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My girlfriend is vegan.

How can I replace eggs in a recipe?

Maybe with banana or soy? How much?

The egg is the key ingredient to keep everything from falling apart.

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    It depends on what you are cooking with the egg, because they have a few different roles in a dish. Can you provide more information on which dish you are cooking where you want to replace the egg?
    – Ian Turner
    Aug 4, 2010 at 12:14
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    if the 'falling apart' is taken literally, we're looking at dishes where the egg is a coagulant. Cakes, for instance? If the OP means a specific recipie, let's have the recipe. Otherwise, you could google for recipe types with a "-egg" search term.
    – Tobias Op Den Brouw
    Aug 4, 2010 at 12:27
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    For baking, see the question on cookies without eggs : cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/653/… ... but the problem is that eggs might act as an emulsifier, provide moisture, binding, leavening, etc, so there's no one answer. And as your girlfriend's a vegan, unless she's a recent convert, she probably knows a few solutions herself.
    – Joe
    Aug 4, 2010 at 12:29
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    There are plenty of things that work fine for this. The vegan-haters just don't know how to cook. I just thought I'd mention one thing you shouldn't do. In a lot of recipes, you can replace eggs with apple sauce, but don't try that with brownies; it tastes horrible.
    – Brendan Long
    Dec 9, 2010 at 2:21
  • possible duplicate of Are there any vegetarian-friendly egg substitutes that can be used in cakes?
    – Mien
    Mar 4, 2013 at 11:09

11 Answers 11

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In Brownies without egg, Darin Sehnert makes a reference to commercial "Egg replacer".

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    I once made brownies with a vegan-girlfriend-of-roommate, substituting bananas and applesauce in place of eggs and shortening...They were delicious for about 5 minutes, then they set up so hard we had to throw away the pan. Literally. Soaking did nothing. It was like soaking a pan full of chocolatey pumice.
    – Satanicpuppy
    Aug 4, 2010 at 13:43
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    I have to imagine that there were more issues with those brownies than a little bananas and applesauce ...
    – aptwebapps
    Nov 23, 2010 at 5:50
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I have the giant box of Ener-G egg replacer sitting in my cabinet, but I've found that in most cases a flax egg will do.

   1 T flax seed
   3 T water

Grind the flax in a coffee grinder or mortar & pestle and then mix in the water. Voila, you have one egg.

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As some people pointed out it really depends on what you are trying to make. (and believe me it's not easier to replace the girlfriend as someone above suggested, vegan baking is so easy)

You can use the egg replacer that's available at health food stores (you mix one tbsp with water, following the directions on the box for each egg). The downside of this is if you are trying to replace several eggs, the powder does give it a weird taste.

For muffins, pancakes, waffles etc. you can easily replace it using apple sauce and oil. I've made cookies where the recipe called for mixing oil and maple syrup, i'm sure that's what kept them together instead of egg.

Flax seeds in water also become all sticky like egg and keep things together.

Banana is another great one but your food will taste like banana, so this is great if you don't mind the banana (it works amazingly in brownies).

Silken tofu can be used to make all sort of custard/ mousse desserts.

This site will probably explain it much better than I did above http://www.theppk.com/veganbaking.html

IMO the best cake/ cupcake recipes are from "vegan cupcakes take over the world", they always come out fluffy and tasty, and everyone i made them for loved them and couldn't tell they were vegan, it's a little cookbook i'd invest in if you're planning on baking for her.

Another thing- to replace eggs for breakfast try making scrambled tofu (lots of recipes online), when it's spiced properly it is SO delicious. Basically you crumble up firm (not silken) tofu with your hands, add spices (tumeric to make it yellow like scrambled eggs), herbs, nutritional yeast, oil and fry it up. Mix with diced tomato just before serving, it is super yummy.

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  • I like how the times have changed. 12 years ago being vegan was considered whimsical ("replace the girlfriend"), even in Western countries, and now I encounter them left and right, even not living in a Western country
    – Sergey Zolotarev
    Oct 17, 2022 at 21:26
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In pancakes, I use 2" or so of a banana per egg. The more banana you use, the more banana-y it tastes, so no harm done! If you were to use a little less, it's possible to remove the banana taste completely from the pancakes.

My roommate who HATES banana with a passion tried my pancakes and loved them, claiming she couldn't taste the banana at all. This substitute is used while making pancakes with your typical Aunt Jemima/generic brand pancake mix, and adding soy milk as well (soy cooks better than almond or rice).

For brownies or cookies, you can use applesauce or maple syrup or more banana, it's really up to you. Applesauce doesn't add much flavor, thus making them quite similar to real ones. Maple syrup also works well, but doesn't add to the fluffiness. If you were to use banana in your brownies, I would recommend blending with a little water, so it's completely smooth and not lumpy. As ya probably know, brownie batter from CVS even, can be vegan.

Banana bread is obvious - use more banana! and add walnuts or pecans because of the obvious YUM factor.

I find that using baking powder or soda does NOT work well and would advise against.

If you wanted to make French Toast: I would heat up vanilla soymilk, a little citric fruit juice (orange banana), more banana, seasonings such as cinnamon and vanilla. Stir in flour to thicken it up a bit, and when its thick enough, soak your bread and cook it up!

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There is a commercial egg replacer named Ener-G that you can find at most health-food stores. Here is a link to the product FAQ: http://www.ener-g.com/Faq/productfaq.aspx . I wouldn't say it does 100% of the things an egg can do (good luck making a custard with it!), but many vegans seem to find it helpful.

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In addition to the many commonly known egg substitutes, there is one less known: aquafaba.

Aquafaba is the resulting liquid from cooking beans and other legumes such as chickpeas in water, and it is quite useful as a substitute for eggs. The official aquafaba site (http://www.aquafaba.com) explains the history, the science, and what has been said about aquafaba.

There are cook books devoted to the use of aquafaba in recipes from lemon cake to Pavlovas and Swiss buttercream: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612437214/ref=crt_ewc_title_oth_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

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  • I've seen some impressive things that it can do, but those always seemed to be eggwhites (whipping into a foam, mostly). Do you need to add fat if you're replacing whole eggs?
    – Joe
    Sep 21, 2017 at 1:42
  • i have not read enough to answer that competently. i would imagine the answer is at the aquafaba site. i just bought some vegan mayo made with aquafaba...
    – Rachelle Greene
    Sep 22, 2017 at 17:29
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There was an episode of "Good Eats" where Alton Brown replaced eggs with avocados. They have similar properties, though I think he fixed the dishes in other ways as well.

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I've been using bananas in my brownies since I started living with Vegans (3 years ago) and I've gotten nothing but praise (except for those extremely rare few who truly detest the taste or even smell). I generally use 1 or 2 (about 8 in / 20cm in length) but sometimes I'll throw in 3-4 for that extra banana kick. I also add some water in there (in lieu of milk) and throw some other smaller ingredients into the blender to make a nice liquid which better facilitates mixing (assuming you're doing it by hand).

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I've been using corn flour as a substitute of eggs in pancakes, with mixed results, but its some option to investigate.

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I just found an extensive list of egg substitutes in case you're baking:

http://chefinyou.com/egg-substitutes-cooking/

It's a 3 page long table, sorry for not reposting it here. Not all the options are vegan, but most of them are.

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I usually use Aquafaba because it's a free byproduct of making hummus.

Hummus is stupid cheap if you make it from dry garbanzo beans. I cook garbanzo beans in big batches and store them in sealed glass jars. When you use the canned garbanzo beans beans, save the water; that's aqauafaba. It makes a great egg replacer in baking, mayonnaise, and meringue.

Here's some others:

  • Baking powder -- good for pancakes
  • Baking soda and vinegar (or citrus juice) -- good for cakes and cupcakes
  • Ground flax seed -- good for denser recipes like cookies or muffins
  • Chia seeds -- good for denser recipes like cookies or muffins (if using black chia seeds, they will be visible in the final product)
  • Applesauce or other pureed fruit -- works well across all recipes
  • Aquafaba -- good for baking, mayonnaise, meringue

Attribution

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    Aren’t those all covered by existing answers?
    – Sneftel
    Aug 29, 2023 at 5:07

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