The Best Egg Substitutes

In order to find the best egg substitute, we purchased several nationally available products and used them in place of eggs in some of our favorite recipes: Chewy Sugar Cookies, Birthday Sheet Cake, and Popovers. We also prepared scrambled “eggs” with the two products engineered for this purpose.

Two products also contain legume proteins, made from yellow split peas and mung beans, respectively. The other brands have very little, if any, protein. These two products are designed to have protein from a dietary perspective, and protein gives the eggs structure, allowing them to scramble up like regular eggs. They also include ingredients for color and flavor.

Some cookies were crispy on the edges with a chewy and tender center—our ideal sugar cookie. A few of the batches, however, were tougher and more dry than we’d like. Cookies don’t rise much in the oven, so they don’t need eggs for structure. Instead, eggs’ main role is to bind the ingredients and to supply enough moisture and fat to keep the cookie soft. 

As for the cakes, some came out of the oven flat and pale, while others were tall and browned. A few were disappointingly gummy and wet; others were nicely moist and spongy. Cakes get most of their structure from gluten, but they rely on eggs for some of their stature as well as for emulsification, moisture, color, flavor, and a tender crumb. 

The differences we noticed in appearance and texture are due to the intricate makeup of the egg substitute and the complex ways in which ingredients interact while baking. For example, one egg substitute made baked goods that browned significantly more than the others, likely because its formulation contained baking soda, which causes faster browning reactions. Two products contained baking soda but also added cream of tartar, which lowers the pH and tempers browning, so the baked goods weren’t as dark as the product with baking soda alone. And one egg substitute uses cream of tartar and no baking soda, making it a little acidic, which slows down browning.

The starches used also greatly impact factors such as gelatinization and how the product reacts to temperature changes. Real eggs might seem simple, but they are incredibly difficult to replicate. Just think of the many forms they can take structurally, from a hollandaise to a soufflé and everything in between. Eggs are basically magic, and the ingredient lists of egg substitutes convey the complex textural engineering used to replicate that magic in these products.

Tasters noted flavor differences too. Most of the cookies and cakes tasted sweet and buttery. However, a few tasters noticed unexpected, slightly off-putting “earthy,” “grassy,” and “vegetal” flavors in the baked goods made with egg substitutes that contained protein. It was easy to figure out why. Since the protein-based egg substitutes were made to be scrambled, manufacturers added savory ingredients such as onion, dried yeast, and turmeric to help mimic egg flavor and color. The manufacturers of both of these products say they can be used in baking, but oniony cake just isn’t for us.

The other, from JUST Egg, is an innovative plant-based liquid made from mung beans. We poured the thin yellow liquid into a preheated, lightly oiled nonstick skillet and cooked it as we would fresh eggs, tilting the pan and moving the liquid around with a spatula. Once cooked, the texture was similar to creamy, dense scrambled eggs. The flavor was a bit more vegetal than we expect from scrambled eggs, but overall, better than the bouillon-like powdered scrambled eggs. We’d be happy eating them in the morning with a slice of toast.

We have good news if you avoid eggs or cook for someone who does. A majority of the egg substitutes we tested were good at replacing one or two functions or uses of eggs—browning, retaining moisture, rising, scrambling, or flavor, for example. One, however, stood out because it replicated the most functions of an egg during baking, making it the best and most reliable option for baking without eggs. Judee’s Vegan Egg Replacer Mix made cookies with a “pleasant flavor and satisfying chew” and an impressive, evenly browned cake with an ”airy” and “springy” crumb. While it didn’t succeed in baking popovers, we still think it’s worth keeping on hand for less challenging baking recipes such as cookies and cakes.

We recommend JUST Egg Plant Based Liquid Egg as the best replacement for making scrambled eggs and omelets. Its plant-based scrambled eggs closely mimicked the bounce and chew of traditional eggs. We didn’t like it as much in baked goods as several of our starch-based powdered egg substitutes due to some errant vegetal notes we detected in the cake.