Substituting Applesauce for Oil

Substituting applesauce for oil in breads, muffins and cakes is a great and tasty way to trim fat and calories from a recipe. It can cause a slight change in taste and texture so you'll have to experiment with the right recipes for making the swap. Usually sweeter breads, muffins and cakes have the best results, like banana, zucchini, carrot etc.

Note that you want to use unsweetened applesauce so it's not too sweet (or reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe if you use sweetened applesauce)

Use an electric mixer to combine the applesauce with the other liquid ingredients, and then the sugar. Then gently fold the dry ingredients into the mixture BY HAND until just combined.

Measure the applesauce in a liquid measuring cup (not a dry ingredient cup).

Don't over bake because low-fat recipes dry out when they’re cooked too long.

Usually you can do an even exchange, so if the recipe calls for 1 cup of oil, substitute with 1 cup of applesauce...But if you're not sure if you're ready to fully commit, start by just substituting half (so for a recipe that uses one cup of oil, use ½ cup of oil with ½ cup applesauce) and if you're happy, then next time you can increase the ratio slightly until you find the perfect combination. For some recipes a complete substitution may be perfect, and in some you might want to keep 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil in there. It's personal preference for sure based on taste and texture.

Why this works:

The primary job of a fat (aka oil) in a recipe is to keep the flour protein from mixing with the moisture and forming long strands of gluten making the bread/cake very rubbery.

That’s why when you bake, it is very important to keep the liquid and dry ingredients separate until the very end, and to gently mix them together by hand. When you substitute applesauce, it’s even more important to work the batter gently, and as little as possible.