Food Allergy Resources

Basic Recipe Substitutions for Food Allergies (Overview)

April 2009

Substituting Common Allergens

Overview:
Basic Ingredient Substitutions for Food Allergies
Many common allergens are also common ingredients in your favorite recipes. There are some ingredients for which you can easily and successfully use non-allergenic substitutes, and there are others for which satisfactory substitutes do not exist.

Whether or not a "safe" version of a recipe can be successfully made often depends on two important factors. First: what is the role of the allergen in the recipe? For example, you really cannot make an "egg dish," such as fried eggs or omelets, without eggs (although some cookbooks present "egg" recipes based on tofu, the end result does not look, taste, or feel like "eggs"). Second: how many of the recipe’s ingredients require substitutions? If the recipe only has 5 ingredients and you need to swap out 4 of them, the end result might bear little resemblance to the original dish. The bottom line: sometimes you can create a "safe" version of a recipe, and sometimes you are better off finding a different recipe altogether.

The following is a general guide to using ingredient substitutions for common allergens. Please verify the ingredients and safety of any products named to ensure that it is safe for your child’s unique allergy issues.

If you need additional assistance in finding product suggestions or where to find ingredients for substituting, post a message in the KFA Food and Cooking forum (registration is free) to obtain suggestions from other parents of food allergic children who are also managing the same food allergies.

Basic recipe substitutions for Egg allergy

Basic recipe substitutions for Milk Allergy

Basic recipe substitutions for Wheat Allergy

Basic recipe substitutions for Corn Allergy

Basic recipe substitutions for Soy Allergy

Basic recipe substitutions for Thickeners

Special thanks to:
*KFA members Kathy Przywara, Amy Hugon and Melanie Carver.
*Linda Coss of foodallergybooks.com
for providing their assistance in developing these resources.

*Alisa Fleming, author of "Dairy Free Made Easy" for contributing to the Milk substitutions resource.

Approved by KFA Medical Advisory Team February 2008. Updated April 2009.

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Page last updated 7/29/2012

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