Baking Powder Substitute for Yeast: Which Doughs Can Switch
The short answer: ignore the amount of yeast and base the leavening on the flour. Use 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of flour, or 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup plus an acid such as buttermilk. Then change the method: cold liquid, under a minute of kneading, no rise, and straight into a preheated oven.
That works for pizza, flatbread, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls, which all come out good in their own way. It does not work for bagels, brioche or sourdough, because those doughs are built on what yeast does over hours, and a can of baking powder cannot fake it.
Working out an odd amount? Our free baking substitutions finder gives exact ratios for baking powder, baking soda and the acids that pair with it.
Updated September 2026
Why a baking powder substitute for yeast is a rewrite, not a swap
Yeast and baking powder both make carbon dioxide, and that is where the resemblance ends.
Yeast works slowly and does three jobs. It makes gas over one to many hours. While it does, the flour's enzymes break starch into sugars and protein into flavor compounds, which is why bread tastes like bread. And the long mixing and rising time lets gluten organize into a stretchy network that can hold a big, open crumb.
Baking powder works fast and does one job. It makes gas in the bowl and again in the oven, all within minutes. There is no flavor development and no gluten building. Our guide to what leavening means lays out the three families of leavening if you want the full picture.
So when you use baking powder instead of yeast, you are not putting a different leavener into the same recipe. You are turning a yeast dough into a quick bread dough that happens to be shaped like the original. The doughs that convert well are the ones where the quick bread version is still good to eat.
There is also no ratio from teaspoons of yeast to teaspoons of baking powder, and any chart that offers one is guessing. Yeast is dosed very loosely, since a single packet can raise anything from 1 to 4 cups of flour depending on how long you wait. Baking powder has to be dosed precisely against the flour, because too much of it tastes bitter and too little leaves the dough flat.
How much baking powder per cup of flour
Every row replaces all of the yeast in a recipe, based on how much flour it uses.
| Flour in the recipe | Baking powder | Or baking soda | Plus this much acid for the soda |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cup (125 g) | 1 to 1 1/4 tsp | 1/4 tsp | 1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt |
| 2 cups (250 g) | 2 to 2 1/2 tsp | 1/2 tsp | 1 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt |
| 2 1/2 cups (312 g) | 2 1/2 to 3 tsp | 5/8 tsp | 1 1/4 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt |
| 3 cups (375 g) | 3 to 3 3/4 tsp | 3/4 tsp | 1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt |
| 4 cups (500 g) | 4 to 5 tsp | 1 tsp | 2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt |
Use the top of the baking powder range for firm doughs like pizza and rolls, which have more flour to lift relative to their liquid. Use the bottom of the range for soft, sticky doughs like cinnamon rolls.
Do not go above 1 1/4 teaspoons per cup. People reach for more because a yeast dough rises so dramatically, and the result is a bitter, metallic crust that rises fast and then sinks. The same ceiling appears on our baking powder substitute chart, and it applies here too.
Self-rising flour is a shortcut if you have it. It carries about 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and some salt in every cup, so use it in place of the flour, leave out the salt, and skip the table. Our guide to making self-rising flour has the exact blend.
Baking soda plus an acid instead of baking powder
Baking soda paired with a dairy acid is the better choice for flavor, because the tang does some of the work fermentation would have done. A yeast-free pizza crust made with buttermilk tastes more like bread than one made with water and baking powder.
The catch is liquid. The acid table above assumes the full 1/2 cup of buttermilk per cup of flour, and most yeast doughs only use about 3/8 cup of liquid per cup of flour. Put 1 1/4 cups of buttermilk into 2 1/2 cups of flour and you have a batter, not a pizza dough.
Three ways around it:
- Use the soda only in soft doughs, such as dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls, where a wetter dough is fine.
- Use thick Greek yogurt as part of the liquid. It brings acid with less free water, so the dough stays firm enough to roll.
- Split the leavening. Let the buttermilk you can actually fit neutralize as much soda as it can handle, and make up the rest with baking powder. The pizza example below does exactly this.
The reasoning behind pairing soda with acid, and why leftover soda tastes soapy, is covered in baking soda vs baking powder. The short rule is that every 1/4 teaspoon of soda needs about 1/2 cup of buttermilk or yogurt to react completely, so never add more soda than your acid can cover.
What changes in the method
The ingredient list changes a little. The method changes almost completely.
| Step | Yeast dough | Baking powder version |
|---|---|---|
| Liquid temperature | Warm, 90 to 115°F | Cold or room temperature |
| Oven | Preheated near the end | Preheated before you start mixing |
| Mixing | Dry and wet combined, then kneaded | Dry whisked well, wet stirred in last |
| Kneading | 8 to 10 minutes | 30 seconds to 1 minute, just until smooth |
| First rise | 1 to 2 hours | None |
| Rest | Built into the rise | 10 minutes, covered, at most |
| Second rise after shaping | 30 to 60 minutes | None |
| Shaping thickness | Rises to double | Rises to about 1 1/2 times, so shape thinner |
| Fat | Often little or none | Add 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp per cup of flour |
| Bake | Moderate heat, longer | Hotter and shorter |
A few of those rows need explaining.
Why the short knead. Kneading builds gluten, and gluten is what yeast needs to hold hours of gas. A chemical dough has minutes of gas and wants a tender crumb, so extra kneading only makes it tough. Knead until the dough holds together and looks smooth, then stop. Our guide on how to knead dough describes the full yeast process, and you are deliberately doing a small fraction of it.
Why the ten minute rest. The rest lets the flour absorb the liquid so the dough rolls out without springing back. Double-acting baking powder holds most of its gas for the oven, so ten minutes costs very little lift. A soda and buttermilk dough is different: its gas starts escaping at once, so shape it right away.
Why the extra fat. Fermentation softens a yeast crumb over time. A quick dough with no fat bakes up dry and hard. A tablespoon of oil or melted butter per cup of flour keeps it tender.
Why thinner shapes. Baking powder cannot push a thick dough up the way yeast can. A pizza crust rolled to 1/4 inch comes out well. The same dough shaped into a 2 inch ball comes out dense in the middle.
Salt and sugar stay as written. The teaspoon of sugar that was there to feed the yeast now just helps browning, which is welcome. Salt no longer has yeast to slow down, but it still seasons the dough. If you are watching sodium, keep in mind that the new leavener adds some of its own, and our guide to a low sodium baking soda substitute lists the sodium in each and the potassium-based swaps.
Which doughs can switch
| Dough | Converts? | What you get | The change that matters most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thin crust pizza | Yes | Crisp, tender crust with a biscuit edge | Roll thin, par-bake 5 minutes before topping |
| Pan or deep dish pizza | Partly | Soft, cake-like base | Keep it under 1/2 inch thick |
| Flatbread and naan style | Yes | Soft, bubbly, pliable rounds | Yogurt dough, very hot dry skillet |
| Pita | Partly | Good flatbread, pockets unreliable | Roll 1/4 inch, bake at 475°F or hotter |
| Dinner rolls | Yes | Tender, biscuit-like rolls | Shape small and bake touching |
| Cinnamon rolls | Yes | Flaky, scone-textured rolls | Cut in cold butter, roll 1/2 inch thick |
| Soft pretzels | Partly | Pretzel flavor, bready chew missing | Firm dough, rest shaped pretzels 5 minutes |
| Focaccia | Partly | Tasty, but dense with no big holes | Bake in a shallow layer with plenty of oil |
| Sandwich loaf | Poorly | A dense, crumbly block | Make a quick bread recipe instead |
| Bagels | No | A soft roll shaped like a ring | No workaround |
| Brioche | No | A rich scone or plain cake | No workaround |
| Sourdough | No | Soda bread | No workaround |
| Croissants and baguettes | No | Neither is recognizable | No workaround |
Pizza
Pizza is the best candidate on the list, because a thin crust depends on crispness and the toppings supply most of the flavor. Use the top of the baking powder range, add an extra tablespoon of oil, roll the dough about 1/4 inch thick, and par-bake the bare crust for about 5 minutes at 475°F before adding sauce, the same hot oven the yeast version uses. Without that par-bake, the wet sauce soaks into a chemical crust before it sets and the center stays gummy.
Flatbread
Flatbreads convert almost perfectly, because they never relied on a big rise. The classic yogurt dough works well: 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt and about 2/3 cup of plain Greek yogurt, kneaded for a minute and rested for ten. Divide into four, roll to about 1/8 inch and cook in a very hot dry skillet for a minute or two per side, until puffed and spotted brown.
Dinner rolls
Yeast-free dinner rolls turn out closer to a soft biscuit than a pull-apart roll, and they are very good as long as you expect that. Shape the dough into small balls of about 2 ounces and set them touching in a pan. Rolls that touch support each other and rise upward instead of spreading. Bake at 425°F for 15 to 18 minutes and brush with melted butter as they come out.
Cinnamon rolls
Cinnamon rolls may be the most satisfying conversion of all, because the filling and glaze carry the flavor. Treat the dough like a biscuit: cut cold butter into the flour, add buttermilk, and handle it as little as possible. Roll to about 1/2 inch thick rather than the thin sheet a yeast dough allows, so the rolls have enough dough to rise. The worked example below has the full recipe.
Doughs that cannot switch, and why
Bagels. A bagel is defined by a dense, chewy crumb and a shiny, crackly crust. The chew comes from high-protein flour kneaded hard and rested slowly, and the crust comes from boiling a dough that can hold its gas. A chemical dough loses its gas in the boiling water and goes gummy on the outside. What you can make without yeast is a soft ring-shaped roll. It is pleasant. It is not a bagel.
Brioche. Brioche can be half butter by flour weight. It holds all that fat only because long mixing builds a strong gluten network and a slow rise gives the dough its buttery, slightly tangy flavor. Take the yeast away and you have the ingredients of a rich scone, and that is what comes out of the oven.
Sourdough. A sourdough loaf is fermentation with a crust on it. The flavor, the open crumb and the keeping quality all come from wild yeast and bacteria working for 12 hours or more. The honest chemical equivalent is soda bread, which is a good bread in its own right, just not this one. Sourdough discard can go into chemically leavened pancakes and crackers, but there the discard is flavor, not lift.
Croissants and baguettes. Croissants need a yeast dough that is strong enough to stretch around dozens of butter layers. Baguettes need a long fermentation for their crust and crumb. Neither has a chemical version worth making.
If you are out of one kind of yeast rather than all of it, you do not need this page at all. The active dry vs instant yeast guide covers swapping between yeasts, and a partly used jar may be enough for a slow cold rise.
Worked example: yeast pizza dough without yeast
The original yeast recipe: 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (312 g), 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 cup warm water. Rise 1 hour, shape, bake at 475°F.
Step 1. Throw out the yeast line. The 2 1/4 teaspoons tells you nothing about how much baking powder to use.
Step 2. Dose by the flour. 2 1/2 cups of flour at the top of the range, 1 1/4 teaspoons per cup, is 3 1/8 teaspoons. Round down to 3 teaspoons of baking powder, which keeps you under the ceiling.
Step 3. Adjust the liquid and fat. A chemical dough is kneaded briefly and needs to roll out firm, so cut the water to 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon, cold. Add one more tablespoon of oil for tenderness, for 3 tablespoons in total.
Converted recipe: 312 g flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 3 tbsp olive oil, 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp cold water.
Step 4. Method. Preheat the oven to 475°F with a rack in the lower third. Whisk the dry ingredients for 30 seconds. Stir in the water and oil, knead in the bowl for about 45 seconds until smooth, cover and rest 10 minutes. Press into a 12 inch round on an oiled pan, about 1/4 inch thick. Par-bake 5 minutes, add sauce and toppings, and bake 8 to 10 minutes more until the edge is golden.
The buttermilk version, for more flavor. Replace the water with 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of buttermilk. That much buttermilk can neutralize a little under 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, so use 3/8 teaspoon of baking soda (1/4 plus 1/8) to stay safely inside its capacity. That soda does the work of about 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, so cut the baking powder to 1 1/2 teaspoons. Total lift is unchanged, the dough stays firm, and the crust picks up a gentle tang.
Worked example: cinnamon rolls without yeast
The original yeast recipe: 3 cups flour (375 g), 1 packet yeast, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup warm milk, 1/4 cup melted butter and 1 egg, with a butter, brown sugar and cinnamon filling. Two rises, about 2 1/2 hours in all.
Step 1. Dose by the flour, at the soft-dough end. Three cups of flour allows 3 to 3 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder. Because this version uses buttermilk, split the lift: 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, which does the work of about 1 teaspoon of baking powder, plus 2 teaspoons of baking powder. That is 3 teaspoons of lift in total, the bottom of the range.
Step 2. Swap the dairy. Replace the warm milk with 1 cup of cold buttermilk. One cup has more than enough acid for 1/4 teaspoon of soda, so there is no chance of a soapy taste, and the extra acid adds a pleasant tang under the glaze.
Step 3. Swap the butter technique. Instead of melted butter, cut 6 tablespoons of cold butter into the dry ingredients until the pieces are pea sized, the way you would for biscuits. Our guide on how to cut butter into flour shows the methods. Cut the dough sugar to 2 tablespoons, since the filling brings plenty. Keep the egg and the salt.
Step 4. Shape. Stir the buttermilk and egg in until just combined, knead four or five turns, and roll into a 12 by 9 inch rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Spread with the filling, roll from the long side, and cut into 12 rolls. Set them touching in a buttered 9x13 pan, three across and four down.
Step 5. Bake. Straight into a 400°F oven, no rise, for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and the center roll reads about 200°F. Glaze while warm.
The result: flaky, tender rolls with a layered, scone-like texture instead of a soft, stretchy pull. Total time is about 45 minutes from bowl to glaze, against 3 hours for the yeast version.
Troubleshooting
| What happened | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Crust tasted bitter or metallic | Baking powder over 1 1/4 tsp per cup of flour | Measure by the flour and stay at or under the ceiling |
| Soapy aftertaste | More baking soda than the acid could neutralize | Use 1/4 tsp soda per 1/2 cup buttermilk at most |
| Dough rose, then went flat | Soda dough left sitting before baking | Shape and bake at once when using soda |
| Pizza center stayed gummy | Wet sauce went onto an unbaked chemical crust | Par-bake the crust 5 minutes first |
| Rolls came out tough | Dough kneaded like a yeast dough | Knead under a minute, just until smooth |
| Rolls were dense in the middle | Shaped too thick for chemical lift | Shape smaller and thinner, bake touching |
| Dough too wet to roll | Full acid-table amount of buttermilk used | Use part baking powder, or thick Greek yogurt |
| Bread tasted flat | No fermentation flavor | Use buttermilk or yogurt for tang, keep the salt |
Frequently asked questions
Can I use baking powder instead of yeast?
Yes, for doughs that still work as quick breads, like pizza, flatbread, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls. Use 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of flour, knead less than a minute, skip the rise and bake right away. It does not work for bagels, brioche, sourdough or crusty bread, which depend on fermentation.
How much baking powder replaces a packet of yeast?
There is no direct conversion, because a packet of yeast can raise anything from 1 to 4 cups of flour. Count the flour instead: 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder for every cup. A recipe with 3 cups of flour needs 3 to 3 3/4 teaspoons, whatever amount of yeast it listed.
Can I use baking soda instead of yeast?
Only with an acid. Use 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of flour and about 1/2 cup of buttermilk or plain yogurt for each 1/4 teaspoon of soda. That is a lot of liquid for a firm dough, so for pizza, combine a smaller amount of soda and buttermilk with baking powder to make up the rest of the lift.
Does bread without yeast taste different?
Yes. Yeast creates flavor over hours of fermentation, and chemical leavening creates none. Yeast-free doughs taste closer to a biscuit or a scone. Using buttermilk or yogurt adds tang that helps, and keeping the recipe's salt matters more than usual, since fermentation flavor is no longer there to carry the dough.
Do I need to let baking powder dough rise?
No. Baking powder does its work in the bowl and in the oven, not on the counter. A 10 minute covered rest helps the flour absorb the liquid so the dough rolls easily, and double-acting baking powder loses very little in that time. A dough made with baking soda and buttermilk should be shaped and baked right away.
Can I make bagels without yeast?
Not real ones. Bagel chew depends on strong, slowly developed gluten, and the boiling step needs a dough that can hold its gas. A chemically leavened dough goes gummy in the water. Yogurt and baking powder rings are a good soft roll in a bagel shape, and they are best judged as that.
Can I use both yeast and baking powder in one dough?
Yes, some recipes do on purpose. A small amount of yeast adds flavor and an initial rise, while baking powder guarantees lift in the oven. If you have only a little yeast left, use it with a long rise for flavor and add baking powder at the low end of the range for insurance.
Why did my no-yeast pizza crust taste bitter?
Too much baking powder, almost always. People add extra hoping for a yeast-like rise, and anything over about 1 1/4 teaspoons per cup of flour leaves a bitter, metallic taste. Measure by the flour, and remember that a chemical crust is supposed to rise modestly and bake crisp, not puff like a yeast crust.
Related guides
- What Is Leavening in Baking for how yeast and chemical leaveners differ at the root
- Baking Powder Substitute for making the baking powder itself when the can is empty
- Baking Soda vs Baking Powder for pairing soda with the right amount of acid
- Active Dry vs Instant Yeast for when you have some yeast, just not the kind listed
- Substitutions Finder to look up any leavening swap with exact ratios
