and short-grain rice are often marketed and sold as short-grain to set them apart from long-grain, since both have a fatter, more rounded look. But medium grains are up to three times longer than they are wide, and short grains are less than twice as long as they are wide. Most varieties of Japanese rice are medium- to short-grain, as are Italian Arborio (used for risotto) and Spanish Valencia (used for paella).
The stickiness of rice, referred to as “waxiness” in the rice industry, is related to its relative amount of amylose, a starch that does not gelatinize during cooking. The less amylose, the stickier the rice. Short-grain rice consists of 15 to 20 percent amylose, making it the waxiest of all rice types. Medium-grain rice has an average amylose content of 18 to 26 percent, putting it right in the middle of the waxiness spectrum. Finally, long-grain rice is 23 to 26 percent amylose, causing it to cook up light and fluffy.
Short-grain
Medium-grain
Long-grain
My grocery store recently started carrying Carolina Gold and Charleston Gold heirloom rice—will they work in recipes that call for regular long-grain rice?
These heirloom varieties cook in about the same time as long-grain white rice, but you might notice some flavor differences.
Any produce billed as heirloom is simply an older variety that is not associated with large-scale commercial production. The smaller yields often mean that more care is taken in growing, harvesting, and packaging—and you pay more for that. We tested the two varieties of heirloom rice you spotted, Carolina Gold and Charleston Gold, next to our favorite long-grain white rice in a simple boiled preparation, rice pilaf, and rice pudding.
In all three applications, both heirloom varieties cooked at similar rates to the long-grain rice. They did, however, have different flavors and textures. Tasters noted that the Carolina Gold rice tasted “nutty” and “sweet,” with notes of barley and popcorn; it also had more of an al dente chew than our favorite long-grain rice. The Charleston Gold rice had smaller kernels, and some tasters commented that it was “stickier,” with a “perfumed” flavor similar to that of basmati rice, making ordinary white rice taste “plain” in comparison. Each of these heirloom varieties has a unique flavor and texture that make them worth trying.
Do different colors of quinoa taste different? Do they need to be used differently?
White and red quinoa are interchangeable, but black quinoa should be used more carefully.
White quinoa is the most commonly found variety of these tiny seeds native to South America, but red and black varieties are increasingly available. To see whether color made a difference, we prepared quinoa pilaf using all three types. White quinoa, which has the largest seeds of the three, had a slightly nutty, vegetal flavor with a hint of bitterness; it also had the softest texture. The medium-size red seeds offered a heartier, nutty crunch. Black quinoa seeds, the smallest of the three, have the thickest seed coat. They were notably crunchy in our recipe and retained their shape the most during cooking, but many tasters disliked their slightly sandy texture. Based on these results, you should feel free to use white and red quinoa interchangeably, but you’re better off reserving black quinoa for recipes specifically tailored to its distinctive texture and flavor.
Can I use active dry yeast and instant yeast interchangeably?
Active dry yeast and instant yeast may be similar in appearance and origin, but substituting one for the other will yield vastly different results.
When we baked a variety of bread recipes using equal amounts of active dry yeast and instant (also known as rapid-rise) yeast, the active dry batches consistently took longer to rise and baked up denser than the instant batches. These two forms of yeast have different degrees of potency owing to differences in processing: Active dry yeast is dried at higher temperatures, which kills more of the exterior yeast cells (so this yeast requires an initial activation in warm water), whereas instant yeast is dried at more gentle temperatures (so it can be added directly to the dry ingredients in a recipe).
If you have only active dry yeast on hand and a recipe calls for instant, there’s an easy fix: To compensate for the greater quantity of inactive yeast cells in the active dry yeast, simply use 25 percent more of it. (Conversely, use about 25 percent less instant yeast in a recipe that calls for active dry.) Also, don’t forget to dissolve active dry yeast in a portion of the water from the recipe, heated to 105 degrees, and let it stand for five minutes before adding it to the remaining wet ingredients. If you’re using instant yeast in recipes that call for active dry, simply add it to the dry ingredients.
What’s the difference between baking soda and baking powder? Can I substitute one for the other?
The chemical makeup of your recipe determines which of these leaveners you can successfully use.
Both baking soda and baking powder are chemical leaveners. Baking soda causes baked goods to brown more and contributes deeper flavor, thanks to the Maillard reaction. However, to do its work, baking soda, which is alkaline, relies on acid in a recipe, provided by ingredients such as buttermilk, yogurt, or molasses. Baking powder, on the other hand, is baking soda mixed with a dry acid, such as cream of tartar, and double-dried cornstarch. The cornstarch keeps the baking soda and dry acid apart during storage, preventing premature production of carbon dioxide. When baking powder becomes wet, the dry acid comes into contact with the baking soda, producing the gas. Cooks use baking powder rather than baking soda when there is no natural acidity in the batter or to provide more sustained leavening (since it’s activated by higher temperatures later in the baking process).
You cannot substitute baking powder for baking soda. If you want to substitute baking soda for baking powder, however, just add cream of tartar: For every 1 teaspoon of baking powder called for, use ¼ teaspoon baking soda plus ½ teaspoon cream of tartar. Use this mixture right away (that is, do not prepare it and then store it for future use).
In many recipes, we call for both baking soda and baking powder because the combination gives us better control over how fast (and when) leavening occurs in a recipe, as well as the alkalinity of the dough or batter.
Is it possible to substitute granulated sugar for other types of sugar?
Yes, you can doctor granulated sugar to approximate other types.
It’s happened to all of us: A recipe calls for confectioners’ sugar, or brown sugar, but the only thing on hand is plain old white sugar. However, given that all three of these sweeteners are nothing more than commercially processed granulated sugar, we wondered whether we could “process” the white stuff ourselves to serve as a stand-in. Though it’s certainly more convenient to buy a particular sugar when you need it, each of our substitutes worked just fine.
Process 1 cup plus 2 teaspoons granulated sugar in a food processor for 30 seconds.
Yield 1 cup superfine sugar
Confectioners’ Sugar
Pulverize 1 cup granulated sugar with 1 teaspoon cornstarch in a spice grinder or blender (a food processor cannot crush the sugar fine enough) for at least 1 minute, until fully powdered. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer to remove any large particles that remain.
Yield 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Brown Sugar
Pulse 1 cup granulated sugar with 1 tablespoon dark molasses (for light brown sugar) or 2 tablespoons dark molasses (for dark brown sugar) in a food processor until fully combined.
Yield 1 cup brown sugar
I don’t use corn syrup very often and usually have only one type on hand at any given time. Can I substitute light corn syrup for dark (and vice versa)?
If you can’t make it to the grocery store, go ahead and use whatever corn syrup you’ve got in the pantry.
Light corn syrup is made by adding enzymes to a mixture of cornstarch and water to break the long starch strands into glucose molecules. It is then clarified to remove all color and impurities, giving it a sweet, mild flavor. (Vanilla is also added.) Dark corn syrup is a mixture of corn syrup and refiners’ syrup (a type of molasses), to which caramel color and flavor are added to give it a deep brown color and stronger flavor.
We tried each type in three different recipes (oatmeal lace cookies, hot fudge sauce, and pecan pie) to determine whether the two varieties could be used interchangeably. Tasters detected few flavor differences in the samples. The cookies made with light corn syrup were lighter and chewier than the darker, crispier cookies made with dark corn syrup, but tasters found both acceptable. Colorwise, both samples of the hot fudge sauce and the pecan pie looked the same. In the hot fudge sauce, the dark corn syrup yielded a richer chocolate flavor and a slightly looser texture. In the pecan pie, several tasters found that the dark corn syrup made for a runnier texture and a richer caramel flavor that masked some of the pecan flavor.
Our conclusion? Yes, there are some subtle flavor and textural differences between light and dark corn syrups, but they are far from earth-shattering, so you can use either type in most recipes.
I’ve recently seen a sweetener called agave nectar at my supermarket. Is it a good substitute for sugar?
Agave nectar is too different from granulated sugar to make a reliable substitute—unless you’re sweetening drinks.
Agave nectar comes from the sap of the thorny, thick-leaved agave plant native to Mexico. The nectar ranges in color from pale gold to amber, depending on the amount of filtration during processing. Lighter nectar has a relatively neutral flavor, while darker nectar has a caramel-like taste. Agave contains 2.9 calories per gram compared to sugar’s 4 calories per gram. Agave is also sweeter than sugar, so less of it is needed, further reducing the caloric intake.
We tested agave as a replacement for sugar in oatmeal cookies, yellow cake, sweet iced tea, and margaritas, using a proportion of ⅔ cup of agave nectar for every cup of sugar. We found that the cookies were marred by a soft, bready texture, while the cake had a layer of tough, chewy agave that settled on the bottom of the pan. On the bright side, there were no off-flavors.
When we used agave in beverages, the results were more to our liking. In the sweet tea, tasters found the agave a perfectly acceptable substitute, despite the slightly bitter aftertaste some of the more discerning tasters detected. The agave margaritas were hugely popular, which makes sense given that tequila is also derived from the agave plant. Another bonus: Because it is a liquid, the nectar dissolves better in drinks than granulated sugar.
Is it OK to substitute blackstrap molasses in recipes that call for mild molasses?
Yes, but you have to doctor the intense blackstrap molasses first.
Molasses is produced by boiling down sugarcane juice. Light molasses comes from the first boiling, dark from the second, and blackstrap from the third. As the molasses is boiled, the sugar caramelizes and the minerals in the sugarcane juice become more concentrated. While both light and blackstrap molasses have about the same amount of total sugar (55 to 70 percent), their mineral content differs: Light molasses contains 2 percent minerals, while blackstrap contains a whopping 10 percent.
To find out how different types of molasses affect recipes, we made batches of Boston baked beans and molasses cookies with both light and blackstrap molasses. The vast majority of tasters found the flavors of the blackstrap molasses too potent in both recipes. We went back into the kitchen to see whether we could mix blackstrap molasses with another ingredient to approximate light molasses. We replaced half of the blackstrap molasses with light corn syrup and then with honey in two more batches of cookies and beans. Tasters said the batches made with honey lacked distinct molasses flavor, but declared the corn syrup–blackstrap cookies just as good as the light-molasses cookies. The corn syrup–blackstrap baked beans were tender and flavorful.
So, if you want to use blackstrap in a recipe that calls for light molasses, temper its brashness by replacing half of it with light corn syrup for an approximation of mild molasses. (We have also found that mild, dark, robust, and full molasses all taste similar and can be used interchangeably.)
What’s the difference between semisweet, bittersweet, and dark chocolates?
It turns out these labels don’t mean as much as you might think they do.
All chocolate begins as cacao beans. The inner meat (or nib) of the bean is removed from the shell and ground into a paste, called chocolate liquor (although it contains no alcohol). Chocolate liquor consists of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. It is then further processed and mixed with sugar and flavorings to create various types of chocolate.
Semisweet and bittersweet chocolates, which are both considered “dark chocolate,” must contain at least 35 percent chocolate liquor, although most contain more than 55 percent and some go as high as 99 percent. Typically, manufacturers use the label “bittersweet” for chocolates that are higher in cacao (and therefore less sweet) than their “semisweet” offerings. Thus, “bittersweet” and “semisweet” can be useful terms for comparing products within one brand but are imprecise across different brands. Cacao content matters more than name, and we have found that the flavor and texture of 60 percent cacao (whether called semisweet, bittersweet, or just “dark”) is ideal for most cooking applications.
Is there any way to use dark chocolate and unsweetened chocolate interchangeably?
There are some useful substitutions, but they don’t work in all types of recipes.
Unsweetened chocolate is not the same as dark (bittersweet or semisweet) chocolate. It is limited by the amount of cocoa butter it can contain, which must be between 50 and 60 percent. Lower fat means more cocoa solids, and therefore richer chocolate flavor.
You can replace 1 ounce of dark chocolate with ⅔ ounce of unsweetened chocolate and 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar, but the unsweetened chocolate will not provide the same smooth, creamy texture. That means that while this substitution will work well with fudgy brownies, it could wreak havoc on a delicate custard or an airy cake.
To replace 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate, you can either use 3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil or use 1½ ounces of dark chocolate and then remove 1 tablespoon of sugar from the recipe, but we recommend these substitutions only in recipes that call for small quantities of chocolate.
Is it OK to melt chocolate chips instead of chopping my own chocolate?
Good news—this shortcut works for many recipes!
When a recipe calls for melted chocolate, we usually reach for quality bar chocolate, but the idea of using chocolate chips instead is appealing. Chips require no prep, whereas chopping up a block of bar chocolate makes a mess. We baked four batches of brownies—one with bittersweet bar chocolate, one with semisweet bar chocolate (the recipe calls for either), a third with commonly available semisweet chips, and a fourth with bittersweet chips.
Surprisingly, the texture and appearance of all four pans of brownies were the same. There were some slight differences in flavor, but if all you have is chocolate chips, this swap can work. Just try to use the same sweetness level as called for in the recipe.
Chocolate chips do tend to contain less cocoa butter than bar chocolate, however, and this lower fat content means that they might take a bit longer to melt than chopped bar chocolate; they may also contain stabilizers designed to help them hold their shape when baked into cookies. As a result, we don’t recommend using them in chocolate sauces or puddings where a perfectly smooth texture is necessary.
Why is some cocoa powder labeled “natural” and some labeled “Dutched”? What’s the difference and which one should I use?
In most applications, you can use either—there will be some texture and flavor differences, but you won’t ruin a recipe.
In the world of cocoa powder, there are two main categories: natural and Dutched. The natural product is made mainly of unsweetened cocoa solids that have had much of their fat removed and are then dried and ground to a powder. Dutching refers to the step of adding an alkali to neutralize the powder’s acidity and to mellow its astringent notes; it also darkens the color.
We tested a half-dozen recipes side by side, using both types of cocoa in each recipe. The biggest finding was that none of the recipes failed, even those with a high proportion of cocoa powder, and thus the potential to be most strongly affected. But that didn’t mean there weren’t differences in appearance, texture, and flavor. Not surprisingly, Dutch-processed cocoa produced cakes, cookies, and hot cocoa with a darker color than the versions made with natural cocoa. In terms of texture, natural cocoa produced slightly drier baked goods, as well as cookies with less spread than did Dutch-processed. Finally, we found that baked goods and hot chocolate made with Dutched cocoa displayed more of the fruity, bitter notes of dark chocolate, while natural cocoa delivered a more straightforward chocolate flavor.
Both natural and Dutched cocoa will work in most recipes; unless a recipe specifically calls for one or the other, use whichever fits your preferences in terms of flavor, appearance, and texture.
Many chocolate desserts call for a small amount of instant espresso powder, which I don’t usually have on hand. Is there an easy substitute?
Instant coffee can be used as a substitute, but the proportion depends on the type of recipe you’re making.
Instant espresso powder is often used to boost the intensity of chocolate flavor. Because instant espresso isn’t always available, we wanted to determine how much instant coffee should be used in place of instant espresso. We prepared three recipes—pots de crème, triple-chocolate espresso brownies, and devil’s food cake—each with the amount of instant espresso called for in the recipe, an equal amount of instant coffee, and twice the amount of instant coffee.
The pots de crème made with instant espresso had a rich, dark chocolate flavor. When the espresso was replaced with an equal amount of a popular brand of instant coffee, the chocolate flavor was weak and lacked depth. Doubling the amount of instant coffee, however, made the flavor comparable to the original recipe. The opposite was true with the espresso brownies, which exhibited a bitter, overwhelming coffee flavor when twice the amount of instant coffee was used. Tasters preferred the brownies made with a one-to-one conversion, which had a strong, but not undesirable, coffee flavor. As for the cake, tasters couldn’t detect much of a difference among the three batches.
If you can’t find instant espresso powder, we recommend replacing it with the same amount of instant coffee in baked goods and with double the amount in creamy applications like puddings, frostings, and mousses, which contain proportionally more chocolate as a percentage of the total ingredients. You can also just grind your own espresso beans at home, but avoid this substitute in recipes that require a supersmooth texture; freshly ground espresso tends to be gritty and doesn’t dissolve the same way instant espresso powder does.
I’ve recently seen powdered peanut butter in the grocery store. What is it and can I use it in place of regular peanut butter?
Not if you follow the directions on the jar, but there is another way to make it work.
Marketed as a lower-fat alternative to regular peanut butter, powdered peanut butter is a byproduct of peanut oil production: Roasted peanuts are pressed to extract the peanut oil, and the leftover, defatted peanut bits are dried and ground into a powder, which can be reconstituted if desired.
We purchased four brands of powdered peanut butter and followed the package directions to reconstitute them with water. We matched these against our favorite creamy peanut butter in peanut butter cookies, milkshakes, and peanut butter sandwiches.
Tasters were easily able to pick out the applications made with the powdered varieties. The cookies were noticeably leaner. In the milkshakes, the peanut flavor was less pronounced, and the texture was decidedly chalky. The sandwiches, according to tasters, seemed as if they were made with reduced-fat peanut butter.
These comments made sense when we compared nutrition labels. While 2 tablespoons of Skippy has 190 calories and 16 grams of fat, 2 tablespoons of reconstituted powdered peanut butter has about 45 calories and 1.5 grams of fat.
Knowing that peanut oil is removed from powdered peanut butter, we also tried reconstituting the powder using peanut oil instead of water. It made the product much more similar to regular creamy peanut butter and yielded superior results to the water-constituted version. Of course, this does add back some of the fat removed from powdered peanut butter, so if you’re looking for a diet product, you may not like this solution.
Peanut allergies have become so commonplace. Can I substitute other nut butters for peanut butter in cookie recipes?
Unless the recipe is specifically designed for alternative nut butters, you probably won’t get great results with a direct swap.
To find the answer to this question, we substituted almond butter and cashew butter, the two most commonly available “alternative” nut butters, for peanut butter in chewy peanut butter cookies. The cashew butter cookies were very similar in texture and appearance to those made with peanut butter, but the cashew flavor was so subtle that it was easy to miss, making this nut a poor stand-in for peanuts. The almond butter cookies fared worse: The almond skins made the cookies taste noticeably bitter, and the cookies also spread more than their peanut and cashew counterparts, ending up comparatively flat and unattractive.
It turns out that almonds contain not only slightly more fat than peanuts and cashews (which share a similar fat percentage) but also a much higher proportion of unsaturated fat. Because unsaturated fat has a lower melting point, cookies made with almond butter are more fluid, allowing the batter to spread before their structure is set.
In a nutshell: If you’re concerned about peanuts, look for cookie recipes specifically designed for other nut butters. However, if you’d consider a non-nut replacement, we did have good results with sunflower seed butter. Spread on bread, subbed for peanut butter in cookies, and mixed into dipping sauces for crudités, it was surprisingly good. It has the pleasantly vegetal, slightly nutty flavor characteristic of the seeds, and though runny, its texture was still perfectly acceptable. We think it makes an interesting alternative to peanut butter, even if you aren’t avoiding nuts. Like peanut butter, sunflower seed butter comes in both smooth and crunchy varieties.
The science involved in baking makes it very hard to find substitutions that won’t mess with the chemistry that creates the delicate crumb of a cake, the dense fudginess of a brownie, or the crisp crust of a loaf of bread. Luckily, we have tested scores of possible ingredient substitutions to figure out which ones do the trick under which circumstances and which ones simply don’t work.
Dairy
Flour, Sugar, and Chocolate
When should I use pasteurized eggs versus unpasteurized eggs? Does pasteurization change the flavor or cooking properties of the eggs?
Most of the time you can use either, but it might take a little extra work to whip pasteurized eggs properly.
Pasteurization of eggs has become popular as a way to combat potential salmonella bacteria. The pasteurization process involves passing the eggs through a series of warm water baths. The combination of time and temperature heats the eggs enough to kill potentially harmful bacteria but not enough to cook the eggs. The eggs are then chilled and coated with an all-natural wax sealant to prevent recontamination and to maintain freshness.
To see how pasteurized eggs stacked up against the unpasteurized variety, we made Caesar salad dressing with both pasteurized and unpasteurized raw yolks, and meringues from the whites of each. We didn’t detect any differences in the two dressings, but that was not the case with the meringues. We immediately noticed that the pasteurized whites were much looser and more watery than their unpasteurized counterparts. What’s more, the pasteurized whites took more than twice as long to whip into a stiff and glossy meringue.
On the whole, we still prefer and continue to use ordinary eggs for most recipes, especially those for baked goods. But if you are wary of making mayonnaise, eggnog, or Caesar salad dressing using raw eggs, pasteurized eggs are a safe and acceptable option.
If a recipe calls for whole milk, can I use low-fat or skim milk?
While skim milk probably won’t ruin a recipe, whole milk or even 1 percent milk will make it that much better.
We’ve all seen those recipes that specify what kind of milk to use: whole, low-fat, nonfat. But in the end, does it really matter? Can the average palate detect a difference, or are they pretty much interchangeable? We tested whole milk (which is 3½ percent fat), 1 percent milk, and skim milk (which must contain less than ½ percent fat) in three recipes: pancakes, yellow layer cake, and chocolate pudding. Each recipe originally called for whole milk.
While a couple of very particular tasters could pick out the pancake made with skim milk, the majority could not discern much difference between any of the pancakes. That’s good news: You can use whatever you have in your fridge.
Not so with the yellow cake, though. Tasters found the cake made with skim milk to be dry and tough and the cake made with whole milk to be moist and tender. Surprisingly, the cake made with 1 percent milk was very similar in tenderness to the whole milk cake. Clearly, this cake needs milk with some fat.
The pudding made with skim milk was by no means a disaster, but it was nowhere near as rich and creamy as the pudding made with either the 1 percent or whole milk. Moreover, the puddings made with the higher-fat milks were thought to taste more chocolatey and decadent, with the whole-milk pudding having a distinctly velvety mouthfeel. Fat is a flavor carrier, which would explain the discrepancy.
What is the difference between whipping cream and heavy cream? Are they interchangeable?
Despite its name, whipping cream is not your best bet for homemade whipped cream.
By law, heavy cream (also called heavy whipping cream) must consist of at least 36 percent milk fat, and whipping cream (also called light whipping cream) must have at least 30 percent but no more than 36 percent. This may not sound like much of a difference, but after whipping up more than a few bowls of cream, we learned that it can be. Other factors that can make a difference include whether it’s ultrapasteurized or simply pasteurized (the difference is the temperature to which the cream is heated during processing), and whether it contains any additives.
In our testing, we found that while whipping cream reached stiff peaks faster than heavy cream, it lost those peaks and became watery after just a few hours, while the whipped heavy cream maintained its texture for up to a day. The higher-fat heavy cream also made the thickest and best-tasting whipped cream; we especially liked the pasteurized version we tried, which also had no additives. Additives, as well as the process of ultrapasteurization, compromise the sweet, delicate flavor of cream. All told, pasteurized heavy cream, with a fat content of 40 percent (or 6 grams per tablespoon), is the best all-purpose cream to use for whipping. The next best choice is ultrapasteurized heavy cream. We don’t recommend light whipping cream.
What exactly is buttermilk, and can I use some combination of butter and milk if I don’t have any on hand?
There are several easy buttermilk substitutes you can make with common dairy products—but none of them involve butter.
Buttermilk is a misleading word. Many assume the product is infused with butter and thus high in fat, when the truth is quite the opposite. The name refers to the watery end product of butter making—the “milk” left behind after the solid fat has been removed through the process of churning cream into butter. Today, buttermilk is made more after the fashion of yogurt, in which harmless bacteria are added to milk to break down the milk sugar (lactose) and in the process create lactic acid, which thickens the milk and helps produce a tangy flavor.
The easiest substitute for buttermilk is “clabbered” or thickened milk. This is made by adding an acid to regular milk. Our go-to is lemon juice—1 tablespoon stirred into each cup of milk. You can also use the same amount of distilled white vinegar. Another option is cream of tartar, which has a less noticeable flavor than lemon juice or vinegar. Since cream of tartar can clump when you stir it into milk, it should be whisked into the dry ingredients instead (1½ teaspoons of cream of tartar for each cup of milk). We also like powdered buttermilk, which is easy to use (simply follow the instructions on the package), has a longer shelf life than liquid buttermilk, and is also cheaper.
In baking applications, you can also substitute low-fat yogurt for buttermilk. A one-to-one swap will work for thicker batters like cakes or biscuits; for thinner batters like pancakes, you should first thin the yogurt with low-fat milk or water. We do not recommend substituting yogurt for buttermilk in savory recipes like buttermilk mashed potatoes.
Are regular yogurt and Greek yogurt interchangeable in recipes?
It’s not a one-for-one swap, but you can make it work.
Greek yogurt is thicker and creamier than typical full-fat American-style yogurt—and has more than twice the fat. Most brands of full-fat plain yogurt contain between 7 and 9 grams of fat per 1-cup serving, while Greek yogurt usually contains upwards of 20 grams of fat. Nearly all the whey (the watery liquid that separates from the solids) is strained out of Greek yogurt, giving it a rich, smooth texture that is slightly thicker than that of sour cream. In terms of flavor, Greek yogurt is fairly mild, with a slight tang.
You can make your own version of Greek yogurt by straining the whey out of full-fat plain yogurt. Put the yogurt in a fine-mesh strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth (paper towels or coffee filters will also work) and set it over a bowl to catch the whey. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator. After 24 hours, the yogurt will have reduced in volume by about half and achieved a thick, rich consistency closely resembling that of Greek yogurt.
If, on the other hand, all you have is Greek yogurt and your recipe calls for regular yogurt, you can add moisture back in: Use only two-thirds of the amount of yogurt called for in the recipe and make up the difference with water.
Can I substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream in recipes?
In a pinch, it’ll work. Just be wary of using it in recipes that require high heat.
Greek yogurt and sour cream are both thick, sour-tasting dairy products, so it’s not crazy to think they could be interchangeable. To test this, we tried Greek yogurt in our drop biscuits, in a sour cream–based horseradish sauce, and in beef stroganoff.
In the biscuits and the cream sauce, our testers thought that the Greek yogurt was a fine substitute; it felt slightly leaner than the sour cream in both applications, but overall it was acceptable. However, the Greek yogurt broke when it was added to the hot sauce in the beef stroganoff. While tasters said it tasted fine—albeit less rich—it was visually unappealing.
Why did the yogurt break in the stroganoff? While 1 cup of sour cream has 40 grams of fat, the same amount of whole-fat Greek yogurt has less than half that amount, making it much less stable when exposed to high heat.
What’s the best substitute for crème fraîche if I can’t find the real thing?
Crème fraîche is not quite like any other dairy product, but you can make an approximation with more common ingredients—as long as you’ve got time to wait.
Authentic crème fraîche has a silky-smooth, almost cream-cheesey texture and a rich, faintly sour yet slightly sweet, nutty flavor. The traditional way of making it in France is simply to leave heavy cream out at room temperature to let the inherent lactic bacteria do their job of thickening it and blooming its flavor.
If you can’t find crème fraîche and have at least 24 hours before you need to use it, the best approximation of the real thing is to whisk 1 tablespoon of buttermilk into 1 cup of heavy cream and let the mixture sit at room temperature for 24 hours to thicken. This version of crème fraîche can then be covered and stored in the refrigerator, where it will thicken still further. We also found that leaving the mixture, covered, at room temperature for another two days further developed the flavor. The finished product can be stored in the refrigerator for about two weeks.
What if you can’t wait a day and want to serve something milder and sweeter than sour cream but more tangy than whipped cream? Try mixing 1 part sour cream and 1 part heavy cream; letting it sit out for even an hour or two helps thicken the mixture and meld the flavors. If you’re adding this mixture to a soup, be aware that it will separate if boiled.
Is it OK to replace unsalted butter with salted butter if I reduce the total amount of salt in the recipe?
This may seem like it makes sense, but we don’t recommend it.
We advise against cooking with salted butter for three reasons. First, the amount of salt in salted butter varies from brand to brand—it can range from 1.25 percent to 1.75 percent of the total weight, making it impossible to offer conversion amounts that will work with all brands. Second, because salt masks some of the flavor nuances found in butter, salted butter tastes different from unsalted butter. Finally, salted butter almost always contains more water than unsalted butter. The water in butter ranges from 13 to 19 percent. In baking, butter with a low water content is preferred, since excess water can interfere with the development of gluten. In fact, when we used the same brand of both salted and unsalted butter to make brownies and drop biscuits, tasters noticed that samples made with salted butter were a little mushy and pasty; they preferred the texture of baked goods made with unsalted butter.
Can whipped butter be substituted for stick butter in recipes?
It depends on what you’re going to use it for.
Whipped butter is made by incorporating air into butter; manufacturers do this to increase the butter’s spreadability. Adding air increases the volume of the butter, but not the weight. In other words, a 4-ounce stick of butter measures ½ cup in volume, while 4 ounces of whipped butter measures 1 cup.
We compared butter cookies, pound cake, and buttercream frosting made with unsalted whipped butter and unsalted stick butter. Tasters found the cookies to be nearly identical and even slightly preferred the whipped-butter version for its crispier, flakier texture. The same held true for the pound cake: Although the butter for each cake was creamed for exactly the same time—5 minutes—some tasters deemed the cake made with whipped butter to be lighter, fluffier, and more tender. The buttercream was a different story. While the stick butter produced a fluffy, off-white frosting, the whipped-butter frosting was foamy, with an intense yellow color and a plasticlike texture.
So, unsalted whipped butter makes a fine substitute for unsalted stick butter in baked goods, but do not make the swap in uncooked applications, such as frosting. And remember to make the substitution based on weight, not volume. A standard tub of whipped butter weighs 8 ounces, equal to two sticks of butter.
Can I use shortening and butter interchangeably in cookie recipes?
Sure, but it’s going to change the texture of your cookies.
The type of fat used has a big impact on the flavor and texture of cookies. We prepared several different kinds of cookies with butter and with shortening. In general, tasters preferred the flavor of the cookies made with butter. For instance, shortening made especially bland chocolate chip cookies. This flavor deficit was less noticeable in snickerdoodles; these cookies are so heavily coated with cinnamon sugar that the differences between the batches made with butter and shortening were harder (although not impossible) to detect.
In addition to flavor differences, cookies made with shortening were crispier, largely because shortening adds no water to dough. Unlike butter, which is at least 80 percent fat and 13 to 19 percent water, shortening is 100 percent fat. Cookies made with butter were thus softer and cakier.
Our advice? You can use butter in cookie recipes that call for shortening; the cookies may be more flavorful, but they are also likely to be less crisp.
I love using lard to make flaky pie crust. Can I substitute it in place of butter when I make biscuits?
This will work, but you have to use the right kind of lard.
Many home cooks swear by lard, which is rendered pork fat (and not vegetable shortening, such as Crisco, as many people think), for pie crusts and biscuits. However, most chefs find supermarket lard to be of subpar quality.
We made two batches of biscuits: one with butter and one with lard from the supermarket. The butter biscuits were a clear winner, as our tasters found the biscuits made with supermarket lard dense and gummy, with a slightly sour aftertaste. Why were the lard biscuits so bad?
Butter’s capacity to create flakiness comes from its relatively high water content (13 to 19 percent). This water converts to steam in the oven, producing pockets of air that yield flaky biscuits. Lard contains no water.
But not all lard is created equal. Higher-quality leaf lard, which is rarely found on supermarket shelves but can be ordered from a butcher, is made from the fat around the pig’s kidneys. Leaf lard has a higher melting point, thereby providing a more effective coating of fat around the other biscuit ingredients. This keeps the dough from gumming up in the oven, instead allowing it to bake and set into tender biscuits.
Our tests confirmed: Leaf lard made incredibly tender biscuits with a notably rich flavor, though perhaps not as flaky as those made with butter.
Can liquid oil be used as a substitute for shortening or butter in pie crust recipes?
Nope—liquid oil just doesn’t behave the same way that solid shortening does.
We prepared a pie crust recipe that called for both butter and vegetable shortening, using liquid canola oil in place of the solid shortening. Though the crust made with butter and oil got slightly darker than the crust made according to the recipe, it looked fine. When we broke into the crust, however, all was not fine. Whereas the butter and shortening crust was tender and flaky, the butter and oil crust was crisp and crumbly, not something we look for in a pie crust.
Why the discrepancy? Shortening is a solid fat, so it can be worked into small bits that leave behind tiny spaces when they melt in the oven, creating flaky layers. The oil, of course, is already a liquid and thus leaves no spaces behind as it heats up. The result is a crisp texture, more like that of a cookie.
What should I use when a recipe calls for vegetable oil? Can I use olive oil? Olives are vegetables, right?
Although “vegetable oil” may sound vague, it does refer to something fairly specific.
Loosely speaking, vegetable oil is an edible oil made from any number of plant sources, including nuts, grains, beans, seeds, and olives. In the more narrow confines of recipe writing, it refers to one of the more popular brands of supermarket cooking oil whose label reads “Vegetable Oil.” These are typically made from soybeans.
“Vegetable oil” is often the ingredient of choice in recipes that call for an oil with a completely neutral flavor. Corn and canola oil make good substitutes, although corn oil can impart unwanted flavors to recipes like vinaigrette. Some other plant-based oils, such as peanut and olive, have much more distinct flavors and might not be appropriate substitutes in a recipe that calls for vegetable oil. Olive oil also has a lower smoke point, making it an inferior choice for high-heat applications like deep-frying.
If a dressing recipe calls for red wine vinegar and I have only white wine vinegar, is that a safe substitution to make?
Absolutely; just use what you have.
Though we like to keep a well-stocked pantry, there are definitely occasions when we have red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar, but not both. To find out whether we could distinguish between the two in a salad dressing once it was tossed with greens, we made batches of vinaigrette using red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar. We used each to dress mild Bibb lettuce and asked tasters whether they could pick out which was which.
Some could tell the two dressings apart, but most could not. Those who did notice a difference found the dressing made with white wine vinegar to be brighter in flavor, but none considered either one to be unacceptable, despite the difference.
What’s the difference between Parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheeses? Some recipes call for either, and I’m never sure which one to buy.
The choice matters more when you’re using lots of cheese.
Made from cow’s milk, Parmesan is a hard, dry, aged cheese with a sharp, nutty flavor and a granular texture that lends itself to grating. Pecorino Romano, on the other hand, is an aged sheep’s-milk cheese with a firm-to-hard, slightly grainy, oily texture and a salty, piquant flavor that borders on lemony. Because Parmesan and Pecorino Romano cheeses have similar textures and flavors, they can generally be used interchangeably, especially when the amount called for is moderate. In larger quantities, however, Pecorino Romano can be fairly pungent and may require the addition of a small amount of Parmesan to balance its bold flavor.
If you must choose one cheese over the other, Parmesan is the more flexible option for the broadest range of recipes.
I keep seeing coconut water in the grocery store. Is it similar to the canned stuff I cook with?
Nope, they are totally different products, and you can’t cook with coconut water.
Coconut water, also referred to as coconut juice, is the thin liquid found in the center of a coconut. It has become increasingly trendy lately, in part because of its purported hydrating qualities.
Coconut water is very different from canned coconut milk. While coconut water is naturally occurring, canned coconut milk is made by steeping coconut flesh in water and then straining out the solids. Coconut water has a much lower fat content than canned coconut milk (less than 1 gram per cup as opposed to about 50 grams per cup). It therefore tastes thinner and less rich. It also tastes sweeter, which makes sense given that it typically contains more than three times the sugar of canned coconut milk. Because it is so vastly different, coconut water is not a suitable substitute for coconut milk. Furthermore, do not confuse canned coconut milk with canned coconut cream (the ratio of coconut meat to liquid is higher) or cream of coconut (which is sweetened and containers thickeners and emulsifiers).
You may also see a type of refrigerated coconut milk sold in a carton near the soy and almond milk and labeled “coconut milk beverage.” This product is made by blending canned coconut milk with water and additives, which make it creamy, despite the water it contains. It can be used as a replacement for dairy milk, but since coconut milk beverage has about an eighth of the fat content of canned coconut milk and does not taste strongly of coconut, it’s not a good substitute for canned coconut milk.
Can I use canned tomatoes in place of fresh tomatoes when fresh ones are out of season?
Definitely; canned tomatoes can be a much safer bet than out-of-season specimens.
Nothing tastes better than juicy, fresh tomatoes—on the rare occasion that they’re in season, that is. The pale, mealy options available during the rest of the year would ruin dishes like a fresh tomato sauce. We found that canned tomatoes make a much better stand-in than those flavorless, off-season fresh options. For every pound of fresh tomatoes needed, simply substitute one 14.5-ounce can of drained diced tomatoes, plus 1 tablespoon of the drained liquid. And since canned diced tomatoes are firmer than fresh tomatoes, they should be pressed against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon to help them break down more naturally as they cook.
Baking recipes usually call for canned pumpkin—can I substitute fresh pumpkin?
This substitution works, as long as you’re willing to do the work, but you can’t use just any pumpkin for a pie.
For starters, make sure you’re using a sugar pumpkin, which is 8 to 10 inches in diameter and usually has a darker orange exterior compared with jack-o’-lantern pumpkins. And be aware that fresh pumpkin puree does not taste exactly like canned pumpkin; it tends to taste a bit more vegetal and less sweet, though definitely acceptable. This is less of an issue in strongly flavored recipes like pumpkin pie, which tastes predominantly of the spices added to the pie.
To make homemade pumpkin puree, halve a sugar pumpkin from top to bottom and then scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place the halves cut side down on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and roast in a 375-degree oven until the flesh can be easily pierced with a skewer, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Turn the halves over and continue to roast 30 minutes longer. Scoop the flesh from the skins and puree it in a food processor until smooth. Drain the puree in a fine-mesh strainer set over a bowl for at least 1 hour. To test the consistency, pack the puree into a small drinking glass and unmold it onto a plate. It should slump gently toward the base but otherwise hold its shape. Loosen as necessary with drained liquid, or return the puree to the strainer and continue to drain it if it is still too loose. The puree can be refrigerated for up to four days or frozen in an airtight container with parchment pressed on its surface for up to two months. You can substitute this puree for an equal amount of the canned product.
I often see cornichons listed in recipes but have a hard time finding them in the supermarket. Is there something else I can use instead?
There is no substitute for the real thing, but in a pinch, a dill pickle makes a good stand-in.
Cornichon is the French word for a pickled gherkin cucumber. They are most often served as a condiment with rich foods such as pâtés and cured meats. Although they look like the sweet gherkins found in the supermarket, the similarities end there. Cornichons are pickled in vinegar and flavored with onions, mustard, and aromatics. Sweet gherkins, on the other hand, contain a fair amount of sugar or corn syrup along with spices such as cloves and allspice.
To find an acceptable substitute, we tasted plain cornichons, sweet gherkins, and chopped dill pickles straight up and in French potato salad and homemade tartar sauce. In the end, tasters felt that chopped dill pickles came the closest to the tart, briny flavors of cornichons. Sweet gherkins tasted too “candylike,” and their spices upset the balance of flavors.
Can I buy pitted olives to save the work of pitting them myself?
Sorry—sometimes the easiest option is not the best option.
To evaluate differences between pitted and unpitted olives, we gathered green and black brine-cured olives from the deli section at the supermarket, as well as olives packed in jars and plastic containers. After tasting many samples, it became clear that the pitted olives suffered on two counts: They tasted saltier and their flesh was mushier. They also lacked the complex, fruity flavors of the unpitted kind. Here’s why: Before being packed for sale, fresh-picked olives are soaked in brine for up to a year to remove bitterness and develop flavor. The olives are then pitted and prepared for packing, which means returning them to the brine, which can penetrate the inside of the olive and turn it mushy and pasty, as well as increase the absorption of salt. That saltiness can mask subtler flavors. So, if you have the time, it’s better to buy unpitted olives and pit them yourself, especially if they are a major part of a dish.
Is there any flavor difference between red and green cabbage? Can I use them interchangeably?
Go ahead! There are slight flavor differences, but nothing major.
Although both are part of the Brassicaceae family, red and green cabbage are two different varieties. We made batches of coleslaw and braised cabbage with both types and tasted them side by side. Tasters didn’t notice any textural differences. In terms of flavor, however, the green cabbage tasted notably milder in both applications, with tasters commenting on its vegetal flavor in the coleslaw. The red cabbage tasted sweeter and “fruitier” in both recipes, though this was more pronounced in the braised sample. If you have a preference based on those qualities, choose your cabbage accordingly. Otherwise, use whatever is convenient.
The eggplant varieties that I see most frequently in my supermarket are large globe, small Italian, slender Chinese, and apple-shaped Thai. Does it matter which kind I use in a particular dish?
They’re all eggplants, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
To find out whether the four most common varieties of eggplants can be used interchangeably in recipes, we prepared each type of eggplant in five dishes calling for different cooking methods: roasted and pureed in baba ghanoush, sautéed in pasta alla norma, baked in eggplant Parmesan, stewed in Thai curry, and stir-fried with sweet chili-garlic sauce.
Only the globe eggplant was a true multitasker, suitable for all dishes and responding well to all cooking methods. The smaller varieties were prevented by their size from being good choices in eggplant Parmesan, and their excessive amount of seeds made for overly coarse baba ghanoush. Italian eggplant, which has a spicy flavor, and Chinese eggplant, which has an intense, slightly sweet profile, are both good when sautéed, stewed, or stir-fried. Thai eggplant, with its crisp, applelike texture, is also a good choice for those cooking techniques and is notable for tasting bright, grassy, and appealing even when simply eaten raw.
Can green beans and wax beans be used interchangeably?
They definitely can—and depending on your dish, yellow wax beans might actually be the better choice.
Green beans get their color from chlorophyll, and yellow wax beans are simply green beans that have been bred to have none of this pigment. We wondered whether chlorophyll contributes to the flavor of green beans—and whether we’d miss it if it wasn’t there.
We tasted green and wax beans steamed until crisp-tender and also braised. In both applications, tasters found very little difference in the flavors of the two, calling both sweet and “grassy.” But wax beans did have one advantage over green: Because they have little color to lose during prolonged braising, their appearance changes less than the appearance of green beans, which tend to turn a drab olive. So if you’re making a long-cooked bean dish and are picky about aesthetics, go for the gold.
What’s the difference between broccoli rabe, broccolini, and broccoli?
These three vegetables are in fact quite different: Broccoli rabe is more bitter than broccoli and a bit spicy; broccolini is sweeter.
Most Americans are familiar with broccoli, but not the other two. Broccoli, broccolini, and broccoli rabe are all cruciferous vegetables, but broccoli rabe is more closely related to turnips, another member of the Brassicaceae family. Broccolini looks like broccoli stretched into a long, skinny form.
Broccoli rabe has a bitter bite that can be polarizing: People who love dark leafy greens are typically fans, while others can be turned off by its pungent flavor. In a recent tasting, our tasters lauded its “sharp,” “minerally” flavor and spicy finish. Broccolini is a bit sweeter than broccoli, with a flavor some tasters likened to a cross between spinach and asparagus.
What is white asparagus, and how does its taste compare to green asparagus?
Less color means less flavor for most of the white asparagus you can get at the supermarket.
White asparagus is simply green asparagus that has never seen the light of day. The plant is grown under soil or some other covering to block out the sun’s rays, preventing photosynthesis and the development of chlorophyll, which is what normally turns the spears green. Most of the white asparagus available in American supermarkets is imported from Peru. When we pan-roasted Peruvian white asparagus and green asparagus and sampled them side by side, tasters dubbed the green spears “vegetal,” “sweet,” and “grassy,” with a “slightly mineral” aftertaste. The white spears had a less pronounced flavor, reminding tasters of a cross between peas and turnips. Overall, the white spears didn’t wow us, presumably because their delicate flavor had faded during shipping and storage.
If you have the opportunity to try freshly picked white asparagus, give it a try. As for the usual supermarket offerings, given the hefty price difference (we paid $3.99 per pound for green and $5.99 per pound for white), we say stick with the green stuff.
How different are white and brown mushrooms? Can I just use whatever I have when a recipe calls for mushrooms?
Technically, they’re not very different, but there are definite variations in flavor.
Despite their differing appearance, white button and cremini mushrooms (also known as baby portobellos) belong to the same mushroom species, Agaricus bisporus. Creminis are a brown-hued variety, and portobellos are simply creminis that have been allowed to grow large. We think of creminis as a recent introduction to the marketplace, but all button mushrooms were actually brown until 1926, when a mushroom farmer in Pennsylvania found a cluster of white buttons growing in his beds, which he cloned and began selling as a new variety. But does the loss of color mean a loss of flavor? To find out, we sautéed white button and cremini mushrooms and tasted them side by side in risotto and atop pizza. The flavor of the creminis was noticeably deeper and more complex. This difference was also apparent, though less obvious, when we compared both types of mushrooms sprinkled raw over salads. If bolder mushroom flavor is what you’re after, it’s worth shelling out a little extra for creminis, but otherwise the two are largely interchangeable.
I recently saw purple and white sweet potatoes at the market. Can I substitute these for the orange kind in sweet potato pie?
These varieties are definitely worth trying on their own merits, but they don’t make a great substitute for orange sweet potatoes, especially in baking recipes.
While you may see just one or two kinds of sweet potatoes at the grocery store, there are actually hundreds of varieties, with varying flesh and skin colors. To determine what the differences were in flavor and texture, we tasted common varieties of white and purple sweet potatoes boiled, mashed, and in sweet potato pie next to their more common orange-fleshed cousins.
Overall, the white sweet potatoes we tried tasted citrusy and floral, while the purple sweet potatoes tasted more neutral. Both, however, shared some of the sweet, pumpkinlike flavors we’re used to with orange sweet potatoes. But the differences in texture were more noticeable.
Both white and purple sweet potatoes have lower moisture contents and are generally starchier—more akin to regular white or yellow potatoes. For this reason, they cooked differently: The mashed sweet potatoes made with white or purple sweet potatoes were thicker and needed to be thinned significantly with stock or cream to reach the texture of the mashed orange sweet potatoes.
In the pie, both white and purple sweet potatoes resulted in a denser filling than the orange control batch. And while the purple sweet potato pie was visually very interesting, tasters commented that it seemed “starchy” or even “gluey” or “mealy,” so it’s probably not a worthwhile swap.
What’s so special about Key limes? Will using regular limes in a Key lime recipe ruin it?
Conventional lime juice won’t ruin a Key lime recipe—and it’s a much easier ingredient to use.
Key lime aficionados herald the fruit’s “distinctive” flavor and fragrance compared with conventional Persian limes, but we wondered whether our tasters could tell the difference in a blind taste test.
Sampled plain, the Key lime juice tasted slightly less tart and bracing than its Persian counterpart, and a quick lab test confirmed that impression: The juice from the conventional limes had a lower pH than the Key lime juice, indicating higher acidity. When we made Key lime bars with both varieties, once again the Persian-lime version tasted a bit more tart, though tasters were split over which variety made the better bar. The deciding factor may be the amount of work involved: To get the ½ cup of lime juice called for in our bar recipe, we had to squeeze three Persian limes. With the tiny Key limes, it took almost 20!
Both Key lime juice and regular lime juice are sold in shelf-stable bottles, and we wondered whether these would do in a pinch. The short answer? No way. The four brands we tried were at best “bracingly bitter” and, in some cases, “just plain rancid.” What’s more, many baking recipes (including ours) call for the addition of zest—a tough proposition with a glass bottle.
What makes jelly, jam, preserves, and marmalade different? Does it matter which one I use in a particular recipe?
There is a method to the processed-fruit madness, and which product you use in a recipe can definitely make a difference.
Commercial jellies, jams, preserves, and marmalades are all made in the same basic manner: by cooking fruit down with sugar and an acid. What differentiates the types, according to the standards of identity regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are the size and structure of the fruit products used. Jelly is made from fruit juice and cooks up into a thick, clear, homogeneous mixture. Jam contains fruit pieces (crushed, chopped, sliced, or pureed) and has a slightly chunky, slightly firm texture. Preserves are made with large chunks or even whole fruits and are usually described as fruit suspended in thick syrup. Preserves tend to be less sweet than jams and jellies. Marmalade is almost always made from citrus fruits and contains pieces of rind, which gives it a unique texture and also a faint bitterness.
We reserve each type of product for specific uses according to its characteristics. Jelly can be melted and used as a glaze; other products won’t function in this capacity because they contain seeds or chunks of fruit. We use jam as a filling for pastries and other desserts because of its texture, which is firm but relatively uniform. Preserves and marmalade are reserved for spreading on toast, muffins, or other baked goods because the larger pieces of fruit and rind in these products make them harder to reliably incorporate into recipes.
Can I use the dried form of an herb if I don’t have the fresh version on hand?
In some cases this substitution can work, but be careful about when you use it.
It can be tempting to use dried herbs when a recipe calls for fresh—after all, they are more convenient and a lot cheaper than buying bunches of fresh herbs from the supermarket. We purchased fresh and dried versions of basil, chives, dill, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage (in coarsely crumbled and rubbed forms for the dried version), tarragon, and thyme. Then we cooked our way through 24 recipes (including marinades, sauces, and braises), making each with fresh and dried herbs and comparing differences in flavor.
In all but one application, tasters preferred fresh herbs to dry. Chili was the exception; in this dish, dried oregano was the favorite. Still, there were a few instances in which dried herbs, though not preferred, were a passable substitute. In addition to oregano, dried rosemary, sage, and thyme fared reasonably well in recipes involving fairly long cooking times (more than 20 minutes) and a good amount of liquid.
So, when a recipe calls for delicate herbs, it’s best to stick with fresh (as well as in all recipes that use herbs raw or to finish a dish). However, if a recipe calls for fresh hardier herbs such as oregano, rosemary, sage, or thyme, dried can be an acceptable substitute. Just keep in mind that ounce for ounce, dried herbs are more potent than fresh. You need to use only about one-third as much dried herbs as you would fresh.
Have you tried the herbs in a tube sold in the produce section of the supermarket? Can I use these as a substitute for fresh herbs?
Fresh herb taste without the hassle of washing, drying, and chopping, with no waste and an extra-long shelf life? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
We gave basil, lemon grass, and cilantro versions of these herbs-in-a-tube products a try. To taste the products, we used them in common recipe applications, comparing them side by side with fresh herbs. As per the package instructions, we used teaspoon-for-teaspoon substitutions. For the basil, the difference was obvious to tasters in both appearance and taste in a tomato-basil vinaigrette. The vinaigrette made with the tubed product was noticeably more emulsified than the fresh herb version, perhaps because of the oil and stabilizers that have been added to all these products. Interestingly enough, most tasters preferred the tubed herb version for its sweeter, more balanced flavors.
The results for the other two herbs were not as favorable. We used the lemon grass to infuse plain chicken broth. While the flavor was much more pronounced using the tubed lemon grass, one taster complained that it tasted “like candy” and smelled “like Pledge.” We also blended a small amount of cilantro with sour cream to make a simple dip. Comments for the tubed cilantro version ranged from “so fake, tastes like soap” to “disgusting and tastes stale.” Used again in a salsa, the tubed cilantro tasted dull and looked “ugly as hell.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
My local grocery store carries frozen basil, parsley, cilantro, and dill in small blister packs. How do they stand up to fresh herbs?
Skip this “convenience” product—but think about making your own!
We also found these frozen herbs—stabilized with water, soybean oil, starch, dextrose, and salt—at the supermarket, packaged in small ice cube tray–like containers. According to the label, one cube is equivalent to 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh herbs. We tried them in six applications. Other than marinara sauce, tasters overwhelmingly preferred fresh herbs to their frozen counterparts.
It is possible, however, to make decent homemade frozen herb cubes from parsley, sage, rosemary, or thyme. Place the chopped fresh herbs in an ice cube tray, cover them with water, and freeze. Then simply add the cubes to sauces, soups, or stews.
What’s the difference between various types of parsley?
We have strong feelings about this issue, but it really depends on the situation.
Restaurants often favor curly parsley for chopping because its upright carriage and drier nature make the going easier, but this ignores its inferior taste. Flat-leaf, or Italian, parsley, on the other hand, with its big green flavor, is an indispensable culinary herb. We prefer flat-leaf parsley for its fresh, grassy presence and tender texture and find curly-leaf parsley to be bitter or tough. However, these differences are not as noticeable in heavily flavored dishes where you’re using only a little bit of parsley.
The moral of the story? If you’re making a dish in which parsley gets star billing, go for flat-leaf. However, if you’re sprinkling a little parsley into a stew or onto pasta, don’t worry if you have only the curly stuff on hand.
When a recipe calls for “mint,” do they mean peppermint or spearmint? Can I use these two interchangeably?
When you see “mint” in an ingredient list, it usually means spearmint, and if you buy “mint” at the supermarket, you’ll probably be fine.
It may sound rather simplistic, but when we call for mint as an ingredient, we are thinking of the fresh herb that is available in the grocery store, which is often labeled simply as “mint.” After doing a little research, we learned that supermarket mint is in almost all cases spearmint (Mentha spicata) rather than peppermint (Mentha piperita). While peppermint certainly can be (and sometimes is) used in cooking, it is more commonly used as a flavoring or scent in commercial products—everything from medicine to toothpaste to cigarettes. And there is a world of difference between the two types of mint.
Visually, the differences are easy to spot: Peppermint leaves are a deeper green than spearmint leaves, and peppermint’s stalks are a darker brown. The flavor of peppermint can also be described as deeper and darker than that of spearmint. We made teas from a handful of each to better taste the difference. The peppermint, true to its name, has a spicier, peppery character (tasters called it medicinal), while spearmint has a lighter, sweeter flavor. On the whole, the spearmint sold in grocery stores is your best bet for cooking.
Can I substitute dried lemon grass for fresh?
If you can’t find fresh lemon grass or don’t want to deal with preparing it, you can substitute dried—but not in every type of dish.
Woody stalks of lemon grass, a grassy herb native to India and tropical Asia, are used in many South Asian dishes, imparting citrusy and floral flavors to soups, curries, and stir-fries. Lemon grass is also sometimes dried and sold in jars.
To test the difference between fresh and dried, we used some of each to make a curry paste (which we then stirred into vegetable broth), a Thai chicken soup, and a snow pea stir-fry. (Because dried herbs are more concentrated in flavor than fresh herbs, we followed our general rule of using one-third as much dried lemon grass as fresh in each recipe.)
In all three cases, tasters found that the fresh lemon grass imparted a bright mix of citrus, floral, and minty notes, while the dried lemon grass contributed a less complex, woodsy flavor. That said, we still found the dried lemon grass to be an acceptable substitute for fresh in the paste and the soup, both of which also had a lot of other flavors in the mix. But we don’t recommend the dried herb at all in stir-fries. With this dry-heat cooking method, the parched pieces of lemon grass could not hydrate, and thus retained the texture of hay.
So, if you’re going to substitute dried lemon grass for fresh, make sure to use it only in recipes in which there is enough liquid for the herb to hydrate and soften.
When a recipe calls for onions, I usually reach for the yellow kind, as it’s the variety I normally keep on hand. Can Spanish or white onions also be used?
We recommend different types of onions for different applications, but yellow onions are your best all-around pick.
Different onion varieties have subtle flavor differences, mostly due to the sulfur content of the soil in which each is grown. The sulfur level of the soil yields varying levels of sulfur compounds within each onion type, resulting in greater or lesser pungency. White onions tend to have the least amount of sulfur compounds and the sweetest flavor; Spanish tend to have the most, for a far more pungent taste.
We tasted all three onions raw in salsa, sautéed in oil, and simmered in French onion soup. In salsa, tasters found low-sulfur white onions to be mild and well-balanced, high-sulfur yellow onions notably stronger but still balanced, and Spanish onions decidedly strong, with a lingering harshness. When briefly sautéed, the sweetness of white onions intensified to a caramel flavor, Spanish onions retained their pungency, and yellow onions turned earthy and sweet. In French onion soup (a recipe that calls for deeply caramelized onions), white onions became too sweet for many tasters and Spanish onions left a slight astringent aftertaste, while yellow onions offered just the right balance of sweet and savory.
While such flavor differences may not ruin a recipe, we recommend mild white onions for raw applications and Spanish onions for cooked applications in which a heartier onion flavor is desired. If you want to stock just one type of onion in your pantry, make it yellow onions, which fall somewhere between these two on the pungency scale.
Is there a reason for using shallots instead of onions? My grocery store sells shallots for $2.99 a pound and onions for $1.29 a pound. Why pay twice as much for shallots?
There are definitely recipes in which shallots are worth the added expense.
Shallots have a unique flavor that is milder and more delicate than that of onions. When shallots and onions are cooked, these differences show up even more. In a quick-cooking pan sauce for steak, for example, a shallot’s mild flavor will meld much more smoothly with that of the other ingredients. A finely minced shallot will also melt into the sauce until it’s all but indiscernible. No matter how finely you mince an onion, it’s not going to disappear into an otherwise silky sauce. An onion also needs much more cooking time before its flavor will mellow. When used raw, a shallot will add gentle heat to a vinaigrette or salsa, with a minimum of crunch. Use a raw onion in the same recipe and the pungent onion crunch may seem out of place.
What is the difference between spring onions, green onions, and scallions? Can they be used interchangeably?
Scallions and green onions are different names for the same vegetable and can be used interchangeably with spring onions.
In the United States, green onions and scallions are the same thing. We refer to them as scallions, as this is a slightly more widely used term.
Spring onions and scallions are both species of the genus Allium, along with garlic, shallots, chives, ramps, and leeks. Scallions never form a bulb, so their white bases do not bulge. Spring onions look like scallions with small white bulbs; they are typically harvested in spring and are not available year-round. We tried them both raw, roasted with oil and salt, in a compound butter (which we tossed with potatoes), and in a barbecue sauce recipe. They tasted very similar. Tasters called both of them “strong and oniony,” with the scallions being slightly more pungent and reminiscent of raw onion than the spring onions. The spring onions, however, fared the best in our roasting tests because of their sweetness and slightly larger size.
You can use spring onions and scallions interchangeably in raw applications where they are chopped. But be careful about using them in cooked applications, as the larger spring onions may require longer cooking times.
What is the difference between dehydrated garlic and garlic powder? Is either an acceptable replacement for fresh garlic?
Most of the time we prefer fresh garlic, but there are a few specific situations where you might want to use garlic powder.
Dehydrated garlic is simply minced fresh garlic that is dehydrated before packaging. Garlic powder is made from dehydrated garlic that’s been pulverized and, unless you buy a high-quality brand, often includes a slew of artificial ingredients and flavorings meant to improve flavor and extend shelf life.
We compared garlic powder and dehydrated minced garlic to the real thing in our recipes for Caesar salad dressing, pasta with garlic and oil, and garlic bread. In the dressing, flavor differences were minimal; the assertive flavors of lemon, anchovies, and Worcestershire sauce masked any processed garlic taste. In the pasta and garlic bread, however, tasters preferred the unmistakable bite of real garlic.
Our opinion? In most instances, nothing compares to fresh cloves, especially when garlic is the predominant flavor in the recipe. We don’t recommend dehydrated garlic, which takes a while to rehydrate and is quite mild. However, there are a few cases in which garlic powder makes sense. We like its mild roasted flavor in spice rubs for meat and in dishes such as oven-roasted potatoes (unlike minced fresh garlic, garlic powder will not burn in the oven). Substitute ¼ teaspoon of garlic powder for each clove of fresh garlic called for.
Is prepeeled garlic a good shortcut product to eliminate the prep associated with fresh garlic?
It’s probably not worth the time it saves unless you use a whole lot of garlic.
We tasted both prepeeled garlic and freshly peeled garlic raw in aïoli, sautéed in spaghetti with garlic and olive oil, and lightly cooked in stuffed rolled flank steak. In all cases, results were mixed, with neither freshly peeled nor prepeeled garlic claiming victory. However, we did notice a difference in shelf life: A whole head of garlic stored in a cool, dry place will last for at least a few weeks, while prepeeled garlic in a jar (which must be kept refrigerated) lasts for only about two weeks before turning yellowish and developing an overly pungent aroma, even if kept unopened in its original packaging. (In fact, in several instances we found jars of garlic that had already started to develop this odor and color on the supermarket shelf.)
But if you go through a lot of garlic, prepeeled cloves can be an acceptable alternative. Just make sure they look firm and white with a matte finish when you purchase them.
I’ve seen packages of black garlic displayed in the produce section of my grocery store. What is it? Can I use it in place of regular garlic?
Black garlic isn’t a go-to substitute for regular garlic, but you might still want to try it.
Aged, fermented “black” garlic was introduced to the Korean market in 2007. The version we’ve recently found in American supermarkets is fermented in a temperature- and humidity-controlled machine for 30 days, followed by 10 days of air-drying. The resulting bulbs have loose-fitting, grayish-purple skin and opaque black cloves. Straight from the bag, the cloves have a sticky, chewy texture and a concentrated, notably sweet flavor reminiscent of molasses or reduced balsamic vinegar, with a mild aftertaste.
To evaluate the product in everyday cooking applications, we finely minced two black garlic cloves and added them to a simple vinaigrette. We also sliced and roughly chopped two cloves and used them to garnish pasta, risotto, and pizza. In the acidic vinaigrette, the black garlic’s flavor was hard to detect, save for subtly sweet undertones. If the garlic was left in larger pieces, its flavor was more pronounced, adding complexity to pasta, risotto, and pizza. Still, while black garlic might be worth trying, it’s no substitute for the potent taste of ordinary garlic.
I’ve started seeing enormous bulbs of “elephant garlic” at my supermarket. Can I use it just like regular garlic?
Don’t use elephant garlic in place of regular garlic. Or at all, for that matter.
Despite the name, elephant garlic is not actually garlic. Though both aromatics are members of the Allium genus, they are different species. And while at first glance elephant garlic might look like garlic on steroids (it’s two to three times larger), closer examination reveals some differences.
Conventional garlic heads can boast as many as 20 cloves, but elephant garlic never has more than about six, and its cloves have a yellowish cast. To see how their flavors compared, we made aïoli and garlic-potato soup, using regular garlic in one batch and the same amount of elephant garlic in another.
Raw in aïoli, the elephant garlic had a mild, garlicky onion flavor. This weak flavor virtually disappeared when it was simmered in soup. Tasters much preferred the sharper, more pungent taste of regular garlic in both recipes. It turns out that elephant garlic produces the same flavor compounds as regular garlic when it’s crushed—as well as those produced by onions and leeks—just less of each type. The upshot is that elephant garlic doesn’t taste as potent other alliums.
Is there a difference between chili powder and chile powder? I’ve seen both spellings used.
Chili and chile are not synonyms.
Chili powder (or chile powder) is a tricky term; it is often applied to both the blend of ground ingredients that goes into the seasoning mix many Americans use to make a pot of chili and any powder made from a single type of chile pepper, be it ancho, pasilla, or otherwise. In general, recipes calling for a powder made from a single type of chile will specify the type—as in ancho chile powder. If you see only “chili powder” in an ingredient list, you can be pretty sure it’s referring to the blend, which usually contains one or two ground red chiles as well as cumin and oregano and sometimes salt, paprika, and other seasonings.
Can I use white pepper and black pepper interchangeably? Are there times when I really need one or the other?
It depends how much pepper is called for and whether aesthetics are a concern for your dish.
Some recipes call for white pepper when uniformly light-colored results are desired. But if looks aren’t a consideration, does it matter if you substitute black pepper when a recipe specifies white? If the recipe calls for a large enough amount—yes. We made two pots of hot-and-sour soup (which traditionally calls for white pepper), using 1 teaspoon of black pepper in one batch and 1 teaspoon of white pepper in the other. Tasters noted that the soup with black pepper was more aromatic and had more heat but preferred the soup with white pepper for its floral, earthy flavor and greater complexity. However, when we tried the swap in a stir-fry that called for a lesser amount of white pepper, tasters had a hard time distinguishing them.
Black and white pepper come from the same plant. The difference in flavor and color relates to how they are processed. To make black pepper, unripe berries from pepper plants are gathered and dried until the skins are blackened, which gives black peppercorns their characteristic aroma and sharp bite. White peppercorns are fully ripened berries that have been soaked in water to ferment, and their outer skin is removed before drying. Although stripping the skin removes much of the volatile oils and aroma compounds, allowing the berries to ripen longer lets them develop more complex flavor, while fermenting adds another layer of flavor.
How can I substitute sweet paprika in recipes that call for hot paprika?
Sweet paprika + cayenne pepper = hot paprika
Both sweet and hot paprika come from the dried pods of Capsicum annuum L., which includes a large swath of pepper varieties ranging from sweet red bell peppers to hot chile peppers. The type of pepper used will influence the flavor, spiciness, and intensity of the paprika. Sweet paprika is made from only the middle layer of the pepper’s outer wall (the mesocarp), while hot paprika also contains some of the white veins (the placenta) and seeds, where most of the heat resides. Most paprika labeled “paprika” or “mild paprika” is of the sweet variety.
Heat aside, we wanted to find out whether there were any other flavor differences between the two varieties and whether one was better suited for a particular type of recipe than another. We used each in three applications: chicken paprikash, barbecue sauce, and a dry rub for baked chicken breasts. Most tasters found the sweet paprika to be a better choice in the chicken paprikash; the hot paprika was less flavorful, aside from its pronounced heat. The differences were even more apparent in the spice-rubbed chicken breasts, where the hot paprika took on an unpleasant bitter edge. In the barbecue sauce, however, tasters found both varieties perfectly acceptable, and some preferred the sauce made with the hot paprika.
If yours is going to be a one-paprika household, we recommend stocking the more versatile sweet; add a pinch or two of cayenne pepper to replicate the flavor of the hot stuff. Paprika also comes in a smoked variety, which is produced by drying the peppers (either sweet or hot) over smoldering oak embers. Since smoked paprika has a deep, musky flavor all its own, we do not recommend using it for regular paprika applications; it is best used to season grilled meats or to add a smoky aroma to boldly flavored dishes. If a recipe ever calls for smoked paprika, make sure that’s what you’re using.
On a recent visit to a spice shop, I was surprised to see three different kinds of cardamom pods for sale: white, green, and black. How do they differ, and which one should I use if my recipe simply calls for “cardamom”?
Green is your best all-purpose bet, but it depends on how much cardamom flavor you want in your dish.
The delicate complexity of cardamom makes it a popular spice in several cuisines, most notably Middle Eastern, Indian, and Scandinavian. Green cardamom is the most commonly found variety in the United States, and white cardamom is simply green cardamom that has been bleached so as not to discolor light-colored baked goods and other foods. Black cardamom (also called large cardamom) is not true cardamom but a relative.
To test for flavor differences, we removed the seeds from the inedible green, white, and black cardamom pods, ground the seeds in a coffee grinder, and used the spice to flavor sugar cookies. We also crushed all three kinds of pods and steeped them in the rice cooking water for separate batches of chicken biryani.
All three forms of cardamom boasted similar flavors—piney, sweet, and floral, with a peppery, warm finish—but intensity levels varied. In both applications, the green cardamom was the most vibrant and balanced. Not surprisingly, the flavor of the bleached pods paled in comparison to the green; since they cost almost twice as much, we won’t purchase them again. Black cardamom offered hints of eucalyptus, and as it is generally dried over fire, it boasted smoky nuances that we appreciated in savory biryani but not in cookies. For an all-purpose choice, we’ll be going green when it comes to cardamom.
What should I look for when picking saffron? Are threads better than powder?
Powdered saffron is a great choice if you want to save time and effort.
Saffron is available in two forms—threads and powder. Conventional wisdom says that deep, dark red threads are better than yellow or orange threads. We held a small tasting of broths infused with different saffron samples, and the threads with considerable spots of yellow and orange did in fact yield the weakest-colored and flattest-tasting broths. The reddest threads yielded intensely flavorful, heady, perfumed broths—so much so that less ardent saffron fans would have been happier with a little less saffron.
Conventional wisdom also cautions against the use of powdered saffron. Some sources say that inferior threads are used to produce the powder and that coloring agents may be added. While this may be true, we found powdered saffron purchased from a reputable source to be just as flavorful and fragrant as even the highest-quality threads. What’s more, powdered saffron offers a few advantages over threads. First, a smaller amount can be used (about one-third to one-half the volume measurement of threads); second, the powder is easier to measure and does not need to be crumbled before use; finally, it releases its flavor much more rapidly (a boon for quick recipes but not so important for simmered dishes such as paella and bouillabaisse).
Can I use whatever kind of salt I have on hand when a recipe calls for just “salt”?
In a purely scientific sense, salt is salt—but that doesn’t mean you can simply substitute different types one for one.
While there is technically the same amount of sodium chloride in a pound of table salt as in a pound of kosher salt, you can dramatically change how salty your dish tastes by using the wrong kind of salt.
The three types of salt we use most often are table salt, kosher salt, and sea salt. Table salt consists of tiny, uniformly shaped crystals that dissolve easily, making it our go-to for most applications. Kosher salt has larger, coarser grains than table salt and is our top choice for seasoning meat. The large grains distribute easily and cling well to the meat’s surfaces. The two major brands of kosher salt—Morton and Diamond Crystal—work equally well; however, their crystal sizes differ considerably, and this makes a difference when measuring by volume. (In the test kitchen, we use Diamond Crystal kosher salt.) Sea salt is the product of seawater evaporation, a time-consuming, expensive process that yields irregularly shaped, mineral-rich flakes. Don’t bother cooking with pricey sea salt; mixed into food, it doesn’t taste any different from table salt. Instead, use it as a “finishing salt” where its delicate crunch can stand out. Look for brands boasting large, flaky crystals.
You can substitute kosher or sea salt for table salt, but you’ll need more of them, since the small size of table salt crystals makes it “saltier” (because more grains fit in a measuring spoon). Use the ratios below. Kosher salt and coarse sea salt do not dissolve as readily as table salt; for this reason we do not recommend using them in baking.
1 teaspoon table salt = 1½ teaspoons Morton Coarse Kosher Salt 1 teaspoon table salt = 2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt 1 teaspoon table salt = 2 teaspoons Maldon Sea Salt
Can I use pastis in place of Pernod? What about schnapps, sambuca, or ouzo?
Beware: Not all anise-flavored liqueurs are created equal when it comes to cooking.
Pernod and pastis are often sipped in cafés in the south of France, as well as used interchangeably in many classic recipes for Provençal soups and stews that call for a hint of anise flavor. But unless you do a lot of southern French cooking, a whole bottle of either one could spend years in your liquor cabinet. Would other, slightly more common anise-flavored liqueurs such as schnapps, sambuca, and ouzo (which you might already have on hand) work just as well?
In our side-by-side test, tasters consistently condemned the schnapps and sambuca for being far too sweet, but the ouzo proved itself an admirable stand-in. It can be used interchangeably with Pernod and pastis.
What is the difference between wine and vermouth? Can I use vermouth in place of wine when cooking?
In small amounts, vermouth can be a great substitute for wine.
Vermouth starts out as a basic table wine. Traditionally, the wine was flavored with flowers, herbs, spices, and roots and then fortified with alcohol, bringing the total alcohol content up from the 12 to 13 percent typical of wine to about 18 percent. Today the process is much the same, although some large commercial producers use liquid concentrates rather than the botanicals themselves to achieve the characteristic flavor of vermouth.
Our tests showed that dry vermouth is a viable substitute for white wine, especially when the quantity called for isn’t all that much (½ cup or less) and when the dish has other flavors that balance and dilute the flavor of the vermouth. Red vermouth is sweeter than white vermouth (and considerably sweeter than red wine), but it still makes an acceptable substitute for red wine when used in recipes that call for a relatively small amount. If the extra sweetness bothers you, try toning it down with a few drops of lemon juice or red wine vinegar.
Considerations of flavor aside, vermouth has a couple of things going for it. First, at $5 or $6 for a 750-ml bottle, it is cheaper than most wines. Second, an open bottle can keep in the refrigerator for three to nine months, versus just a few days for wine. When you don’t want to open a bottle of wine just to pour off a small amount for a recipe, vermouth can be used as a substitute.
I often see recipes that call for dry sherry. Is it OK to substitute cream sherry?
With a few adjustments, sweet and dry sherry can be effectively interchanged.
Sherry is a fortified wine that originated in the Andalusia region of southern Spain. Dry sherry is made from Palomino grapes, and cream (also called sweet) sherry comes from Pedro Ximénez grapes. In our tests, we found that only a few tasters objected to the sweetness of the cream sherry when it was substituted for dry sherry, and this can be fixed with a squeeze of lemon juice to help balance out the flavors.
We’ve also found that it’s possible to create a reasonable facsimile of cream sherry by stirring 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar into ½ cup of dry sherry. (But don’t try serving a glass of the sweetened dry sherry to your great-aunt Sadie as a sub for her favorite tipple; it’s suitable only for recipes.)
No matter what, avoid “cooking sherry” from the supermarket shelf. Loaded with salt and artificial caramel flavoring, it will ruin the flavor of most dishes. (We feel similarly about any alcohol sold specifically for cooking.)
If I don’t have sherry or port on hand, can I substitute ordinary white or red wine?
This can definitely work—just make sure you sweeten the deal a little.
Sherry, which tasters describe as “nutty” and “musky,” is traditionally made with white wine, while port, with heavy notes of dried fruit, is developed with red. We tried adapting recipes for sherry-cream sauce with leftover Chardonnay and a port-cherry reduction with leftover Merlot. In each application, the regular wine’s sharper alcohol flavor stood out immediately, but adding a sweetener fixed that. Brown sugar’s caramel-molasses flavor best resembled that of the aged fortified wines.
Our suggestion is to substitute white wine for sherry and red wine for port, adding light brown sugar in increments of ¼ teaspoon until the boozy aftertaste is masked by the sweetness of the added sugar.
Can I substitute tawny port for the ruby variety in a recipe?
These two are pretty different for drinking, but you can mix them up for cooking.
The difference between tawny and ruby port lies in the aging process. Before it is bottled, tawny port spends at least two years (and as many as 40 years) in wooden barrels, where it picks up a caramel color and toasty, nutty flavors. Ruby port, on the other hand, is typically aged for only two years and spends little or no time in wood, so it retains a vibrant red color and a more straightforward, fruity character. Ruby port is generally used in cooking because it tends to be less expensive than tawny, and its brilliant red hue adds visual appeal. However, if you don’t mind sacrificing some of your expensive tipple, go ahead and use tawny port instead; the nuances of flavor are pretty much lost in cooking.
What are the best nonalcoholic substitutions for beer and wine in cooking?
Our favorites are just nonalcoholic versions of beer and wine.
Our first impulse was to replace wine with an equal amount of broth, but during our testing we found that sauces prepared this way lacked acidity and balance. To make that up, you can add a small amount of wine vinegar (red or white, depending on the recipe) or lemon juice, about 1 teaspoon per ½ cup of broth. We also tried dealcoholized wine in a pan sauce and a stew. While all tasters could easily detect the sweet and less acidic notes of the dealcoholized wine in both dishes, most thought it was still acceptable. When we added some lemon juice or wine vinegar to cut the sweetness, both dishes got near-universal compliments.
We tried using nonalcoholic beer in two of our recipes (carbonnade and beer-braised short ribs) and had great success. Because both of these dishes are simmered over a long period of time, much of the alcohol is cooked off anyway. In the end, what’s left is the beer’s hoppy, malty flavor profile. Therefore, using a nonalcoholic beer makes sense.
What is the difference between apple cider and apple juice? Can I use them interchangeably?
These two products may seem like essentially the same thing, but you shouldn’t treat them as such.
To make apple cider, apples are simply cored, chopped, mashed, and then pressed to extract their liquid. Most cider is pasteurized before sale, though unpasteurized cider is also available. To make apple juice, manufacturers follow the same steps used to make cider, but they also filter the extracted liquid to remove pulp and sediment. Apple juice is then pasteurized, and potassium sorbate (a preservative) is often mixed in to prevent fermentation. Finally, apple juice is sometimes sweetened with sugar or corn syrup.
We tried using unsweetened apple juice in recipes for pork chops and glazed ham that call for cider. Tasters were turned off by excessive sweetness in the dishes made with apple juice, unanimously preferring those made with cider. This makes sense: The filtration process used in making juice removes some of the complex, tart, and bitter flavors that are still present in cider. (When we tested the pH level of both liquids, the cider had a lower pH than the apple juice, confirming its higher level of acidity.)
However, while a direct swap of apple juice for cider may not work, we did find one that did: For each cup of cider, you can substitute a mixture of ¾ cup of apple juice plus ¼ cup of unsweetened applesauce.
Are there any differences between club soda, seltzer, and sparkling mineral water? Can they be used interchangeably?
Yes, there are some important differences, and you should be careful which product you use for certain applications.
Club soda and seltzer are both made from water charged with carbon dioxide to give them bubbles. Club soda often contains sodium bicarbonate. In contrast, mineral water gets its more delicate effervescence from naturally occurring springs and, as the name suggests, contains more minerals than the other water types.
To find out whether these three effervescent waters could be used interchangeably, we tasted seltzer, club soda, and mineral water straight up and in shrimp tempura, a dish where the fizz of seltzer plays an important role in the development of an ethereally light batter.
Sipped from the bottle, the seltzer had a neutral taste, the club soda had a slightly acrid bite, and the mineral water had a subtle salty earthiness that tasters preferred for drinking. In the tempura, club soda and seltzer both made a crisp, perfectly light crust that evenly coated the shrimp. Mineral water, however, produced a thin, weakly adhering batter that fried up soggy. We attributed this to the fact that mineral water contains less gas than club soda and seltzer. So, while club soda and seltzer can be used interchangeably in recipes, sparkling mineral water is best for drinking.
I’ve had a hard time finding cheesecloth at my grocery store—is there anything else I can use in place of it?
If cheesecloth eludes you, a very common household item can be used as a stand-in.
Cheesecloth is useful to have around for straining out those last bits of herbs and veggies from your broth or stock. Luckily, cheesecloth is a multiuse item, so if you can’t find it at your local grocer, you may be able to track it down in hardware, paint, fabric, and craft stores.
Still can’t locate cheesecloth? If you were planning to use it to strain a recipe like a broth, don’t worry: Simply line a mesh strainer with at least three layers of plain, white paper towels (no prints, please) and slowly pour the broth through. You can also use several layers of paper coffee filters.
What’s so special about kitchen twine? Can’t I just use any old twine or string?
You probably shouldn’t use industrial twine to tie your pork roast.
A recipe calls for kitchen twine, but the only twine you have is a skein from the hardware store. Should you use it? Probably not. Because it’s not intended for cooking, it’s probably not food-safe. Still, we thought we’d give it a try with some nylon twine from the hardware store. Although it didn’t melt or burn, the day-glo yellow colorant leached onto the pork roast we had tied with it.
A common recommended alternative to kitchen twine is unwaxed dental floss, but it is so thin that it often cuts through a piece of meat while being tied. After cooking, this whitish, almost translucent filament is all but invisible and thus can be difficult to remove. We also found that dental floss is particularly ill suited to grilling because it easily singes and then breaks.
As for bona fide kitchen twine, you can buy cotton or linen. We found linen twine easier to tie, and it holds a tight overhand knot well. In addition, it pulls away from the cooked meat easily, taking a minimum amount of seared crust with it. That said, cotton twine worked nearly as well as linen and is a more economical choice. Look for a midweight cotton twine; of the four weights we tested, we liked 16-ply best.
These days almost all recipes for bread seem to call for a stand mixer. If I don’t have one, can I just knead by hand? What kind of adjustments do I have to make?
No major adjustments are required—you can get great results from hand-kneading, as long as you’re willing to put in the elbow grease.
A stand mixer or food processor is our tool of choice for mixing and kneading bread doughs. But some cooks don’t own either, and a handheld mixer is simply too lightweight. Using your hands, of course, is certainly an option.
Over the years, we’ve found that the following method works with most bread doughs: Start by mixing the wet ingredients in a large bowl. Add about half of the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Stir in the remaining flour, leaving aside ¼ to ½ cup. At this point, the mixture should form a shaggy dough. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead, adding the reserved flour as necessary, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Most doughs will require 10 to 15 minutes of kneading by hand. Expect to get a good upper-body workout, but your efforts will pay off. As long as you resist the temptation to add too much flour, hand-kneaded breads compare favorably with those made from machine-kneaded doughs.
I don’t have a stand mixer. Is there an easy way to cream butter and sugar by hand? Or could I use a different tool instead?
You can definitely do it by hand, but we also came up with a shortcut using an unexpected ingredient that might save you time and effort.
Creaming does more than just combine two ingredients. As sugar is rapidly mixed into fat, it creates millions of tiny air pockets that expand in the heat of the oven, giving baked goods lift. Skip the creaming step and your cakes and cookies may turn out squat and dense. Creaming softened butter and sugar by hand using just a bowl and a wooden spoon is hard labor: It’ll take you 20 minutes compared with a mere 3-minute hands-off stint in the mixer. Our search for an easier way led us to an unlikely product: whipped butter.
We made a cookie recipe and a cake recipe, first using two sticks of unsalted butter and mixing in a stand mixer, and then using an 8-ounce tub of whipped unsalted butter and mixing by hand. To our surprise, the cookies were indistinguishable, and the cake made with whipped butter was every bit as fluffy as the one made according to the recipe. Just make sure you use pure unsalted whipped butter, at room temperature, and substitute by weight, not volume.
If you’re looking for an alternative tool, a hand mixer will work, although we found it took twice as long to achieve a light, fluffy mixture as it did in a stand mixer.
Can I bake any cake batter in a Bundt pan, or does it need to be specially formulated for that pan?
Most cake batters will work in a Bundt pan with a few adjustments in cooking time—and in your expectations about what the cake will look like.
A Bundt pan is a great shortcut to a picture-perfect cake. To see how a regular layer-cake batter (formulated for two 9-inch cakes) would fare in a Bundt pan, we tried making yellow, chocolate, and carrot cakes in a 15-cup Bundt pan and compared each to its original layer-cake version.
All three worked well, though none were identical to their original counterparts. Because the batter wasn’t divided into multiple thinner layers, the leavener had more work to do in the deeper Bundt pan and wasn’t as effective. All three came out denser than their light, fluffy layer-cake counterparts, though the crumbs were still lighter than a classic Bundt cake’s. Also, because they all required a longer baking time in the deeper Bundt pan (twice as long for the yellow and chocolate and three times as long for the carrot), they were all slightly drier toward the edges, though still acceptable. The cakes baked in Bundt pans also developed a thicker crust—just as you’d expect to find on a classic Bundt cake.
Is there any way to make a dark-colored pan work like a light-colored pan?
The color of a pan can have a dramatic effect on how your recipe turns out, but there are ways to work around this.
Dark-colored pans absorb heat more efficiently than light-colored pans, so the sides and bottoms of items baked in dark pans will cook more quickly. This is an asset when baking cinnamon rolls and deep-dish pizza, where a brown crust is desired, but it can be a problem with other recipes. Because the batter near the edges in a dark pan will reach its maximum temperature sooner than the batter near the edges in a light pan, a cake baked in a dark pan will have sides that are overly brown and set early, leading to stunted height while the center continues to rise.
If you own only dark pans, you can wrap them in aluminum foil to mimic a light-colored pan. A cake baked in a dark pan wrapped in foil will look identical to a cake baked in a light-colored pan: level, with lightly browned sides and bottom. Make sure to wrap the exterior of the pan with foil as snugly as you can. At the top of the pan, fold the edges of the foil back onto itself; do not fold the foil over onto the interior.
Why do some recipes call for a tube pan? Can I make those cakes in any other kind of pan?
There’s a good reason angel food and chiffon cakes are always baked in tube pans, and it’s not just aesthetics.
These specialty vessels help delicate cakes rise. Because egg foam–based cakes like angel food and chiffon contain very little flour—and therefore very little of the structure-building network called gluten—the batter needs something to cling to as it bakes or it will collapse. Enter the tube pan’s tall sides: As the egg foam heats up, it will climb the sides (and conical center) of the pan. But its lofty structure isn’t sturdy until the cake cools, which is why angel food and chiffon cakes are often cooled upside down on the pan’s tripod feet. For this reason, we don’t recommend you try baking traditional angel food or chiffon cakes in any other kind of pan; they will fall.
Is there a rule of thumb for converting a quick bread into muffins? What about for converting a layer cake into cupcakes?
For most recipes, you can just dump the batter into a muffin tin and adjust the baking time, but there are a few important exceptions.
To answer this question, we chose a handful of quick bread and cake recipes with different mixing techniques and varying ratios of ingredients: banana bread, cornbread, carrot cake, angel food cake, chiffon cake, devil’s food cake, and yellow layer cake. After preparing the batters as directed in each recipe, we simply portioned them into greased 12-cup muffin tins and baked them on the middle rack at the oven temperature specified for about half the time called for.
All the quick breads turned out very nicely as muffins. However, the cake results were a mixed bag. The cupcakes made from angel food and chiffon cakes, batters that receive lift from whipped egg whites, failed miserably. They came out of the oven looking perfect but quickly collapsed as they cooled. The devil’s food and yellow cakes fared better. They baked up with flat tops (ideal for a layer cake but not so much for a cupcake), and several stuck to the pan because of their high sugar content, but overall they were acceptable.
So, with the exception of angel food and chiffon cakes, the next time you want to transform your favorite batter into muffins or cupcakes, go ahead. Divide your batter into a greased 12-cup muffin tin (use paper liners for tender layer cake batters) and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached, about (or a little less than) half the time called for in the original recipe. Rotate the muffin tin halfway through baking.
Is there an easy way to convert a muffin recipe into a loaf recipe?
Yes, there are some pretty simple rules to follow to make this switch.
Because muffins are small, they are generally baked at relatively high temperatures so they develop browning before their interiors overcook. In general, muffins bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Loaves, on the other hand, have a greater volume-to-surface-area ratio and thus require longer baking at a lower temperature. We tested several fruit and nut muffin recipes, as well as a plain one, baking each in 8½ by 4½-inch pans at a range of oven temperatures and times.
Our findings? To convert a muffin recipe to make a loaf, set the oven rack in the middle position, decrease the oven temperature by 50 degrees, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf matches the visual cue given for the muffins (either “with a few moist crumbs attached” or “clean”), 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. Recipes with sugary toppings like streusel should be tented with foil during the last 20 to 25 minutes to prevent them from getting too dark.
Is there a rule of thumb to follow for converting layer cakes into sheet cakes? I find it much easier to frost a cake baked in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish than a multiple-layer cake.
Good news for cooks who hate the fuss of frosting layer cakes: This is an easy swap!
When we tried this substitution with a few of our layer cake recipes, we found that each sheet cake version required about 5 extra minutes of baking, but after that they came out perfect. So the next time you want to prepare a recipe for two 9-inch layer cakes in a 13 by 9-inch baking dish, bake the cake as usual and add about 5 minutes of baking time to the original recipe (checking for doneness a few minutes early to prevent overbaking). Let the cake cool completely before frosting it in the pan or turning it out to be frosted.
Is there any way to successfully cook delicate foods in a traditional skillet if I don’t have a nonstick skillet on hand?
In lieu of a nonstick skillet, a stainless-steel skillet coated with vegetable oil spray can work nearly as well.
To find out if we could make a regular stainless-steel skillet more nonstick with the help of a vegetable oil spray, we sprayed the entire surface of a 10-inch skillet and heated it over medium heat (any hotter and the spray discolored) until shimmering before adding an egg, which we also sprayed on top. For comparison, we heated 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil (a generous amount for a 10-inch pan) in an identical stainless-steel skillet over medium heat until shimmering before adding an egg, which we drizzled with oil before flipping.
The spray easily trumped the oil. Why? As oil heats up, it tends to form an uneven layer because the surface of the pan heats unevenly, causing the oil to pool in cooler areas and disappear in other areas. Vegetable oil sprays prevent sticking better because they contain more than just oil—they also include lecithin, an emulsifier that bonds the oil to the pan so it forms a thin, complete layer of oil between the pan and the food.
Be sure to spray the entire surface of the pan, including the flared sides. Note that foods like scrambled eggs won’t work with this method; because the food is moved around the pan during cooking, the layer of nonstick spray is lifted from the bottom of the pan.
What makes an omelet pan special? Do I really need one in order to make a great omelet? What about a crêpe pan? Are these just a scam?
We have found that a few good, basic, multitasking pans are a better investment than a set of specialized tools.
Although pricey, specialized skillets often do little to enhance the products they produce, omelets and crêpes do benefit from different pan surfaces. Because omelets require constant, gentle movement and only a glancing acquaintance with the bottom of the pan, a 10-inch nonstick skillet works best for cooking them. In recent tests, the omelets we made in our favorite nonstick were fine-pored, delicately pale, and—unlike those cooked in the skillet’s specialized counterpart—incapable of sticking.
A crêpe, on the other hand, tastes better when a sticking point or two yields a few brown spots; we found pale crêpes to be uninteresting in flavor and texture—rather omelet-like, in fact. This makes traditional pans (without a nonstick surface) a must for crêpes. A heavy traditional skillet performed as capably as a French crêpe pan—and in some regards even better, as the heat was more even.
Of course, these two pans—a nonstick skillet and a traditional skillet—are great tools for a wide variety of other cooking tasks as well, unlike the more specialized pans.
Can I reuse a disposable baking pan?
While they’re not our favorite vessels, you can reuse disposable baking pans a few times, as long as you wash them by hand between uses.
We don’t typically use disposable pans for baking because they don’t hold heat well and aren’t as stable as metal, ceramic, or glass options, so baked goods don’t brown well in them. That said, we’ve found that you can somewhat overcome these issues by placing your filled disposable pan directly on a preheated rimmed baking sheet in the oven.
Using this hack, we tried baking three batches each of brownies, sticky buns, and pie in succession in the same disposable baking pans (hand-washing them after each use). We tested with our winning disposable pan, Glad OvenWare, which is made of sturdy plastic, and with a generic disposable aluminum pan. After three rounds in the oven, both the plastic and aluminum pans showed some wear and tear but didn’t exhibit any significant issues. A Glad company representative confirmed that the OvenWare pans should last for “at least three uses” on average.
Many recipes call for placing the oven rack in “the middle position,” but my oven has six rack positions, so there is no true middle. Should I use the upper-middle or the lower-middle rack?
We say err on the side of the cooler, and therefore lower, rack position.
In the test kitchen, we have ovens with both an even and an odd number of rack positions. If you have an odd number of racks, finding the middle position is easy. If you have an even number, you can place the rack in either the upper-middle or the lower-middle position. To find out which position is preferable, we baked batches of cookies and cake in both positions and compared the results.
After an afternoon of baking, we found it was better to use the lower-middle rack, which put the food a little closer to the exact middle of the oven (since the food itself sits higher than the rack).
Recipes often call for cooling baked goods on a wire rack. Is a rack really necessary, or is it OK to cool foods on a flat surface?
That cooling rack is actually doing a lot for your baked goods—skip it at your own risk.
The chief concern when cooling baked goods is preventing sogginess. When an item is cooled on a wire rack, air can circulate beneath it, allowing steam to escape, rather than condensing and causing the food to turn mushy. To prove this theory, we baked up two identical batches of cookies and two pies. We cooled one batch of each recipe on a wire rack and compared it to batches cooled directly on a heatproof counter. The cookies cooled on a rack were crisp and evenly textured from the edge to the center. The counter-cooled cookies were less crisp overall and chewier in the center. The pie test was equally convincing: The bottom crust of the pie cooled on the wire rack maintained its crispness despite the moist apple filling. The pie cooled on the counter, on the other hand, developed a gummy, wet bottom crust.
If I don’t have a carving board, I can just use a regular cutting board, right?
You can, but you need another piece of equipment to make it work.
Good carving boards come with a handy well in the center and a moat around the edges to capture juices from the meat that would otherwise drip onto the countertop and floor. Your regular, completely flat cutting board doesn’t have that well, so if you use it to carve a juicy roast or whole turkey, you’ll end up with juices all over the counter. As a makeshift solution, we recommend putting the flat cutting board inside a rimmed baking sheet before carving; the raised lip will keep the juices from leaking out as you carve.
If I don’t have a garlic press, can I simply mince the garlic really small with a knife for the same results?
If you’re an expert garlic mincer, this should be just fine, but if you doubt your skills, we recommend a garlic press.
Ever since we first tested garlic presses, we’ve started recommending pressed garlic in our recipes. We compared minced and pressed garlic in a variety of recipes, and our tasters couldn’t tell the difference between properly minced garlic and pressed garlic. Professional chefs may well be able to produce piles of perfectly minced garlic in no time flat, but we’ve found that home cooks often don’t mince garlic as finely as many recipes require, which can lead to uneven cooking. A garlic press produces not only a very fine mince (almost a puree) but an evenly fine mince, which ensures even cooking and even distribution of flavor throughout the dish. If you don’t want to invest in a garlic press, just make sure you practice your knife skills.
What is the difference between a food mill and a ricer? Why would I need to own one or the other?
One of these tools is definitely more useful than the other.
Ricers are most often used to make smooth, creamy mashed potatoes. The peeled, cooked potato is put in the basket of the ricer’s lower half and forced through small holes when the upper handle is closed, thereby mashing—actually, pureeing—the potato.
A food mill purees food and strains it at the same time. Food is placed in the hopper, and a hand-crank mechanism turns a conical blade in the hopper against a perforated disk, forcing the food through the disk. Most food mills have three interchangeable disks with various-size holes. A food mill can thus not only make mashed potatoes but can make them from unpeeled potatoes, forcing the flesh through the holes in the disk while holding back the skins. Food mills can also puree apples to make flawlessly smooth applesauce with no need to peel and core the apples first, and can puree cooked tomatoes, removing the skin and bitter seeds for you.
Some cooks swear by the ricer for making superior-quality mashed potatoes, arguing that there’s less likelihood that the potatoes’ starch cells will be ruptured, which can make for gluey potatoes. But if you’re looking for one kitchen tool that will mash potatoes and make all sorts of other purees, the food mill is the way to go.
Wide, shallow goblets (or coupes) were once the stemware of choice for champagne, but these days you’re more likely to get a glass of bubbly in a tall, narrow flute. Is one better than the other, or is it just a matter of aesthetics?
There’s actually a scientific reason for using a flute over a coupe glass.
In addition to the fact that the compact shape of a flute can keep champagne from warming too fast, a flute limits the exposed surface area of the champagne, which slows the release of carbon dioxide. The bubbles deliver much of champagne’s flavor (by way of smell): As the bubbles rise through the liquid, they carry aromatic compounds to the surface and deliver them to your nose. So, slowing down the production of bubbles ensures good flavor from first sip to last. The larger exposed surface area of champagne in a coupe would logically translate into the faster release of bubbles and thus a more quickly dissipated flavor.
Naturally, we had to see (and taste) for ourselves, so we compared the same bubbly served in flutes and in wider goblets. Most tasters found the champagne in wider glasses to be fizzier yet flatter in taste; they described the champagne as “sweet” and “acidic,” with little complexity. The flutes delivered champagne with “citrusy,” “floral,” and “fruity” aromas. So while your grandmother’s goblets may look retrochic, we suggest that you serve your champagne in flutes.
Supermarkets are getting better about stocking all the ingredients necessary for cooking dishes from around the world, but some ingredients can still be hard to find. Here are a few of the items that we stock in our pantry, along with suggestions for approximating their flavors if unavailable.
If you don’t have
Coconut Milk
Try Do not use canned cream of coconut, which is sweetened. Bring equal parts whole milk and unsweetened shredded coconut to a simmer and let steep, covered, for 15 minutes. Grind the mixture in a blender or food processor and let steep for another 15 minutes. Strain the mixture, pressing down on the coconut in the strainer to extract the most flavor. This will make an acceptable substitute for curries and stir-fry sauces, but it’s less reliable in baked goods.
Fish Sauce
Try A mixture of 1 tablespoon of soy sauce plus 1 finely minced anchovy fillet will make a crude stand-in for 1 tablespoon of this salty, pungent Thai sauce.
Try Mace and nutmeg are both harvested from the fruit of the Indonesian nutmeg tree; whole nutmeg is the fruit’s pitlike seed, and mace is found in the waxy red layer that separates the seed from the fruit’s flesh. The flavors of the two spices are similar, but mace is much stronger than nutmeg. If a recipe calls for mace and you have only nutmeg, use it, but double the amount.
Try To replace 2 tablespoons of this sweet Japanese rice wine, substitute an equal amount of white wine or sake plus 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Try Popular in Mexico, queso fresco (also called queso blanco) is a fresh, crumbly-soft mild cheese made from either cow’s or goat’s milk. If you can’t find queso fresco, fresh farmer’s cheese or a mild feta is a suitable substitute.
Savory
Try This aromatic Mediterranean herb is found in two varieties: winter and summer savory. The types are quite similar, though the flavor of the latter is slightly more delicate, and the former has a coarser texture. Summer savory is more widely available, but if you can’t find either type, you can substitute a combination of 2 parts fresh thyme to 1 part fresh sage.
Try To make a replacement for this sesame paste, grind up an equal amount of sesame seeds in a blender with just enough peanut or vegetable oil to make a fairly smooth mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil (or to taste) and use the mixture as a one-for-one substitute for tahini. Another option is to blend 3 parts peanut butter with 1 part toasted sesame oil and use half the quantity of tahini called for in the recipe.
Try Sweet-tart, brownish-red tamarind is a necessary ingredient for authentic pad thai, but you can still make a good pad thai using lime juice and water. To replace 2 tablespoons of tamarind paste soaked in ¾ cup of hot water and strained, mix ⅓ cup lime juice and ⅓ cup water.
Try If you can’t find Thai basil, do not substitute regular basil; its flavor is too gentle. An equal amount of mint makes a better substitute.