The 3 Best Egg Substitutes For Muffins, Hands Down

With the bird flu still prevalent, eggs have not only become more expensive than usual but limited supplies are making them harder to attain. In fact, many major grocery stores have started limiting egg purchases – depending on the store, this may mean each customer can only buy one or two cartons of eggs per day. With all of that in mind, if you're a home baker, you may find yourself out of eggs when you want to make, say, a batch of homemade muffins. So, to find out the best egg substitutes for muffins, Daily Meal spoke with an expert: Nisha Vora, the recipe developer behind the vegan cooking website "Rainbow Plant Life" and the author of the NY Times best-selling cookbook "Big Vegan Flavor."

Vora says, "There's no single best egg substitute for muffins — it really depends on the texture and structure you're going for, as well as the other ingredients in the muffin recipe." That being said, Vora has suggested three substitutes to choose between, based on what kind of muffin you have in mind: Aquafaba, flax eggs, or either sour cream or yogurt.

If you want your muffins to be "extra light and fluffy," Nisha Vora says to use aquafaba as your egg replacement. For anyone unfamiliar, aquafaba is the liquid found in canned chickpeas – which you can get your hands on it simply by, well, buying a can of chickpeas and collecting the liquid (then you may want to roast those chickpeas into a crunchy, cheesy snack so that no food goes to waste).

Vora explains, "When lightly whipped, [aquafaba] helps aerate the batter, leading to a soft, bakery-style texture. This works beautifully in fruit-based muffins like banana muffins, as the lightness helps balance the natural dense texture of mashed bananas."

As for the replacement amounts, 3 tablespoons of aquafaba equals one whole egg. Or, if a recipe calls for egg whites only, use 2 tablespoons of aquafaba for every one egg white.

Nisha Vora says, "For muffins that need a little more structure and richness, like chocolate chip muffins and blueberry muffins, flax eggs are a great option." Flax eggs are a mixture of flaxseed and water, which you can easily make at home. Vora continues, "When ground flaxseed is mixed with water, it thickens into a gel that helps bind the batter while keeping the crumb tender."

Swapping out regular eggs for flax eggs is easy — you use a one-to-one ratio. So one flax egg — which is made of 1 tablespoon of flaxseed meal and 3 tablespoons of water — will simply replace one egg in the muffin recipe. For example, our recipe for blueberry muffins calls for two eggs, so you would need to make two flax eggs.

The final egg substitute you need to know about? Either sour cream or yogurt. Nisha Vora says that either option "adds back some of the richness you get from eggs without making muffins dense, and the additional moisture yields a soft, melt-in-your-mouth tender [texture]."

To use either sour cream or yogurt for your egg replacement, use a ¼ cup in place of each egg that the recipe calls for. These are great options because it's very likely that you'll have either yogurt and sour cream already in your kitchen — while you may need to specifically seek out either aquafaba or flaxseed. The only downside is that these options are dairy products, so they aren't suitable if you're trying to make a recipe vegan (rather than just being out of eggs). However, there are dairy-free yogurts out there that can work, too.

If you're working with aquafaba as an egg replacement, then, first things first, you'll need to "whip it lightly with a mixer until foamy," according to Nisha Vora. Once it's foamy, you can add it in with the other wet ingredients. She says, "This helps create structure and lift. When paired with an acidic ingredient like vegan buttermilk (plant milk + vinegar), you'll get even more rise."

Meanwhile, if you're going the flax egg route, then the first thing that you'll have to do is make the flax eggs, which require a bit of time — after mixing the flaxseed meal with water, it needs to sit for about 10 to 15 minutes to thicken up. Vora says, "This can then be whisked into the wet ingredients along with vegan butter, oil, or sour cream for added moisture."

Finally, if you're using yogurt or sour cream, then you don't need to worry about any special prep or doing anything differently. Just mix the yogurt in with the other wet ingredients.

Nisha Vora says, "Aquafaba-based muffins tend to be lighter and airier, with a delicate crumb." So, in other words, it provides the texture that we want for muffins. As for the taste, aquafaba is known for having a slightly bean-like taste, but it's fairly mild, so it shouldn't be too noticeable when combined with all of the other muffin ingredients.

Flax egg muffins will yield muffins with a "slightly heartier texture," but they will still have some fluffiness to them, according to Vora. When it comes to taste, the flax egg will add a hint of nutty flavor to the muffins, which in some cases can be complementary.

Vora continues, "No matter which method you choose, these substitutes ensure your muffins stay moist, rise beautifully, and have that perfect bakery-style texture."