Egg substitutes in eggless baking can be just a simple substitution for most recipes. Use 1 flax egg or 1 chia egg as a direct substitute for muffins, quick breads, cakes, cookies, burgers etc.
Depending on how the recipe uses the egg, use chia egg when you need more binding, and flax for most other needs. Flax seeds come in brown and golden colors. Chia seeds come in black and white color. Use white chia seeds or golden flax seeds when you don’t want specks to show up in the end result. Flax seed meal (ground flax seed) is also available to buy. Flax seed meal goes rancid quickly. Store it in the freezer. The better option is to buy whole flax seeds, grind into a meal as needed, or grind small amounts and store in the freezer.
Pictured above are brown flax seeds, white chia seeds, flax seed meal and chia seed meal.
Flax seed egg needs 2.5 tablespoons water to make a flax egg. Chia seeds use 3 tablespoons or more as they gel up really well. You can also use aquafaba instead of water to make the flax or chia egg. The combination of aquafaba + chia/flax apparently should work even better as an egg sub, but I haven’t tried it enough times to vouch for it.
How to make a Flax Egg
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp flax seed meal preferrably freshly coarsely ground flax seeds
- 2.5 Tbsp water preferably room temperature or warm
Instructions
- Mix the flax seed meal and water. Let it sit for 5 minutes until it thickens, then use.
Notes
Nutrition
How to make a Chia Egg
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp chia seeds or chia seed meal coarsely ground chia seeds
- 3 Tbsp water
Instructions
- Mix the chia seeds or meal in water. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Mix again and use.
Notes
Nutrition
Rubytwoshoes says
May 29, 2019 at 11:48 pmAwesome,
I appreciate your comment on the better binding power of the chia over flax. I was wondering about that.
Richa says
May 30, 2019 at 10:25 amthanks!
Donna says
July 20, 2019 at 5:47 amThank you this is exactly what I was looking for!
Deena Dolgoy says
November 9, 2019 at 3:45 pmI think you meant 7 teaspoons of water added to Flax seeds not 7 tbsp water.
Thank you for the method of making a Chia egg and mentioning it having more binding power than flax.
Very helpful.
Richa says
November 9, 2019 at 5:45 pmYes you are right. Not sure why that shows as tbsp. updating
Carolyn says
November 25, 2020 at 7:11 amThank you for this, Richa. Does a chia egg sub blend with sugar as it doesn’t seem to have enough liquid. Just don’t want to waste any sugar. Thank you so much.
Richa says
November 25, 2020 at 12:11 pmI am not sure I understand your question. There is enough liquid for the chia seeds to make a egg like thick state. I don’t know where the sugar comes in as sugar is also dry
Stéphy says
November 27, 2020 at 3:03 pmHi! I was wondering if the chia egg can be made the night before, as you would with a chia seed pudding? Thank you 🙂
Richa says
November 28, 2020 at 5:29 amYou can make it to keep it overnight. It’s not necessary though as it will thicken in 15 mins in warm hot waters
Stéphy says
November 29, 2020 at 4:30 pmThank you so much! It worked really well with warm water! I used it to make banana bread 🙂
Richa says
November 30, 2020 at 2:57 amAwesome