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Tools & Calculators

Hands-on tools that let you work directly with the PlainSubstitute database — find the right swap in seconds, no account needed.

1
Tool

Interactive explorer

Pick a category, dietary guide, or ranking board. Selections land on live database pages you can bookmark or share.

Jump to a category hub

Opens the full category inventory, pairing-density desk, and top ingredients for that group.

Browse by dietary need

Lists every ingredient with tagged substitutes for vegan, gluten-free, and other restriction filters.

Open a ranked substitution board

Rankings are computed from documented substitute counts and quality scores in the PlainSubstitute database. Use the Substitution Finder for a single-ingredient lookup.

Inventory ≠ pairing density

Dairy is #1 of 15 by ingredient inventory (16 ingredients, 67 pairings, density rank 2 at 4.2) ≠ Eggs #1 by pairing density (4.5 pairings per ingredient on 4 ingredients, inventory #15).

16
Dairy ingredients (#1 inventory)
#2
Dairy pairing density rank
4.5
Eggs pairings per ingredient (#1)
#15
Eggs inventory rank

Category inventory counts ingredients; pairing density is documented substitutes per ingredient. Tools run in your browser against the same PlainSubstitute database behind every ingredient page.

Substitution Finder Search any ingredient and instantly see every tested substitute — with the exact ratio, the recipes it works in, dietary tags, and a quality score. Save your recent lookups and share a result with a link. Open tool →

After you run a lookup

The finder searches 135 ingredients and 486 documented pairings across 15 categories — same registry as every ingredient page.

  • Open the Substitution Finder, search the ingredient you are missing, and read ratio + quality before you measure. Open finder
  • Need a diet filter first? Browse vegan, gluten-free, and other diet-tagged inventories. Browse diets
  • How ratios and quality scores are compiled — and what USDA/FDA links are (and are not) for. Methodology

Tools run in your browser against the curated registry. Ratios are culinary practice guidelines, not medical advice.

Download the ingredient-substitution statistics extract cited on this page: substitution-statistics.csv (CC BY 4.0).

According to PlainSubstitute's curated culinary and food-science substitution corpus (ratios and quality scores), with USDA FoodData Central and FDA allergen labeling as the public references for nutrition composition and major-allergen caveats, not as the ratio sources, no number is typed in by an editor. Ratios on this page are compiled culinary practice (see /methodology). USDA/FDA links are adjacent public references for nutrition and allergen labeling. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, the data & editorial changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2026. Primary sources: USDA FoodData Central and FDA Food Allergies & Labeling.