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Choose Your
Vegan Egg Substitute
Here are some Popular Ones
When people become vegans, they start looking for a vegan egg
substitute. Many commercial egg substitutes, like Egg Beaters, are not
vegan. They contain egg whites or other animal products. To select the
right egg substitute, think about what you are going to use it for.
Egg substitutes for breakfast
We have never seen a vegan egg
substitute that can replace a hard boiled egg. But mashed tofu is a
great substitute for scrambled
eggs. Tofu is pretty bland by itself. It tastes best when mixed with
sauteed onions, peppers and mushrooms.
Nutritional yeast will give your scrambled tofu a cheese-like taste.
Add a little turmeric for a
yellow color, and some salt and pepper. Yum!
You can even make a vegan omelet by mashing tofu with a little
soy milk, flour, and seasonings. Don't use too much soy milk. It should
be a thick batter, not thin like eggs. Be sure you
use
a good non-stick pan. To cook several omelets at a time,
spread the omelet batter in discs on a baking sheet lined with
parchment and bake
it.
For a quiche, bake your omelet mixture in a quiche pan.
Egg substitutes for moisture and
binding
Eggs are often used in baked goods to bind ingredients together. Flax
seeds work fine for this purpose. For one egg, mix one Tbsp ground flax
seeds with 3 Tbsp water. Let it sit for 5 minutes. It turns into
a viscous gel like egg whites. Would the ground flax
seeds look odd in your
finished product? Strain them out of the gel with cheesecloth
before you use it.
We use the ground flax and water combination to hold veggie burgers
together too.
Eggs also add moisture to cookies, muffins, and
cakes. But who wants
all that fat and cholesterol just to make a cake moist? There are many
vegan egg substitutes that can add moisture to baked goods:
Blend a small chunk of tofu or a few raw nuts with the liquid in your
recipe.
Use baby food prunes, applesauce, mashed banana, or other
fruit purees instead of eggs.
Fruit purees also substitute for oil and margarine in fat free baked
goods. Be sure to cover your fat free baked goods tightly with plastic
wrap and refrigerate them.
Egg substitutes for leavening
cakes
People also add eggs to cakes for leavening: to make the cakes
rise. This is the biggest challenge for a vegan egg substitute,
especially
when you bake with heavy whole grain flours. If you are trying to use a
vegan egg replacer to modify a favorite family recipe, be aware that
your results may be.....different.
That said, the best product that we
have found for leavening is Ener-G Egg Replacer. It is a
dry powder that you mix with water. The ratio of Egg Replacer to water
is:
- 1 egg = 1 1/2 tsp dry Egg Replacer plus 2 tbsp
water
- 1 egg white = 1 1/2 tsp dry Egg Replacer plus 2
tbsp water
- 1 egg yolk = 1 1/2 tsp dry Egg Replacer plus 1
tbsp water
The ingredients in Egg Replacer are: potato Starch, tapioca starch
flour, leavening (calcium lactate [not derived from dairy], calcium
carbonate, citric acid), sodium carboxymethylcellulose, and
methylcellulose.
The manufacturer says that Egg Replacer is gluten-free, wheat-free,
casein-free, dairy-free, yeast-free, soy-free, tree nut-free,
peanut-free, and low in protein. Egg Replacer is only for
baking.
Do not try to use it as a scrambled
egg substitute.
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