Adapting Recipes To Suit Dietary Requirements

I am often asked if the recipes in my eBooks and those I share on my website are suitable with specific allergies/dietary requirements. I endeavour to provide substitutes wherever possible to make recipes nut free,  egg free and/or vegan in both my eBooks and the recipes on my website. 

Most of the recipes in my eBooks can easily be be made dairy free, nut free and egg free. There are many gluten free flours available in grocery stores and you can substitute with gluten free flour for all of the recipes. 

Whether it’s an egg allergy, nut allergy, dairy intolerance, gluten intolerance, a vegan diet, you’ve run out of eggs and milk or you’re endeavouring to follow a more plant based diet then I have you covered with these recipe substitutions. 

I will run through substitutes which will work for most recipes.

1. Milk Substitutes

Most of my recipes call for full fat milk, however you can substitute with any plant based milk you prefer. 

If using a plant based milk there might be a slight difference in the taste of the recipe.

2. Cheese Substitutes 

Nutritional yeast or dairy free cheese/cheese spreads can be used in place of cheese for all of the recipes.

3. Butter Substitutes 

Coconut oil can often be used in place of butter.

Ghee is also another great option if you avoid dairy or are lactose intolerant and the milk protein is removed during the cooking process. You can find my recipe here. 

4. Egg Substitues 

I find chia eggs (recipe here) or flax eggs to be the best substitute, however these will not work for every recipe. An egg replacement will only work well for recipes which call for less than 3 eggs. 

1 mashed banana can also be used in some instances, this tends to work well for baked goods, however it will change the taste! 

Apple purée is another substitute which can work well in baked goods.

5. Nut Substitutes 

Any recipe which calls for nut butter can replaced with any seed butter. 

Recipes which call for crushed nuts can be replaced with any crushed seeds of choice, or hemp hearts.

Toasted oats can also sometimes work to replace nuts.

6. Seed  Substitutes

Any recipes which call for seeds, can be replaced with crushed nuts or hemp hearts.

7. Gluten Free Modifications

Most grocery stores stock a range of gluten free flours, for example, gluten free all purpose flour and these can readily be used as substitutes. 

Buckwheat flour is another great substitute, but it does impact the taste as it is quite earthy and nutty. 

Almond flour can sometimes be used as a replacement but again this will not work for every recipe. 

Oat flour works well as a replacement but you will usually find you need to modify the quantity and increase the amount of oat flour. 

Any recipe which call for oats can be replaced by gluten free oats. 

Gluten free flours may change the taste and texture of the end result slightly.