Recipe Box: Substitutes
When I flipped through an old church cookbook, I landed on making a broccoli cheese casserole. This was my mom’s go-to dish for all the church carry-ins and family get-togethers. Positive I had all the ingredients to melt the casserole together, I started working through the first few steps. I quickly realized I had sweetened condensed milk instead of the evaporated milk the recipe called for. Thanks to the internet, I searched for evaporated milk substitutes. A plethora of options were immediately at my fingertips. I was too far into the process to just back out now. Debating making a run to the store or phoning a neighbor, I decided a substitute would do. Food52.com put out a very informative list of substitutes for evaporated milk:
Regular Milk
Unsurprisingly, the milk you already have in the fridge will be a fine substitute for evaporated milk. For the most foolproof evaporated milk substitute, make your own. Place approximately 60 percent more milk than called for in the recipe into a saucepan, bring it to a boil, and gently reduce it until the desired amount is reached. Cool the mixture, then move on with the recipe.
So, for example, if a recipe calls for one cup of evaporated milk, you’d need to use about 1⅔ cups of regular whole, 2 percent, or skim milk.
Non-Dairy Milk
Although you can find vegan evaporated milk made with coconut milk in some specialty grocery stores, you can also make your own dairy-free substitute for evaporated milk. Follow the above method with non-dairy milk like soy, rice, oat, or almond milk instead of cow’s milk.
Half And Half
The good news is that you can substitute half and half for evaporated milk. Half and half’s thicker consistency is similar to evaporated milk and can easily be used as a substitute in recipes. Your end result may be a bit richer, but who will be mad at that?
Heavy Cream
Ditto for cream—again, the fattier liquid will make the recipe turn out richer than if you’d used evaporated milk, but it won’t be bad. If you have both cream and regular milk on hand, mix half cream and half milk and use that as a substitute. That’s also how you make a quick and easy substitute for half-and-half.
Powdered Milk
If you have powdered milk in your kitchen, you can rehydrate it into evaporated milk—that’s not even a substitute. Simply add 60 percent of the amount of water called for to reconstitute the product into regular milk, and you’ll be good to go. This is the closest alternative to using evaporated milk, but it also uses a less common pantry ingredient, so feel free to try out one of the more conventional swaps.
Just like having a substitute teacher in your classroom as a kid, things might not be exactly what you were used to, but they still got the job done. Have fun preparing food. Take the time to give nourishment to yourself and others. If you are short on an ingredient, don’t be quick to quit; look for a substitute. After all, weren’t all recipes an experiment at first?
Contact Ashley at ashley@tippgazette.com
Broccoli-Rice Casserole
Ingredients
1/2 lb. Velveeta cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 can evaporated milk
1 large onion, chopped
1 stick margarine
1 C. minute rice
2 pkgs. frozen broccoli, chopped
Instructions
Sauté onion in margarine; add soup, milk, and cheese. Cook until it starts to bubble; add rice and broccoli (thawed and drained). Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, uncovered.