Out of Eggs? The Best Replacement Might Already Be in Your Pantry

I'm often flush with enough eggs to fry or scramble for breakfast…until I suddenly crave pancakes and realize I've used every last one. If you've been in the same bind—or if you're newly vegan, baking on a budget, or simply curious about alternatives—you may wonder which common pantry ingredients can actually stand in for eggs.

There's no perfect 1:1 replacement, because eggs perform several key jobs in baked goods. But plenty of substitutes can get you surprisingly close—some better than others. I tested the most popular ones to see how they hold up in pancakes, muffins, and chocolate chip cookies.

What Eggs Do in Baked Goods

Eggs are true multitaskers in baking, quietly performing several structural and sensory jobs at once. Their proteins are responsible for much of a baked good's framework: when heated, they coagulate and set, helping everything from pancakes to muffins hold their shape. At the same time, eggs contribute essential moisture, since a large portion of the egg is water. That moisture turns to steam in the oven, helping to aerate batters and support lift. Eggs also work in tandem with chemical leaveners like baking powder and soda; as the proteins set and the steam expands, they give baked goods a secondary rise, helping create a light, tender crumb. 

Meanwhile, the eggs' proteins and sugars participate in Maillard browning, which is why cookies and cakes made without eggs often bake up paler than their egg-based counterparts. Yolks add their own advantages, lending richness, flavor, emulsifying power, and a deeper golden color that makes baked goods look and taste more appealing.

Because eggs play so many roles at once—binding, moistening, leavening, emulsifying, and browning—no single substitute can replicate everything they do. Instead, egg alternatives tend to mimic one or two of these functions well while falling short on others. The trick is choosing the stand-in that best matches what the egg does in your recipe.

How I Tested

To understand how different egg substitutes behave in everyday baking, I focused on approachable, familiar recipes that home cooks often make. I chose baked goods that call for two eggs, which made the tests easy to scale and ensured that any differences in structure, texture, browning, or flavor would be noticeable without being overwhelming. Using recipes with two eggs also kept the ratios simple enough that each substitute had a fair chance to perform.

For consistency, I selected three straightforward recipes across different categories: Serious Eats' lemon–poppy seed muffins (prepared without the poppy seeds to make structural differences easier to see), an easy pancake recipe, and the classic Toll House chocolate chip cookies printed on the back of the bag. These recipes are widely recognizable, rely on standard pantry ingredients, and represent three distinct styles of baked goods, allowing me to evaluate how each substitute behaves in batters and doughs with different needs and textures.

Each recipe was prepared under the same controlled conditions. 

The Pancakes: The batter was stirred just until combined, rested for ten minutes, portioned into 1/4-cup scoops, and cooked on a 350°F electric griddle until the surface bubbles began to break and the bottoms turned golden brown. 

The Muffins: Muffins were baked at 350°F for twenty-five minutes and allowed to cool in the pan for five minutes before removal. 

The Cookie Dough: Batches were refrigerated overnight to maintain consistent temperature and hydration; they were baked at 375°F on the middle rack for 12 minutes, except for the aquafaba and "extra leavener" batches, which needed 14 minutes to achieve comparable doneness.

Before evaluating the substitutes, I established a control batch using two large eggs in each recipe. These control versions served as the benchmark for flavor, rise, browning, and texture. The pancakes were tender and fluffy with a subtle custardy richness and no gumminess. The muffins baked up with attractively domed tops, a golden surface, and a dense yet moist crumb that tasted full and balanced. The cookies baked evenly, developing crisp edges, chewy centers, and a deep golden color—essentially the ideal chocolate chip cookie. With this baseline in place, I could clearly assess how each egg substitute matched or diverged from the performance of real eggs.

The Tests

Chia Seeds

The Substitute: 1 tablespoon chia seeds + 3 tablespoons water per egg; let sit for about 20 minutes to gel.

Pancakes: It was difficult to tell when they were ready to flip because the batter became extremely thick and barely produced bubbles. Although the pancakes appeared fluffy, they were dense and sticky when eaten, with a mild nuttiness and a noticeable chia-seed crunch.

Muffins: Baked with attractive domes and even coloration. The chia texture blended reasonably well into the crumb, though a slight gumminess was apparent. They were enjoyable overall, but clearly heavier and denser than the egg-based version.

Cookies: These cookies baked up thick and chewy, reminiscent of Levain-style cookies, with a pronounced nutty flavor and a very noticeable seed texture. Had the chia bits been less prominent, this version might have been a strong contender.

Summary Results: Chia seeds form the thickest and most gelatinous mixture of any substitute tested, which made every batter and dough noticeably thicker and more resistant to mixing and spreading. Beyond the structural impact, the seeds themselves remained visually and texturally prominent in all baked goods; their dark flecks and persistent crunch were impossible to hide, making chia less appealing to bakers who prefer a smooth, uniform crumb.

Flaxseeds

The Substitute: 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water per egg; hydrate for 20 to 30 minutes until thickened.

Pancakes: The batter thickened considerably during hydration and cooked into pancakes with a tough exterior and slightly gritty texture. A subtle grassy or "green" flavor came through, and the interior had a pasty consistency that made the pancakes less pleasant to chew.

Muffins: The muffins rose with nicely domed tops, but they were delicate to unmold, and a few tops broke off during removal. The texture was moist at the bottom and pale on top, and while the flax was less noticeable here than in the pancakes, a faint graininess remained throughout.

Cookies: The cookies were surprisingly successful. They held their shape well, with crisp edges and chewy centers. The flax flavor was extremely subtle—practically invisible once baked—and if nuts had been included, it would have disappeared entirely.

Summary Results: Flaxseed hydrates into a looser, less cohesive gel than chia, which can lead to slightly denser or more fragile textures in certain recipes, but it provides excellent structure and impressive flavor neutrality in cookies. The seeds (or seed meal) remain faintly visible and contribute a mild graininess to batters and doughs, though this texture is far less obtrusive than chia. In many baked goods—especially those with added mix-ins like nuts or spices—the presence of flax becomes barely noticeable, making it one of the more versatile substitutes tested.

Aquafaba

The Substitute: 3 tablespoons aquafaba (liquid from low- or no-sodium chickpeas) per egg; whipped to soft peaks immediately before use.

Pancakes: The batter became runny once the whipped aquafaba was folded in, resulting in pancakes that spread thin and wide. They developed a tough exterior and emitted a mild beany aroma during cooking, though little of that flavor remained in the final product. The finished pancakes tasted flat, somewhat like an old boxed mix.

Muffins: The muffins barely rose, emerging with flat, uneven tops that looked partially melted. Their interior texture was dense and gummy, and they retained a wet, underbaked quality even after adequate time in the oven.

Cookies: These cookies spread into thin, fragile disks that were difficult to transfer from the baking sheet. While the edges crisped nicely, the centers were soft and gummy rather than chewy. The overall flavor skewed vanilla-forward, but the structure was weak.

Summary Results: Aquafaba mimics the aeration of whipped egg whites more than the binding structure of whole eggs, and without additional stabilizers, it produced thin, fragile, and often gummy results across all tests.

Refrigerated Liquid Egg Substitutes

The Substitute: Refrigerated liquid egg substitutes are typically sold in cartons in the dairy or refrigerated egg aisle, often marketed as cholesterol-free or plant-forward alternatives to shell eggs. Most are made from a blend of water, plant-derived proteins (commonly soy or pea protein), vegetable oils, thickeners, and stabilizers designed to mimic the binding and emulsifying properties of whole eggs. They are intended to be used as a direct 1:1 replacement in cooking and baking and are usually measured at three tablespoons of liquid per egg, though instructions vary slightly by brand.

Pancakes: The pancake batter behaved similarly to the version made with real eggs and rose well on the griddle. However, the finished pancakes became slightly gummy as you chewed, and a faint mineral aftertaste lingered in the background, subtly muting the flavor.

Muffins: These muffins had glossy, crisp tops but lacked the height of the egg-based version, spreading outward rather than doming. They developed a somewhat stale flavor more quickly than expected, and although the crumb began soft, it grew increasingly gummy as the muffin was eaten.

Cookies: The cookies spread unevenly in the oven and developed a faint raw-dough flavor. The same mineral note detected in the pancakes was even more pronounced here, interfering with the cookie's clean, buttery finish.

Summary Results: Despite being engineered as a direct egg replacement, this refrigerated substitute introduced a minerally aftertaste and produced baked goods with textures that tended toward gummy, flat, or uneven. It offered convenience but not performance comparable to real eggs.

Additional Chemical Leavener, Liquid, and Fat 

The Substitute: For this final test, I wanted to see what would happen if, instead of introducing a new ingredient, I simply adjusted the recipe's existing components to compensate for the missing egg. Eggs contribute moisture, structure, fat, and a bit of lift, so I attempted to recreate those qualities by increasing the liquid, fat, and leavening already present. After researching, I decided on the amount of each egg replacement. I whisked together one tablespoon of additional liquid (in this case, milk), one teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil per egg. This mixture foams almost instantly, so it must be prepared and incorporated immediately before adding it to the batter or dough.

Pancakes: The batter became thick and airy, almost mousse-like, and cooked into extraordinarily fluffy pancakes reminiscent of Japanese soufflé-style versions. Although they developed a bit of gumminess when chewed, the flavor remained clean and pleasant, making this an excellent practical substitute—especially for camping or premade dry mixes.

Muffins: The muffin batter felt light and aerated, but the finished muffins baked up slightly crumbly and drier than the control version. Their tops browned unevenly, and the exterior firmed up more than expected, though the interior remained reasonably tender.

Cookies: These cookies rose tall at first, then collapsed into pale, craggy rounds. They were chewy but also crumbly, with a texture leaning more toward cakey than cookie-like.

Summary Results: This substitute delivers impressive lift and airiness, especially in quick breads like pancakes and muffins, but it struggles to create the firm structure and browning that eggs contribute to cookies.

The Takeaway

While many of the substitutes produced relatively well-risen baked goods, each one altered texture, flavor, and browning in distinct ways, and clear differences emerged across the tests. The least reliable results came from the aquafaba and, somewhat unexpectedly, the refrigerated liquid egg substitute. Although aquafaba performs beautifully in desserts specifically designed to stabilize it—like vegan meringues—it struggled in these more typical baking applications, yielding batters and doughs that baked up gummy, wet, and structurally weak. The refrigerated substitute, despite being formulated as a 1:1 replacement, introduced a mineral aftertaste and resulted in baked goods that were flat, gummy, or unevenly textured.

It's hard to choose a single "best" substitute when each one behaves so differently, but overall, the most consistently successful stand-in was the combination of extra baking powder, added liquid, and a small amount of fat. This straightforward adjustment—using ingredients already in the recipe—produced results closest to the egg-based versions in both pancakes and muffins.

In pancakes, this mixture created an exceptionally fluffy, well-risen stack with a clean, neutral flavor and only a hint of gumminess. It was the only substitute I genuinely didn't miss the egg in.
In muffins, the same adjustment came closest to matching the control's structure and tenderness, yielding a light, pleasant interior. The tops were a bit less domed, and the exterior baked slightly firmer than the egg version, but it remained a strong, reliable option.

In chocolate chip cookies, however, this method performed only moderately well. Here, flaxseed was the clear winner. Flaxseed cookies spread properly, baked with crisp edges and chewy centers, and came remarkably close to the classic egg-based texture. The flax flavor was nearly undetectable after baking, making it the most convincing replacement for cookies.

Across all of these tests, the biggest takeaway is that eggs contribute far more than lift: They provide structure, moisture, emulsification, and browning, which is why no single substitute excels universally. Chia and flax add a subtle nuttiness and a visible texture, and while they performed better than expected in chemically leavened recipes, their flecks and graininess may not suit every baked good. Aquafaba and refrigerated egg substitutes can shine in more specialized contexts, but here they proved inconsistent, often resulting in gummy interiors, weak structure, or noticeable off-flavors.

In the end, no substitute truly replicates everything an egg does, but adjusting a recipe's own leavening, liquid, and fat can offer an easy, dependable solution—showing that sometimes the smartest egg replacement isn't a specialty product at all, but a thoughtful tweak to the recipe itself.