We like to talk about food substitutes here, because it’s inevitable that one day you’ll be in the middle of cooking dinner and you’ll realize that you don’t have one of the key ingredients you need. And it sucks. That’s why we’ve already covered substitutes for eggs, baking soda, lemon juice, sour cream, evaporated milk, and brown sugar. But today, we’re going to discuss the best sugar substitutes for your run-of-the-mill white, granulated sugar.

Sugar is probably one of the easiest ingredients to find a substitute for, as most people almost always have one or two viable replacements in their cupboard. Now, there are all types of sugar products, like SweetnLow and Stevia, but we’re not going to be talking about those tonight. Instead, we’re focusing on substitutes

One of the two most common sugar substitutes are maple syrup and honey. These are used primarily because they’re almost always in your kitchen, and they make a solid substitute – especially for baking purposes. But there’s an enormous range of sugar substitutes that can be used from everything from baking to sweetening your coffee in the morning. Here’s some of the best substitutes for sugar, if you need some help getting out of a cooking jam.

• Agave nectar – Agave nectar can be found in pretty much every grocery store these days. It’s a syrupy sweetener that comes from the agave plant (that’s the same wonderful plant that gives us tequila – what’s not to love?)

• Maple syrup – 9 out of 10 people will have a bottle of maple syrup in their cupboards stashed away for mornings with waffles and pancakes. But this useful syrup can also be a sugar substitute for most recipes.

• Honey – Honey, like maple syrup, is pretty versatile as a sugar substitute and can be used to cover for granulated sugar in a bind.

• Raisins – Oddly enough, raisins can be used as a substitute for sugar. So long as you blend or grind them down, you can swap them out for sugar when you’re baking.

• Dates – If you’ve ever eaten a date, it’s probably no surprise that these little things can be used as a sugar substitute, as they’re incredibly sweet on their own. Like raisins, you just need to remove the seed and process them so that they’re able to mix into whatever you’re baking.

• Applesauce – You’ve probably heard that applesauce is something you can swap out for sugar for baking – it works well in cookies and in cakes.

• Coconut sugar – Coconut sugar is a sugar made from the sap of coconut palm. It’s probably not something you have just lying around your kitchen, but if you do, you can swap this out for granulated sugar at a 1:1 ratio.

• Banana – Bananas are also a commonly talked about substitute for baking. Mash or blend a banana and measure it in a measuring cup to use it in lieu of sugar.

• Orange juice – Freshly squeezed OJ is best, but you can also just store bought OJ in a fix (just remember that it has added ingredients in it that can change the taste of your dish).

• Frozen juice concentrate – Frozen juice concentrate can also be used as a sugar substitute, and it can make your baked goods a little more healthy and keep them moist for longer. When substituting juice, however, you only need to use 3/4 cup for every 1 cup of sugar.

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Do you have any tried and true sugar substitutes that you always turn to? Share them with us in the comments!  

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