In cooking, can you use evaporated milk in place of regular milk, and vice versa?

Evaporated milk is milk where some of the water content has been removed, usually about 60%. It shouldn’t be confused with condensed milk which also has sugar added to it.
Can you use it instead of regular milk? Yes… but unless you want the results to be thicker and creamier you should use half evaporated milk and half water.

My mom uses part evaporated skim milk in lieu of regular milk in mashed potatoes for lower fat content. I used to have a potato soup recipe (I don’t know where it is now) that used evaporated milk instead of cream, I used 2% evaporated milk I think.

Yes, just follow the directions on the can to reconstitute the milk.

But you can’t use regular milk in place of evaporated milk. It’s much thinner and more fluid. In pumpkin pies, for instance: it just wouldn’t work. You’d have mush instead of custard.

Actually, you can use regular milk in pumpkin pie and you won’t know the difference. I’ve done it. If you want to thicken up the batter some, using regular milk, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of flour to the mix.

My Mom used Evaporated Milk a lot while cooking. She ALWAYS used ½ EM followed by an equal amount of water. She said half & half Evap/water equaled whole milk. We never used it for drinking…only cooking…so I can’t verify that she was correct!!!

As a little kid, I remember certain individuals using it as coffee creamer.

OK, thanks, everybody!

@kritiper, well, then, I’m surprised. Thanks for setting me straight. You’ve actually done that? I’d have thought it would just fall apart.

My father used to put evaporated milk in his coffee. And I used to use it to make hot chocolate—mixed with unsweetened cocoa powder and white sugar. I’d make a thick goo of it and then add boiling water.

Evaporated milk cut 50/50 with water can be used for recipes calling for milk.

My mom uses it for hot chocolate, I forgot about that. She just adds some skim evaporated to the regular skim, along with Hershey’s cocoa powder and some fake sugar.