You are in the middle of cooking a big meal, baking some cookies or creating some other culinary masterpiece when you discover you are out of an important ingredient, now what?
1. Leave everything where it is and run to the nearest grocer
2. Throw everything in the trash cursing yourself, the kitchen and the god of cooking
3. Check the list of handy ingredient substitutions.

I choose option 3. Yes, there are many options when it comes to ingredients and I bet you can come up with more in a pinch. On Thanksgiving morning I was making a chocolate pecan pie when I realized I was out of brown sugar. I quickly substituted with regular white sugar and a couple of tablespoons of molasses. Here are a few others and link to still more. Do you have a creative substitution you created in a pinch???

1.) 1 tsp Baking Powder (fast acting)
• ¼ tsp baking soda + 5/8 tsp cream of tartar
• ¼ tsp baking soda + ½ cup buttermilk or sour milk, reduce liquid in recipe by ½ cup)
• ¼ tsp baking soda + 3/8 cup molasses, reduce liquid in recipe by ¼ cup, adjust sweetener
2.) 1 cup Buttermilk
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 ¾ tsp of cream of tartar + 1 cup milk
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice or white vinegar + enough milk to complete 1 cup (let stand 5 minutes)
3.) Cottage Cheese = Ricotta Cheese
4.) Chocolate
• milk chocolate, 3 oz = 2 ½ oz semi sweet chocolate + 1 oz whole milk powder + 1 ½ Tbsp sugar
• semi-sweet chocolate, 1 oz = ½ oz unsweetened chocolate + 1 Tbsp sugar.
• semi-sweet chips, 6 oz = ½ cup unsweetened cocoa + ½ cup sugar + 3 Tbsp melted butter
• unsweetened, 1 oz or 1 square = 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa + 1 Tbsp melted butter

Share your creative substitutions and the situation that inspired you.

More substitutions