It ticks these boxes for me: food and nutrition hacking, science, intellectual curiosity, community-funded research project, etc.

Not the poster, but I did post the same topic (but "only" at Wikipedia) four months ago [1]. That submission totally tanked, though.

I felt it was interesting enough to post then not only because it's rather unexpected, and useful if you want to avoid eggs in your food, but also because it's new.

I had just realized that day that the entire concept of using aquafaba as egg white replacement has not been around for very long. I mean the Wiki page says that the first recipe for meringues using aquafaba was published in 2015.

I think it's really cool that such things are being discovered still. I mean the recipe for egg-based meringues is probably a few hundred years old [2] although sources are obscure. To have a vegan replacement using basically two ingredients appear six years ago is just cool! :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24210986

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue

Well for one it feels and browses a lot like old-internet and the premise is old-internet, too. Ie deep info on some random thing someone's blown up.

Because it's disrupting egg whites?

It's accessible, novel, well laid out, and something we can try for ourselves quite easily. It's nice

Was thinking the exact same thing.

Update: After paying more attention to what it's all about I now find it very interesting.

Because HN users are upvoting it.

There are few truer hacks than recipe substitutions. You have to know the mechanics of what you are doing and how things react with each other to do it right.

Cooking in general is a tinkerers dream in that regard.

Subtext here being wondering why all the upvoters aren’t commenting (yet).

My time to shine!

Hazelnut Choc Chip cookies, designed for Aquafaba.

NB. You can switch out more of the hazelnut/almond meal to adjust the taste, but don't go much below 1/2 cup of almond!

https://imgur.com/a/G2M1QoE

    1 & 1/4 cup almond meal
    1 & 1/4 cup hazelnut meal
    1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
    2/3 cup flour (gluten free blend works fine)
    2/3 cup raw sugar
    1 tsp baking powder
    1/2 tsp salt (ideally fine)
    
    Mix above together, set aside.
    
    1/2 cup aquafaba
    
    Separately, whisk aquafaba until fluffy
    
    6 tbsp coconut oil (liquid)
    1 tsp vanilla extract
    
    Add to aquafaba, whisk until combined
    Add dry ingredients from above
    Mix until tacky dough forms
    Place in fridge for 30 minutes
    
    Preheat oven to 190C
    
    Form a ball from about 1.5 tablespoons of dough.
    Place ball onto baking paper lined tray.
    Bake in oven for about 15 minutes.

I've used aquafaba in cooking a lot, mostly to avoid using so many eggs in baking. And while I've had great results for a few specific recipes, I've also found that it's not a universal egg replacement, and it's hard to tell which recipes it will and won't work in.

I bake a lot of gluten-free and grain-free breads and biscuits, and aquafaba is a great egg replacement in these. Sometimes it even produces a better texture. But in other recipes, like cookies, it doesn't work at all; the dough loses its shape completely and deflates into a puddle.

I've also read about using aquafaba to make meringue or mousse, but I haven't had good luck with that so far. The chickpea taste is strong, and does not go with sugar at all.

I haven't tried using any beans other than chickpeas. Maybe it would work better with different beans.

Aquafaba is amazing. But since we're talking about egg replacers, here's one even more remarkable:

Carbonated water.

No joke. Carbonated water can seamlessly replace egg in almost all things where the egg provides some rising / fluffy texture (not so much binding, like aquafaba does). It won't be stepping in your quiche any time soon, but cookies, brownies, cupcakes, anything with a fluffy inside.

1/4 cup of water equals one egg. Try it, you'll be amazed.

https://iambaker.net/egg-substitutes/

Here's one fun use: replacing egg whites in shaken cocktails. Particularly useful for vegan friends (or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient).

As long as you have good shaking technique, the foam and mouthfeel get pretty close to egg-based methods.

While I fully support and love the fact that this is on the front page (aquafaba rocks :D), can we just take a minute and muse on how nice it is to see a sensible, clean, old-fashioned web site that gets information to you straightforward and unobtrusively?

I miss the old web.

This is the cool part of the site

http://aquafaba.com/history.html

> Joël's Discovers the Foam, Dec 2014

> While actively looking for egg substitutes, Joël Roessel, a ténor from France, discovered through a systematic investigation into vegetable foams, that liquid from red kidney beans and hearts of palm can be coerced into a foam in the same way as flax mucilage. He posted his results on his blog at revolutionvegetale.com, providing a key contribution to unlocking the secret of aquafaba.

Not to knock the wonderful developments that have happened in plant-based foods in the last decade, but this really makes me appreciate the egg all the more. Some of the egg alternatives seem to require a degree in chemical engineering to get right.

Between the many magical uses of the yolk and white (both separately and together), you appreciate how versatile a collection of fats and proteins it really is. And how user friendly it is. It even comes in it's own packaging!

I was head-writing a comment about how disappointed I was that this was a quirky software name instead of chickpea water, which is almost magical in properties.

Imagine my delight! Teach me to assume...

Aquafaba based mayo is great as well: just blend together aquafaba, oil, garlic and salt. It comes out with a similar texture and taste to egg mayo. I've had variations that add black salt to give it an eggy smell if you actually miss that part!

Another plant based trick is to combine vinegar with soy milk - it sours the milk a little and makes it curdle, emulating the taste and texture of buttermilk. Here's a pancake recipe from someone I know that has this trick to give a fluffy texture, where no eggs are needed:

https://angeliqueboudeau.org/fluffy-vegan-pancakes/

As a vegetarian, I'm here to say canned chickpeas aren't great, but putting chickpeas straight into a pressure cooker for 15 minutes... they're awesome.

I always assumed that the water packaged with can beans would have tons of lectin seeped from the beans and therefore should be discarded. Is it safe to use?

  As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria in the large intestine. This digestion process produces gases such as methane as a byproduct, which are then released as flatulence.

  Processing the beans, such as by boiling, soaking, cooking, can leach the indigestible sugars from the beans and significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate the problem.

I used to live with a Mexican family and one of the first non-milk foods they fed the babies was the water drained from cooked beans. I'm not sure if it could be used to cook or make cocktails but it was somewhat thick.

We have been using aquafaba exclusively due to egg issues for myself and our kids. We have found that mileage varies. Try for organic salt free chickpeas... the taste is not as strong and works amazing for pavlova (Australian desert) and merengue. We have also made chocolate mouse with salt free and I would suggest it’s better than egg based mouse. Salted aquafaba we use in cakes. The most interesting thing about aquafaba is how it responds to heat, we think it’s a lot more forgiving than egg. Both have a protein that responds to friction, but heat works differently so you have to realise that cakes and biscuits have a different texture to “normal”, but we have found over time it’s our new normal and we love it. Lastly, my scientist wife just said that egg has many properties that are useful in cooking and aquafaba is certainly exceptional for a few of them, but not all.

Aquafaba can be made into icecream, too. To prevent crystallisation, just add some vodka (or other alcohol).

The holy grail for me is aquafaba-based macarons that work reliably. I've managed to pull them off once, but aquafaba meringue is much less tolerant of higher cooking temperatures than egg white and is prone to exploding into a foamy mess.

My daughter now 10 was diagnosed with a severe egg allergy around the time she turned 1. We aren't vegans and I love all kinds of things with egg (including home made pasta).

We tried so many egg replacers and were just not that impressed. I was resigned to giving up a whole bunch of foods I love. Aquafaba finally let us have so many normal meals back. You don't realize how many foods have egg in them (especially in restaurants: Orange Julius I'm looking at you! Who puts egg in fruit smoothies?!).

We use it to make pancakes, waffles, cakes, and even brownies (we found most egg replacers to be an utter disaster with many brownie recipes).

I'm vegan and I tried making whipped cream from chickpea water. It was one of the foulest things I've ever tried. It tasted _very_ beany.

I haven't tried using it for other things, and I imagine it could work fine in baked goods or in things with other strong flavors on top of it.

But for whipped cream, the vegan winner is still old school Rich Whip ready to whip (http://richwhip.com/rich-whip.php), which dates back to 1945. Note that only the ready to whip carton is vegan. The pre-whipped ones contain milk products.

My wife has made meringues with this. They whip up beautifully and come out deliciously light and crispy.

In my experience, whatever substance that's in beans gives you gas concentrates in the bean juice.

I had a great aquafaba chocolate mousse in a restaurant in Haarlem (Netherlands). I think it was vanVeg on Zijlstraat. Unfortunately it's not listed on their menu and I'm not exactly going to try to pop over to the Netherlands during this pandemic to confirm my recollection.

Also, there's probably some other place in the world with a great aquafaba chocolate mousse.

Had to read everything to realize this isn't some new open source software.

This stuff makes a pretty good mayonnaise/aioli when you blend it with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and garlic or spice of your choice. Thinner than mayo and definitely has a slight chickpea taste to it, but it's quite good with fries or on a sandwich.

Vegan partner loves it for meringues.

It's widely recommended in vegan circles to discard bean soaking water. Here's an example:

> So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now contains these elements that you are trying to eliminate by soaking the beans in the first place. And this is why the bean water is discarded. So it is best to drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking. -- https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht...

Anyone know whether that's right or wrong? Does it depend on the bean? Maybe the soaking water is a problem but not the cooking water?

If you have a peanut allergy, please read: I learned about aquafaba from my younger brother who suffers from a severe peanut allergy. He ordered a cocktail at a bar that substituted egg whites for aquafaba so the drink would be vegan friendly. This was not disclosed on the cocktail menu and he had an allergic reaction. The staff felt horrible after connecting the dots, and his drink and meal were taken care of, but I wanted to share as a warning for anyone with a peanut allergy. be ware of aquafaba in cocktails

Not disputing this (perhaps different brand/type/recipe) but I have made aquafaba meringues before and was very impressed, didn’t taste of chickpeas at all to me, just like a meringue texture/sugar wise without the 'egginess'.

Yeah, different egg substitutes apply depending on what you make. Tofu replaces egg in stir fry - flax replaces it in banana bread - aquafaba works for meringues.

For a binder or thickener, I've found ground flax seed mixed with water to work better.

Same experience when we tried it. The flavour was not good.

Huh, chocolate chip cookies are the main thing I DO make with aquafaba. I wonder what we are doing differently on that dish? They don't come out as perfect cookies for me (they definitely don't brown as much), but consistency wise is pretty much spot on.

I loosely base my recipe on the one Babish came up with on his channel.

My wife made meringues (technically macarons) with it, the result was fine in texture but maybe there was a bit of a deeper nuttier flavour than usual as you said, but it worked for me. She did use chickpea water too. It would probably go better with a rich filling like chocolate ganache.

Maybe throw in some Xanthan Gum. Ive had some good results using that...

Can you give examples of things that it gives a better texture in?

Eggs do a lot of things and carbonated water does almost none of them. The CO2 bubbles are ghetto leavening (which I guess would replace yeast) so overall, I think this is totally wrong.

> not so much binding

> or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient

I still use chickpea juice in cocktails to mix it up. But the chance of a salmonella poisoning from eggs in the modern US supply chain is astronomically low. You're at much higher risk from most produce.

If you're really risk-averse, you can always sous vide your eggs at 132 F for 60 minutes. This will pasteurize the surface (where any bacteria live), yet preserve the raw egg texture. (Egg whites and yols typically don't change form until around 140 F)

> or anyone who feels squeamish about raw egg as an ingredient

I'm weird but I feel more squeamish about using the juice from a can of beans than I do using raw egg! Not because I think there's anything dangerous in there, just because it's unpleasant to me on some odd level :)

It's actually a far superior mouthfeel! The eggwhite foam can have a texture that's hard to describe...dry? coarse? But the aquafaba is smooth (and no, no chickpea taste even though I was pretty worried about that the first time I tried).

Make sure no one has a peanut allergy! Aquafaba can cause allergic reactions. My brother experienced this first-hand.

Hey, that's a good idea.

I've been doing a lot of cocktails lately (gee, wonder why). And I do enjoy a flip. I don't make them simply because I don't want to deal with leftover egg yolks. But I tend to throw away aquafaba. Next time I have it, I'll try a flip made with it.

Maybe tonight. Thanks.

Got a preference for which to use? Seems like chickpea aquafaba might taste best.

My husband uses it in a bourbon sour, and it's delicious and easy to make!

People put egg whites in cocktails? That's a new one for me.

Agreed - it works well in cocktails.

I made a vegan pavlova just the other week. Took chickpea juice straight out of a regular can of chickpeas and whipped it up with sugar. No adjustment necessary.

I have a hunch that we have so many simple egg-based recipes because they've gone through so much testing - perhaps in a hundred years we'll say the same thing of aquafaba.

I'm glad with all those development into egg-free alternatives. My wife is severely allergic to eggs, and this really opened the door to produce she couldn't never have eaten otherwise.

Agree, it will be so cool when we can have everything eggs offer and none of the cruelty.

Most definitely. I suppose, being able to achieve the results that eggs afford us, but by starting out with arguably simpler ingredients, we'll become better cooks.

As our understanding of fats, sugars and proteins improves, we'll be able to control them even better. Cooking is chemistry, after all :).

You just use 3 tablespoons of the water from canned chickpeas. I’ve been doing it for years now. It’s not that difficult.

Signed,

Egg Anaphylaxis

It's also nice that oranges and bananas come in thick and handy packaging.

The trick to the banana is that it's easier to open it from the bottom.

It's harder to get unwrapping an orange right.

The egg also seems like a good target for biomanufacturing. It's a liquid (essentially), and mostly composed of just five proteins and lecithin.

This is a misconception about what aquafaba is. Aquafaba is not the soaking water, it's the cooking water.

My usual process for cooking chickpeas is:

- Soak overnight in a bowl. Throw this water out.

- Boil for several hours in new water. Save this water, and boil it down further to make aquafaba.

Not all chickpea recipes allow for this; for example, falafel is usually made with chickpeas that have been soaked but not boiled.

I'm not sure if this is what it's referring to, but I've never used raw beans for aquafaba. It's precooked beans that are soaking in water that make the aquafaba. By that point hopefully you've already cooked the nasties out of the bean

AFAIK the main reason for soaking beans is to save cooking time and allow for even cooking. It may absorb some of the indigestible sugars, but I'm not positive. They won't hurt you, regardless, though they might cause embarrassment.

Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars.

If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.

This is an interesting point. I've taken to cooking beans from dry in a pressure cooker and usually in a "meal" that gets cooked with it at the same time. So I can't discard the water. The toxins in uncooked beans are real, but does the heat of cooking destroy them? It looks like the answer is yes [1], which says that "No significant lectin changes were observed after soaking the beans" but that the lectin levels are undetectable in cooked beans. (I.e. cooking, not soaking is the important part.) That does leave your question in somewhat of a limbo: maybe the water hasn't absorbed any of the lectin and so is safe?

Interestingly, [1] says:

> It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins.

But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads.

EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621....

I was curious about this also. There could be FODMAPs in the soaking water of many legumes. For recipes with a small amount, it's probably small enough to be fine for all but the most sensitive individuals. Meringues, though, I don't know.

https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods...

Mostly the "aquafaba" that I see referred to (admittedly in passing most of the time) is the liquid from canned chickpeas.