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What To Substitute For Missing Ingredients

Cookbook author Chantal Lascaris shares her secrets on quick-fix substitute ingredients.



I once made a delicious butter chicken recipe for a group of friends and forgot to make rice - (you can imagine my horror!) Don’t judge. It happens. Even the most experienced of us in the kitchen can trip up – and that’s okay. Cooking, for me, has always been about experimenting with flavours and different ingredients and – most importantly - cutting yourself some slack when you get it wrong.

As a professional cook, the aim, of course, is to not get it wrong as best as you can, and so I’ve learnt over the years how to switch things up. You may not always have the correct ingredients in your cupboard – or you may over-spiced or under-spiced a pot of food. When this happens, we tend to believe there is no way out. Oh, but there is. There always is.

Believe it or not, the cooking process comes with forgiveness. They’re called substitutes – and they work. Just when you think you’re doomed to fail because you’re missing an ingredient that the recipe calls for, think again. Most often, you’ll be able to replace a missing ingredient in the pot with a little something else that’ll do just as well.

Parsley, lime, walnuts and even sumac – they’re all replaceable. Except garlic. Garlic and love. In my books, these royal two are the only ingredients you can never replace. You’ll always (always!) need an extra stash of these lying around – because they matter more than you think:

1. Garlic is not only the king of flavour but its immune boosting properties are essential to our health, and

2. Love is the queen of everything.

For me, garlic is like the god of the kitchen and love is its muse. While garlic is a firm favourite of mine, the truth is a recipe may not always need it. But love is the only ingredient that goes with everything. You can’t miss it – you shouldn’t miss it. There is absolutely, irrevocably no replacement. This, I can promise you.

Our lives are incredibly frenetic; with a million new things to attend to we hardly have time to think of dinner or to shop ingredients. It’s comforting to know that, more often than not, when there’s something missing in your bag of tricks, there’s always another chef’s trick you can reach for.

So, here’s a little pocket keeper from me, for the next time you’re “missing something”.

Chantal’s Quick Fix Substitutes For Missing Ingredients


Shallot                                  = red onion  Parmesan Cheese            =  pecorino Romano (easily available)  Fresh Parsley                      =  dried parsley or celery leaves  Nutmeg                                =  cinnamon  Greek Yoghurt                   =  double thick yoghurt  Red onion                            =  chives or shallots  Soy Sauce                            =  Worcestershire sauce  Sumac                                   =  lemon pepper or lemon zest  Lime                                      =  lemon  Bacon                                    =  pancetta  Chilli Flakes                         =  fresh chopped chillies  Corn Kernels                      =  frozen corn or tinned corn or mange touts  Spaghetti                             =  zucchini spirals  Honey                                   =  brown sugar  Walnuts                               =  pecans  Dried Mint                          =  fresh mint or dried marjoram  Love                                      =  There is no substitute. Irreplaceable.                  Garlic                                    =  No substitute. See Love.

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