Aquafaba Files

Perfect French Toast Without Any Eggs

This vegan breakfast recipe uses aquafaba, the magical juice from canned chickpeas, to give french toast that necessarily perfect texture

Photos: Laura Vincent

The Aquafaba Files is a Tenderly recipe series by Laura Vincent, exploring the almost suspicious versatility of this ingredient that is little more than the leftover liquid from a drained can of chickpeas.

We’re on the record as loving French Toast since at least 1AD, when it appeared in the Apicius cookbook as “another sweet dish.” No hard and fast evidence exists as to how French Toast achieved its name, and the French themselves call it pain perdu, which translates poetically to “lost bread.” My personal theory is: someone decided a European handle would afford romance and elegance to this practical means of using up stale bread with simple ingredients, and it stuck. As with most recipes of pragmatic origin, we now make French Toast on purpose rather than waiting for the bread to go dry, or pay substantially for it at cafes.

Here I’ve made a vegan version using aquafaba, plant milk and cornstarch in the batter. The dunked bread is fried crisp, with a tender interior, and tastes delicious. The result is lighter in texture than traditional French Bread…