I originally wrote this substitution post back in 2013 to share some of the substitutions we use for the foods that my family should avoid. This list has now been updated. This post also includes the original flour blend that I made. I now use other flour blends as well which have been linked to.
I often use butter in my cooking now, as my son doesn’t seem to react as much. I believe it’s better to eat natural butter rather than processed products. If I know that someone else whose dairy intolerant may be eating my cooking I will still use Nuttelex or oil instead.
| Food to Avoid | Substitute |
| Potato | Sweet potato |
| Dairy/Soy | Almond milk, Coconut milk/cream, Rice milk
Cashew cream Coconut yoghurt (use this instead of sour cream in beef stroganoff) Whole egg mayonnaise (use this as a basis for a creamy sauce) |
| Butter |
Nuttelex Lite (any of the Nuttelex range is fine) olive oil, macadamia oil or coconut oil can also be good substitutes. |
| Oats | Quinoa flakes |
| Gluten flours | Usually a combination in most recipes:White/brown rice flour, Corn flour (starch) & Tapioca Flour or sometimes coconut flour (always use about 1/3 amount of coconut flour to whatever flour your subbing for)
Yellow maize flour (good for coating rissoles or chicken) Almond meal (often grind my own almonds) Sorghum flour Tapioca Linseed meal/millet meal sometimes use a tsp or less of xanthan gum or more recently 2 tsp ground psyllium husk to help with the binding or to add some elasticity like gluten has. Pure Icing sugar as many icing sugars mixes contain wheat or corn flour. |
| Bread containing gluten (husband) |
Thin corn cakes or thin rice cakes grain free dough from Life Changing Food for flat bread/pizza bases/pastry grain free wraps from Life Changing Food – also good in place of lasagna noodles gluten free bread, also makes an excellent pizza base. |
| Bread containing soy flour (son) | Some Coles brand baked in store breads and rolls, Wattle Valley soft wraps – (my son rarely eats bread anymore so don’t worry about this so much.) |
| Sausages (contain wheat & preservative & often soy) | Failsafe Sausages (a number of Australian butchers now make these preservative, gluten and soy free sausages) http://fedup.com.au/images/stories/Failsafesausages.pdf |
My flour blend:
2 ¾ cups (459g) brown rice flour
1 ¼ cups (187g) corn flour
¾ cup (97g) tapioca flour (buy a brand that is supposed to be preservative free)
I put all the ingredients into the storage container, put the lid on it and shake it up to mix up the flour blend.
After discovering that corn flour & tapioca flour has hidden preservatives, I investigated grinding my own flours. This was not too successful and I did manage to source some sulphite free corn flour and tapioca flour. Now I can’t seem to find corn flour that I know is gluten free so I tend to use organic tapioca flour instead of corn flour. I now have 2 main flour blends that I consistently use.
I’ve learnt a lot about adapting recipes over the years and I’m about to launch a cookbook which contains the original recipes with variations to cater for different dietary requirements. If you’d like a taster with 3 recipes please download my Must have Recipes booklet with gluten free, dairy free or egg free variations.
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