by Kelley Lindberg
Last week, we discussed some ideas for replacing eggs in favorite recipes. This week, we’re talking about peanuts and nuts.
Replacing peanuts and tree nuts in recipes is often pretty easy. In most cases, nuts are used as a garnish or as additional texture, so you can usually just eliminate nuts from a recipe, and it will hold up just fine (such as in fudge, banana bread, or a casserole.). But here are some additional ideas:
Instead of a using slivered almonds or another nut topping on a casserole, try using safe bread crumbs (dry your own if you need to), crushed potato chips, crushed pretzels, or crushed tortilla chips. You never know – the new variation you’ve created may turn out to be even more popular than the original recipe!
Instead of a nut topping on a dessert, try a streusel topping. Mix together 1/3 c. flour, 1/4 c. safe softened margarine, 1/2 c. sugar, and 1 tsp. cinnamon and sprinkle it on top.
Another yummy dessert topping might be an oatmeal crumble topping. Mix together 3/4 c. uncooked oats, 3/4 c. flour, 1/3 c. brown sugar. 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, and 1/3 c. melted safe margarine.
Instead of using nuts in a cookie recipe for texture, use safe chocolate chips, dried cranberries, raisins, or oatmeal.
Instead of using peanut butter in a Thai recipe or in a dessert, use Sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds). Sunbutter makes wonderful Muddy Buddies, for example! You can try this delicious Peanut-free Muddy Buddy recipe that I posted before. Sunbutter is very similar to peanut butter in taste and texture, and it seems to work well in most recipes, so give it a try. It’s a much closer replacement than soy butter, in my opinion. Just make sure you explain to people that it’s not real peanut butter, so they don’t think you made something with peanut butter, so it’s okay for them to do it, too!
Do you have any additional suggestions for replacing nuts or peanuts in a recipe? If so, leave a comment and share it with us all!
Next week, I’ll talk about some ideas for replacing milk and other dairy products in recipes.
9 comments:
Great ideas on avoiding nuts. I've been blogging about SunButter, so of course I love your idea of just subsituting SunButter whenever a recipe calls for peanut butter.
I'm just starting to make my way down their SunButter recipe recipe list. We've tried the Muddy Buddies a.k.a. puppy chow, chex mix, etc.)LMK if you try another recipe with SunButter, I'd like to feature it on my blog .
Great ideas on replacing nuts. I have used the oatmeal crumble several times and loved it. My concern is that the nuts often add the protein part of a dish and oatmeal and bread crumbs are adding carbs rather than replacing the nutrituional value of nuts. Do you have any suggestions on replacing the protein part that the nut plays?
Try soybeans. They are hard to find but my son loves them and they taste like raw peanuts.
My son is allergic to all nuts so I make most of our desserts. Recently I made reeses squares using wow butter and they were awesome! i couldnt tell the difference. the wow butter really taste a lot like peanut butter.
We love the soy beans. They really taste like a raw peanut. We boil them a few minutes while in the hull and take them out and sprinkle with sea salt. They taste like boiled peanuts. We love them!
Last Christmas I made a Pretzel Pie instead of Pecan Pie (just substituted crushed pretzels for the pecans). I also made a pecan pie for the other folks. Everyone said they almost preferred the pretzel pie to the original!
I'd really like to make nut roast for my family at Christmas but as I have nut allergies I was wondering could it be made with soya beans instead? Can anyone help please.
Yes, I bet you can roast soya beans (edamame). In fact, I think I'll try that! Also, you can try roasting pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chickpeas, and buckwheat groats. I posted a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds on Living Without Magazine's blog here: http://mylifewithfoodallergies.com/index/allergy-free-roasted-pumpkin-seeds/
Good luck!
I have a fructose intolerance and nickel allergy so I can't use any nuts or seeds or chocolate, cocoa/cacao. Its so difficult to find grain free recipes that don't call for any of these and I want to know what to replace nut/seed butters in recipes. Can you advise? Thanks so much... I found a wonderful grain free safe recipe but yet again it calls for cashew butter to make a pumpkin custard with agar flakes...
What about replacing nuts in fudge recipe with broken up pretzels pieces? Should be sweet and salty tasty!
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