Sprinkles substitute

Best substitute

Colored sanding sugar or coarse sugar

Use the same amount as the sprinkles you are replacing

Best for cupcake and cookie tops

Close match

The closest match for topping duty, and arguably better looking because it sparkles rather than sitting matte. It gives the same light sugary crunch and applies exactly the same way. What it will not do is read as distinct dots or stripes from across a room, so a cupcake looks glittered rather than confettied. It also cannot go into batter, since the crystals dissolve.

Other sprinkles substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Crushed hard candy or crushed candy canes
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount after crushing and sifting
Bright, glassy and genuinely crunchier than sprinkles, with actual flavor from the candy, which can be a plus or a distraction.
What changes
Colors are vivid and the shards look deliberate and modern. The catch is that hard candy gets sticky within a few hours as it draws moisture from the frosting, so decorate close to serving time.
Best for
holiday cookies, cupcakes decorated to order, cocktail glass rims, ice cream sundaes
Crush in a zip bag inside a folded towel and sift out the dust, which would otherwise dissolve into a wet smear. Do not use these in batter, since hard candy melts into holes and hard puddles.
3Mini chocolate chips, grated chocolate or cacao nibs
Different texture
Use the same amount
Delivers the dotted look and a much better crunch, plus real chocolate flavor.
What changes
The obvious change is the color palette, which becomes brown rather than rainbow, so a birthday cake reads sophisticated rather than festive. Mini chips are the one option on this list that genuinely works inside batter, holding their shape and adding pockets of chocolate.
Best for
funfetti-style batter, in brown, cookie tops, ice cream and frozen yogurt, frosted cupcakes, milkshake rims
Grate chocolate from a cold bar with a coarse grater for the finest, most sprinkle-like shreds. Cacao nibs are unsweetened and bitter, so use them where there is plenty of sugar around them.
4Crushed freeze-dried fruit
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount
Freeze-dried strawberries, raspberries and mango crushed to small flecks give startlingly vivid pink, red and orange color with no dye at all, plus a bright tart flavor that cuts frosting sweetness.
What changes
Texture is crisp at first, but the fruit absorbs moisture from frosting within an hour or two and goes soft and slightly patchy, so this is a decorate-and-serve option.
Best for
naturally colored decoration, cupcakes served straight away, white chocolate bark, topping doughnuts and cakes
Crush by hand or with a rolling pin, not in a blender, which reduces it to powder. Sifting out the powder and keeping the flecks gives the most sprinkle-like effect.
5Chopped nuts, toasted coconut or crushed cookies
Different texture
Use the same amount
The pantry answer that shifts the whole look from party to bakery.
What changes
Finely chopped pistachios give an excellent green fleck, toasted coconut gives pale gold, and crushed sandwich cookies give dark speckles. All three add far more flavor and a heavier crunch than sprinkles do, and none of them looks anything like rainbow confetti.
Best for
the sides of frosted cakes, doughnuts, cookie edges, grown-up desserts
Chop finer than feels necessary so the pieces stick rather than sliding off. Nuts are an allergen, so avoid them for school and party bakes where you do not know who is eating.
6Nothing at all, or a piped decoration instead
Close match
omit
Worth saying plainly: sprinkles do nothing to the bake.
What changes
Leaving them off changes no texture, no rise and no flavor. A swirl of frosting, a dusting of cocoa or powdered sugar through a stencil, or a drizzle of melted chocolate all look intentional in a way that bare frosting sometimes does not.
Best for
when the store trip is not worth it, adults, dye-free baking
If the recipe is specifically funfetti, the sprinkles inside the batter are the entire point of the cake and omitting them leaves you with a plain vanilla cake. Mini chocolate chips or crushed freeze-dried strawberries are the ways to keep the speckled effect.

What is Sprinkles?

Sprinkles is the catch-all name for small hardened sugar decorations, covering the rod-shaped kind Americans call jimmies, the tiny balls called nonpareils and the flat confetti discs known in Britain as hundreds and thousands, and their job is colour and a light crunch rather than flavour.

Cooking tips

For funfetti batter, use jimmies, the rod-shaped kind, and fold them in at the very last moment. Nonpareils are tiny balls coated in a thin dyed shell that dissolves in wet batter, which is why a homemade funfetti cake so often bakes out muddy grey-green with streaks.
Sprinkles need a tacky surface. Add them within a minute or two of frosting or glazing, because once buttercream forms a skin or a glaze crusts over, nothing sticks and the sprinkles roll straight off.
To coat the sides of a cake, hold it over a rimmed baking sheet and press handfuls of sprinkles on with your palm, letting the overflow fall into the sheet to be reused. Trying to sprinkle the sides from above wastes most of the jar.
Sugar sprinkles soften in the refrigerator and their colors bleed into frosting overnight, so decorate as close to serving as you can. Nonpareils are the worst offenders and jimmies hold up best.
Sprinkles keep for years in a sealed jar in a dark cupboard, but they fade in sunlight and clump if the jar has been opened in a steamy kitchen. If they have fused into a lump, they are still usable once broken up.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave sprinkles out?

Yes, almost always. Sprinkles are decoration and contribute nothing to structure, rise or flavor, so the recipe bakes exactly the same without them. The one exception is a funfetti or confetti cake, where the sprinkles inside the batter are the defining feature. In that case mini chocolate chips or crushed freeze-dried strawberries give you back the speckles.

How do I make sprinkles at home?

Two ways. For the quick version, shake granulated or coarse sugar with a drop of gel food coloring in a sealed jar and dry it on a plate for 15 minutes, which gives colored sugar rather than true sprinkles. For real jimmies, pipe thin lines of stiff royal icing, made from powdered sugar and a little egg white or meringue powder plus gel color, onto parchment, let them dry hard for several hours, then break them into short pieces.

Why did my funfetti cake turn out grey?

You used nonpareils rather than jimmies. Nonpareils are sugar balls with a thin dyed coating that dissolves in wet batter, so the colors leach out and mix into a single muddy tone as the cake bakes. Jimmies are colored throughout and hold their shape and color. Folding them in at the last second and not overmixing also helps.

Are jimmies and hundreds and thousands the same thing?

Not quite. Jimmies is the American word for the rod-shaped sprinkles, and hundreds and thousands is the British and Australian name for the tiny round balls Americans call nonpareils. All three go under the general word sprinkles, and the practical difference is that the rods survive baking and the tiny balls bleed color.

What can I use instead of sprinkles without artificial dye?

Crushed freeze-dried strawberries or raspberries for pink and red, freeze-dried mango for orange, finely chopped pistachios for green, toasted coconut for gold, and cacao nibs or grated dark chocolate for brown. Naturally dyed sprinkles made with beet, spirulina and turmeric are also widely sold now, though the colors are duller and they fade faster on frosting.

Related substitutes

More baking substitutes

Sprinkles substitute

Other sprinkles substitutes

2Crushed hard candy or crushed candy canes

3Mini chocolate chips, grated chocolate or cacao nibs

4Crushed freeze-dried fruit

5Chopped nuts, toasted coconut or crushed cookies

6Nothing at all, or a piped decoration instead