Potato Starch Substitutes for Baking

Baking Resources Editorial · Reviewed by Joan Ramos · Updated October 2026 · 15 min read

The simplest potato starch substitutes for baking are cornstarch, tapioca starch and arrowroot, all swapped 1 tablespoon for 1 tablespoon. If you have none of those, use 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour per tablespoon of potato starch and accept a cloudier result.

Which one you reach for depends on what the potato starch was doing. In a fruit filling, tapioca is the closest match. In a gluten-free flour blend, cornstarch is. In a bread that relies on potato starch to stay soft, none of them behave quite the same, and that is the one swap worth thinking about before you make it.

Working with an odd amount? Our free baking substitutions finder scales any of these swaps to the exact quantity your recipe calls for.

Potato starch substitutes for baking, swap by swap

Every amount below replaces 1 tablespoon of potato starch.

Cornstarch is the answer most of the time, and our full cornstarch substitute guide runs the same comparison from the other direction if that is the box you actually have.

What potato starch is doing in your recipe

Potato starch turns up in four separate roles in baking, and the right substitute is different in each one. Work out which role you are in first.

1. Thickening a filling. Potato starch sets fast and clear, and it sets at a lower temperature than cornstarch. That speed is its selling point and its weakness, because it also thins right back out if you let it boil.

2. Structure in a gluten-free flour blend. Here it is bulking out the blend with pure starch, softening the texture and stopping the rice flour from tasting like sand. This is the single most common place home bakers meet it.

3. Keeping a cake or cookie tender. Pure starch dilutes the protein in wheat flour, exactly the way cornstarch does in a homemade cake flour. Less protein means less gluten means a softer crumb.

4. Holding moisture in bread. Potato starch grabs water and hangs on to it during baking and for days afterward, which is why sandwich breads and soft rolls so often list it. This job is the hardest to replace with a straight swap.

Swapping in a fruit filling

Fruit fillings are where potato starch shines and where the swap rules matter most.

Potato starch sets around 150°F, well below the point where cornstarch fully thickens. It also loses its grip if the filling boils hard or simmers for a long time, so recipes that use it usually say to add it off the heat.

Here is what changes with each substitute.

Worked example: a berry pie filling

Your filling calls for 4 cups of berries, 3/4 cup of sugar (150 g, since a cup of granulated sugar is 200 g) and 3 tablespoons of potato starch, added off the heat.

Swapping to cornstarch: use 3 tablespoons, but change the method. Cornstarch needs to reach a full simmer for about a minute to thicken properly, so bring the filling up rather than pulling it off. If you follow the original off-the-heat instruction with cornstarch, you get pink soup.

Swapping to tapioca: use 3 tablespoons, keep the original method, and expect a slightly stretchier, shinier set. This is the swap to make if the pie is going into the freezer.

Swapping to flour: use 6 tablespoons, which is 3/8 of a cup, and cook the filling for a solid 2 to 3 minutes so the raw pasty taste cooks out. The finished filling will be opaque rather than jewel-clear.

Swapping in a gluten-free flour blend

A very common homemade blend runs roughly 60 percent rice flour, 20 percent potato starch and 20 percent tapioca starch by weight.

For a 500 g batch, that is 300 g of rice flour, 100 g of potato starch and 100 g of tapioca starch.

If you are out of potato starch, replace it gram for gram with cornstarch. So 300 g rice flour, 100 g cornstarch, 100 g tapioca. The blend behaves almost identically in cakes and cookies. Bread is where you notice a small difference, because cornstarch does not hold water quite as stubbornly.

A note on measuring. Starches differ in how much a cup weighs, so blends built by volume drift. Cornstarch runs about 128 g per cup according to our ingredient weights chart, while potato starch scoops heavier than that. Weighing removes the problem entirely, and a gluten-free blend is exactly the place where the difference shows up in the finished loaf. Our gluten-free substitutions guide goes further into blend ratios.

Do not replace potato starch with more rice flour. Rice flour is a flour, not a starch. Swapping in more of it pushes the blend toward grittiness and dryness, which is the exact fault the starch was there to prevent.

Swapping in cakes and cookies

Some cake and cookie recipes use a spoonful or two of potato starch simply to soften the crumb. It is doing the same job cornstarch does in homemade cake flour: replacing protein with something that makes no gluten at all.

The swap here is easy. Cornstarch, tablespoon for tablespoon. Both are pure starch with zero protein, and neither adds flavor.

Worked example: turning all-purpose into a softer flour

The standard homemade cake flour trick is to take 1 cup of all-purpose flour, remove 2 tablespoons, and add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in their place, then sift twice. Potato starch does that job just as well.

Run the numbers. A cup of all-purpose flour is 125 g on our chart. Take out 2 tablespoons, about 15 g, and you have 110 g of flour left. Add 2 tablespoons of starch back and the total lands near 125 g again, but the protein has dropped by roughly 12 percent. That is the whole mechanism, and it works with either starch. The cake flour substitute page covers the sifting step, which matters more than which starch you used.

For cookies, a tablespoon of starch in the dry ingredients gives a softer, more tender bite. Cornstarch, potato starch and tapioca are interchangeable there, and using cornstarch instead of flour explains where that swap stops working.

Swapping in bread

This is the honest weak spot. Potato starch in a sandwich loaf or soft roll is there to hold water, which keeps the crumb soft for days and stops the loaf staling by the second morning.

Cornstarch and tapioca both hold some water, but neither matches it. Your options, in order of how close they land:

1. Tapioca starch, 1:1. The closest of the pure starches for moisture retention. The crumb is slightly chewier.
2. Cornstarch, 1:1. Works fine in the dough, but the loaf firms up faster on day two.
3. Instant potato flakes. These are dried potato, so they bring back the real water-holding effect. Start with 2 tablespoons of flakes per loaf in place of 2 tablespoons of potato starch, and add an extra tablespoon of water for each one, because the flakes drink it.
4. A tangzhong or water roux. Cook a small portion of the recipe's flour with five times its weight of water into a paste, cool it, and add it to the dough. This solves the same problem by a completely different route and works with any flour.

Potato starch and potato flour are not the same thing

This trips up more bakers than any other point on this page, and the bags sit next to each other on the shelf.

Substituting potato flour for potato starch at a 1:1 ratio does not work. Potato flour absorbs far more liquid and brings a real potato taste. If it is genuinely all you have, use no more than half the amount, add liquid to compensate, and only try it in a bread dough where a potato note fits. Never use it in a fruit filling.

Going the other way is just as wrong. Potato starch in place of potato flour in a bread recipe leaves the dough slack and the loaf drier than intended.

Potato starch substitute amounts at a glance

Volume swaps are 1:1 for the three pure starches, but they do not weigh the same, which matters when a recipe is written in grams. The weights below use the figures from our gluten-free flours in grams chart: about 150 g per cup for potato starch, 128 g for cornstarch, 115 g for tapioca starch and 120 g for arrowroot. Treat them as approximate, since how you fill the cup changes the weight.

If your recipe gives potato starch in grams, replace it with the same weight of cornstarch or tapioca. If it gives it in spoons or cups, replace it with the same volume. Mixing the two methods is how a gluten-free blend drifts by 10 to 20 percent. Our grams to cups converter and cups to tablespoons converter handle the in-between amounts.

More potato starch substitutes, and the ones to skip

The chart at the top covers the swaps that work in most kitchens. These are the less common options you will see suggested elsewhere, with an honest note on each.

Kuzu (kudzu) starch

Use 1 tbsp per 1 tbsp potato starch. Kuzu comes in chalky lumps, so crush it to a powder and dissolve it in cold liquid before it goes in. It sets clear and smooth and is gentle like potato starch, which makes it a good match for glazes and delicate fillings. It is usually expensive, so it is a swap for small amounts.

Water chestnut starch

Use 1 tbsp per 1 tbsp. Sold in Asian grocery stores, sometimes labeled water chestnut flour or powder. It thickens clear and gives an especially crisp shell on fried coatings, which is where it is most often used. For a baked filling, cornstarch or tapioca are easier to find and just as good.

Matzo cake meal

Use roughly the same volume, in cakes only. Matzo cake meal is very finely ground matzo, and many Passover sponge cakes already use it alongside potato starch. Replacing all the potato starch with it gives a denser, drier crumb, so swap only part of the starch if you can. It is made from wheat, so it is not gluten-free, and it is a poor choice for thickening a filling.

Instant potato flakes

Use in bread doughs only. Flakes bring back the moisture-holding effect of potato in a sandwich loaf, as covered in the bread section above. They do not thicken a filling clearly and should not go into a gluten-free blend in place of starch.

Cassava flour

Not a straight swap. Cassava flour is the whole root, ground, while tapioca starch is the starch extracted from it, so the relationship is the same as potato flour to potato starch. It is heavier and more absorbent. In a pinch, use about 1½ tablespoons per tablespoon of potato starch in an opaque filling and cook it a little longer.

Almond, coconut, oat and quinoa flour

Skip these as potato starch substitutes. They show up on long substitute lists, but they are flours full of fat, protein or fiber, not starches. They do not set a filling clear, they bring their own flavor, and coconut flour in particular soaks up liquid so aggressively that it unbalances a recipe. If a recipe uses potato starch to soften a crumb, a nut flour will change the texture rather than replace the starch. Use one of the pure starches above instead.

How to thicken with a starch substitute, step by step

1. Measure the substitute. Use the same volume of cornstarch, tapioca or arrowroot, or double the volume for flour.
2. Make a slurry. Stir the starch into about twice its volume of cold water, juice or milk until no lumps remain. Starch added straight to hot liquid clumps instantly.
3. Add it at the right temperature. Cornstarch and flour go into a liquid that is heading to a simmer. Arrowroot and tapioca go in near the end, with the heat low.
4. Cook it to the right point. Cornstarch needs about 1 minute at a gentle bubble. Flour needs 2 to 3 minutes. Arrowroot and tapioca need only to thicken, then come off the heat.
5. Let it cool before judging. Every starch thickens further as it cools, so a filling that looks slightly loose when hot is usually right once it sets.

Potato starch substitutes for crispy coatings

Outside of baking, potato starch is popular for very crisp fried and air-fried coatings. The same swaps apply, with one difference: crispness matters more than clarity.

For air frying, our air fryer conversion guide covers how to adjust times and temperatures from an oven recipe.

Potato starch in Passover baking

Potato starch is a staple of Passover baking because many households that keep Passover avoid wheat flour, except in the form of matzo, and many Ashkenazi households also avoid corn, which rules out cornstarch. That is why Passover sponge cakes, macaroons and nut tortes so often call for potato starch.

If you are baking for Passover and are out of potato starch, matzo cake meal is the usual stand-in for cakes, as described above. Whether tapioca or other starches are acceptable depends on the household's tradition and on the product's certification, so check the label or ask the person you are baking for rather than assuming. Outside of Passover, cornstarch remains the simplest swap.

Troubleshooting the swap

Frequently asked questions

Can I use cornstarch instead of potato starch?

Yes, at a 1:1 ratio, and it is the best all-round swap. The one change is method. Potato starch sets at a low temperature and thins out if boiled, so recipes add it off the heat. Cornstarch is the opposite and needs to reach a simmer for about a minute to thicken fully, so do not pull the pan off early.

What is the difference between potato starch and potato flour?

Potato starch is the extracted starch alone: bright white, silky and tasteless. Potato flour is the entire dried potato ground up, so it is cream colored, absorbs far more water and tastes clearly of potato. They are not interchangeable in any ratio you would call reliable, and swapping them 1:1 is a common cause of dry, dense bakes.

What can I use instead of potato starch in a gluten-free flour blend?

Cornstarch, replaced gram for gram, is the closest match and behaves the same in cakes and cookies. Tapioca starch also works and gives a slightly chewier result. What you must not do is add more rice flour instead, because a flour and a starch do different jobs and the blend turns gritty.

Is potato starch better than cornstarch for pie filling?

Each has an advantage. Potato starch sets clear at a lower temperature, so it is gentler on delicate fruit and there is less risk of overcooking. Cornstarch is far more tolerant of heat and holds its set through a long bake. For a pie that spends 45 minutes in the oven, cornstarch is the safer choice.

How much flour replaces potato starch?

Use 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour for every 1 tablespoon of potato starch, and cook the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes so the raw flour taste disappears. The result is cloudy rather than glossy, so keep this swap for opaque fillings and crumbles. It also reintroduces gluten, which rules it out for gluten-free baking.

Does potato starch work in a cake to make it softer?

It does, exactly the way cornstarch does. Removing 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour from a cup and replacing them with 2 tablespoons of potato starch lowers the protein by roughly 12 percent, which means less gluten and a more tender crumb. Sift the two together at least twice so the starch is evenly spread.

Can I leave potato starch out entirely?

In a cake or cookie where it is only softening the crumb, yes, and you will get a slightly chewier result. In a filling, no, because nothing else in the recipe is thickening it. In a gluten-free blend, definitely not, since the starch is a structural share of the blend and dropping it changes the flour weight the whole recipe was built on.

What does potato starch do in baking?

It does one of four jobs: it thickens fillings at a low temperature, it softens the crumb of cakes and cookies by diluting the protein in wheat flour, it adds lightness to gluten-free flour blends, and it helps bread hold moisture so it stays soft longer. Knowing which job it is doing tells you which substitute to use.

Can I use almond flour instead of potato starch?

Not as a direct swap. Almond flour is ground nuts, so it is full of fat and protein and contains very little starch. It will not thicken a filling, and in a cake it makes the crumb denser and richer rather than softer. Use cornstarch or tapioca starch instead.

Can I use coconut flour instead of potato starch?

No. Coconut flour is extremely absorbent and high in fiber, so even a small amount pulls liquid out of a batter or filling and leaves it dry and dense. It also tastes of coconut. It works in recipes designed around it, not as a replacement for a pure starch.

Is tapioca starch the same as tapioca flour?

In the United States, yes. Products labeled tapioca starch and tapioca flour are generally the same fine white starch and can be used interchangeably. Cassava flour is different: it is the whole ground root and behaves more like a flour.

Can I use instant mashed potato flakes instead of potato starch?

Only in bread. In a sandwich loaf or soft rolls, about 2 tablespoons of flakes, with an extra tablespoon of water per tablespoon of flakes, brings back the soft, moist crumb potato starch was providing. Flakes do not thicken a clear filling and should not go into a gluten-free flour blend.

Is potato starch gluten-free?

Potato starch is naturally gluten-free, as are cornstarch, tapioca starch and arrowroot, which is why they are interchangeable in gluten-free blends. If you are baking for someone who must avoid gluten, choose a product labeled gluten-free, since starches can be processed alongside wheat.

Does potato starch have to be cooked?

Yes, to thicken. Like every starch it only gels once it is heated in liquid, but it needs less heat than cornstarch and sets at a lower temperature. In cakes, cookies and bread it cooks as the item bakes, so no extra step is needed.