Cooking Spray substitute

Best substitute

Any oil, wiped on with a paper towel

Use ½ to 1 teaspoon oil for every 9-inch pan

Best for muffin tins

Close match

You almost certainly do not need it. Pour about half a teaspoon of any oil into the pan and wipe it over every surface with a folded paper towel or a pastry brush. That is what the spray was doing. For cake tins use softened butter or shortening rubbed on with your fingers, then dust with flour and knock out the excess, which is the classic homemade baking spray. For sheet pans and cookies, a piece of parchment paper beats any spray. The spray's only real advantage is thinness and speed, not any special nonstick property.

Other cooking spray substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Butter or shortening plus flour (homemade baking spray)
Close match
Use 1 teaspoon fat plus 1 teaspoon flour for every 9-inch tin
This is what baking spray actually is, and for cakes it is better.
What changes
Rub softened butter or vegetable shortening over the tin with your fingers or a scrap of paper towel, add a spoonful of flour, tilt and tap until the flour coats the fat, then turn the tin upside down and knock out the loose flour. The flour gives the batter something to grip as it rises, then releases cleanly. Butter also browns the crust slightly, which is a bonus in a pound cake.
Best for
cake tins, bundt pans, loaf tins, tube pans, quick breads
For chocolate cake use cocoa powder instead of flour so you do not get white patches. Shortening beats butter in a fiddly bundt tin because it has no water in it and clings to the detail.
3Parchment paper or a silicone baking mat
Close match
one sheet, no fat needed
For anything flat, this is not a compromise, it is an upgrade.
What changes
Cookies, roasted vegetables, sheet-pan dinners, brownies and traybakes all release perfectly from parchment with no grease at all, and cleanup is nothing. For round cake tins, cut a disc for the base and grease the sides only. The one thing to know is that parchment does not brown the underside quite as hard as a greased metal pan, so cookie bottoms come out a shade paler and softer.
Best for
cookies, sheet pans, brownies, cake tin bases, roasting vegetables
Use parchment, not wax paper. Wax paper smokes and the wax melts in the oven. Foil is not a substitute for parchment either, as food sticks to foil badly unless you grease it.
4A refillable oil mister or pump spray bottle
Close match
Use the same amount with the spray
If you genuinely want spray behaviour, a cheap pump mister filled with your own oil is the closest thing and reusable forever.
What changes
It gives you the same fine even mist and lets you use good olive oil or avocado oil rather than whatever was in the can. Two honest caveats: pump misters clog if you use thick unfiltered oil or leave them sitting, and they need a few pumps to build pressure, so it is not quite as instant as an aerosol.
Best for
air fryers, salads, grilling vegetables, even coating on popcorn, portion control
Never refill a used aerosol can, and never add water to a spray bottle of oil. The two separate immediately, and water in a hot pan makes food stick rather than release.
5Vegetable shortening, rubbed on plain
Close match
Use 1 teaspoon for every 9-inch pan
The old-fashioned pan grease and still the most reliable release for awkward tins.
What changes
Shortening is pure fat with no water and no milk solids, so nothing steams or scorches at the interface, and it stays exactly where you put it instead of running down the sides in a warm kitchen the way butter does. It adds no flavour at all, which is either the point or a small loss depending on the recipe.
Best for
bundt pans, decorative tins, yeast bread pans, cast iron, pizza pans
Lard or coconut oil work the same way. Coconut oil at room temperature in a warm kitchen is closer to oil than to shortening, so chill the tin briefly if it is running.
6Nothing at all, in a genuinely nonstick or well seasoned pan
Taste and texture differ
no fat
Worth saying plainly, because a lot of recipes tell you to spray out of habit.
What changes
A decent nonstick skillet cooking eggs, a well seasoned cast iron making cornbread, or a silicone muffin mould all release fine dry. Baked goods will be slightly less crisp at the edge without fat, and eggs will taste less rich, but nothing will weld itself to the pan. Do not try this with anything sugary. Caramel, meringue, sticky glazes and cheese all need fat or parchment.
Best for
nonstick skillets, silicone moulds, seasoned cast iron, low fat cooking
Anything with a lot of sugar or cheese always needs a barrier. Sugar sticks to bare metal no matter how good the pan is.

What is Cooking Spray?

Cooking Spray is Cooking spray, sold as nonstick spray, oil spray or baking spray and known by the brand name Pam, is an aerosol can of ordinary oil plus lecithin and a propellant that lays down a very thin, even film of fat so food releases from the pan.

Cooking tips

Do not use aerosol cooking spray on nonstick pans, even though the can suggests it. The lecithin in the spray polymerises at cooking heat into a sticky brown varnish that will not scrub off and eventually makes the coating stick worse than bare metal. Wipe on plain oil instead. This applies to air fryer baskets too.
Sticking is usually a coverage problem, not a quantity problem. A pan that has been sprayed for one second from a distance has bare patches in the corners. Wiping oil on with a paper towel means you can see and feel that every surface is covered, which is why it often works better than the spray it replaced.
For a bundt or any tin with detail, use solid fat rather than oil. Oil drains into the bottom of the crevices while the cake bakes and leaves the high points dry, whereas shortening or butter stays put where you pressed it in.
When you are grilling, oil the food rather than the grate. Oil brushed onto hot bars burns off in seconds and smokes, while a thin coat of oil rubbed onto the fish or vegetables stays where the sticking actually happens.
If you are using butter to grease a tin for something delicate, dust with flour afterwards. Butter is fifteen to twenty percent water, and that water can make a fine crumb catch on the metal in a way that oil does not.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave the cooking spray out?

It depends on what you are cooking. In a good nonstick pan or a silicone mould, yes, nothing terrible happens. In a metal cake tin, a muffin tray or anything with sugar or cheese in it, no, and you will lose the bottom of your bake to the pan. In those cases you need something, but that something can be as little as half a teaspoon of oil wiped around with a paper towel.

Is cooking spray just oil in a can?

Almost. It is oil, usually canola, soybean or coconut, plus lecithin as a release agent, a propellant to push it out, and often a tiny amount of silicone antifoaming agent. Nothing in there does a job that a thin layer of plain oil cannot do. The can buys you convenience and an extremely thin coat, which is genuinely useful for calorie counting and for air fryers, and nothing else.

Can I make my own cooking spray in a spray bottle?

You can, with a proper pump oil mister and straight oil. What does not work is diluting oil with water in a household spray bottle. The two separate the moment you stop shaking, you end up spraying water onto a hot pan, and water at the interface makes food grab the metal instead of releasing. Use oil neat, and give the mister a few pumps to pressurise.

What do I use instead of cooking spray in an air fryer?

A pastry brush or a paper towel with a little oil on the food itself, not the basket. Aerosol spray is the one thing air fryer manufacturers consistently warn against, because the propellant and lecithin bake onto the nonstick basket and destroy it. If you want a mist, use a refillable pump mister with plain oil and spray the food outside the machine.

Is baking spray different from regular cooking spray?

Yes, and the difference matters for cakes. Baking spray has flour suspended in it, so it does the greasing and the flouring in one go and gives a batter something to climb. Regular cooking spray is oil only. If your recipe says baking spray and you only have plain spray, spray the tin and then dust it with a spoonful of flour, or just do the whole thing by hand with butter and flour.

Related substitutes

More oils & fats substitutes

Cooking Spray substitute

Other cooking spray substitutes

2Butter or shortening plus flour (homemade baking spray)

3Parchment paper or a silicone baking mat

4A refillable oil mister or pump spray bottle

5Vegetable shortening, rubbed on plain

6Nothing at all, in a genuinely nonstick or well seasoned pan