Have any of these ever happened to you?
You thought you had all the ingredients for soup you wanted to make. But, part way through chopping everything you find out you have Russet potatoes instead of Yukon Gold. Can you substitute these ingredients for each other?
Or, maybe your chicken salad recipe called for two tablespoons of chopped dill pickles and all you have is sweet pickle relish. Can you substitute these ingredients? What will that do to the taste?
What if you are supposed to use ground beef and you want to use ground turkey? What will this taste like?
Don’t fret. Substituting ingredients is perfectly fine in many cases. We are talking about cooking for the purpose of this article. Not baking. We will discuss baking at a later date. Hint…it can be more difficult to substitute ingredients when baking.
Back to using different items when cooking tonight’s dinner.
Do we follow recipes when cooking? Sure. Do we have to throw out a dish just because we didn’t have exactly the correct ingredients? Nope.
This is where you can be creative. This is where we substitute ingredients.
Think of something similar to an ingredient you don’t have and use that one. You may have to adjust the cooking time or the spices. That is why it is important to taste as you cook.
We have used white beans or even pinto beans when we didn’t have cannellini beans. Yams can be substitute ingredients for sweet potatoes. Since these have a slightly different flavor, be sure to taste throughout the cooking process.
No chicken broth? Use vegetable broth. You don’t have hot sauce, but you do have tomato paste. Mix in a little cayenne for the spice. Not much. Again, be sure to taste several times.
You can substitute molasses for maple syrup, and whole milk with a little lemon juice in place of buttermilk. We have even used finely chopped apples for crunch in place of walnuts in a salad. When we didn’t have enough bacon to wrap around the mini peppers, we chopped the bacon and added it to the filling. Same taste, just different look.
When you substitute dry ingredients for wet or vice versa, pay close attention to the consistency.
You get the idea. Substitutions can be endless.
One thing to know about substituting when using herbs, is you will use less dried herbs than fresh. They can still be substituted for each other, just not the exact same quantity. As a rule of thumb, you will use less dried than fresh. Dried herbs are more concentrated and have a stronger taste.
Do you have any substitutions you regularly use or any that surprised you? Let us know.
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