Whether you are thinking about switching to a vegan diet yourself or you have vegan friends that you want to impress with your awesome vegan cooking skills, there is sure to be an easy and healthy egg replacement that will work for your recipe.

Ditch the eggs with ease

Obviously, cooking anything with eggs in it is an automatic no for vegans, but there are some simple alternatives that you can use in your cooking that will work to bind the food together just as well as eggs would. For instance, if you are baking cake or cookies that call for eggs, substitute half of a well-smashed banana for every egg that the recipe calls for. This works great in dessert recipes and gives a delicious hint of banana to every bite.

If you’re cooking brownies or chocolate cake or cupcakes, replace the eggs and oil in the recipe with a can of well-blended black beans (drained). Add about ¼ cup of water to the beans as well for extra moisture. The result is a slightly fudgier version of the original mix, with the added bonus of something healthy!

Another great egg replacement is applesauce. Sounds unlikely, but it adds a bit of moisture and thickness to the consistency of whatever you’re cooking up. Use ¼ cup of applesauce for each egg replaced in the recipe. I’ve used this replacement for oil as well with excellent results.

Here are a few other egg replacements that would work well in non-dessert foods (each one takes the place of 1 egg):

¼ cup of mashed potatoes
¼ cup pureed prunes
¼ cup canned pumpkin
1 tbsp. olive oil, 2 tbsp. water and 2 tsp. baking powder, mixed well
2 tbsp. potato starch

Visit VegCooking.com to learn more about all the different egg replacements you can use to keep your foods egg-free!

(article originally published at www.examiner.com by Jess Prussia)