Baker shares an unconventional cost-saving hack to replace eggs: 'It's a great substitute'

A Reddit post provided useful and inexpensive egg substitution tips. With a bit of vinegar, baking soda, or applesauce, your baked goods won't miss eggs — an item the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts to rise 20% in price this year, per the Associated Press.

The scoop

This ingredient hack shows how cheaper food items most people may already have can serve as a readily available substitute for eggs. The creative cook recommended "1 teaspoon of baking soda combined with 1 tablespoon of vinegar or 1/4 cup of plain yogurt" in any baking recipe — particularly breads and muffins —  to replace one egg.

However, when making sweets, opt for "1/4 cup [of] applesauce." If you have some overripe bananas, mash one up to emulsify your cakes and pancakes.

How it's helping

Along with natural disasters, disease outbreaks are one of many reasons for food chain instability. Egg prices in the United States have been a hot topic since COVID-19, when CNN reported that egg sales rose 44% year on year in March 2020.

Now, the bird flu outbreak, which requires farmers to eliminate the entire bird stock because of USDA policy, has also brought high prices and empty store shelves.

But home cooks can't just leave out the eggs to make their recipes less expensive. Eggs in baking bind various ingredients together. As a result, your cakes and cookies have a better structure and more stability. Without an egg, you may have a dense cake that quickly falls apart.

That's what makes these easy egg substitutes so great. This Reddit food hack can give consumers ideas on creatively using items in the pantry or buying cheaper alternatives to substitute eggs or other hard-to-find items.

One of the egg replacements mentioned — bananas— only costs an average of 0.6 2 cents per pound, per Statista. Instead of tossing them if they become too mushy to eat as a snack, use them in your recipes. Do you prefer vinegar for your egg substitute? Further repurpose leftovers and make vinegar from old juice about to turn.

Getting creative with your ingredients also reduces the amount of edible items going into landfills, which eventually dissolve into planet-warming gases that harm the climate. The United States Environmental Protection Agency reported that food is the most common item sitting in trash heaps when it could feed the over 47 million Americans facing hunger — per USDA 2023 statistics. However, between food hacks and using services like TooGoodToGo and FlashFood, you can improve your food security, save money, and extend the life of food — including those bruised items people often overlook.

What single change would make the biggest dent in your personal food waste? Not buying food I don't need 🧐 Freezing my food before it goes bad 🧊 Using my leftovers more effectively 🍲 Composting my food scraps 🌱 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

What everyone's saying

The comments were supportive of these ideas and provided several of their own. One baker said they use, "1 tablespoon chia seeds mixed with 3 tablespoons water = 1 'egg.' It's a great substitute and extra fiber."

A vegan baker suggested, "Ground flaxseed meal. … [Mix it with] 2-3 tablespoons of water per tablespoon of ground flaxseed, which equals 1 egg."

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