What to use instead of Pam spray?

Author: Blair Dickinson  |  Last update: Friday, September 26, 2025

The Best Substitutes for Cooking Spray
  • Use Butter or Lard. Butter and lard are great cooking spray alternatives. ...
  • Regular Oil. Cooking spray is basically pressurized, watered-down oil, so feel free to use your favorite healthy high-temperature cooking oil instead. ...
  • Give Flour a Try. ...
  • Buy a Refillable Spray Bottle.

What can I use instead of Pam baking spray?

If you need a substitute for cooking spray, here are some effective alternatives: Oil: Use any type of cooking oil (olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil) and apply it with a paper towel or a brush to coat your pan. Butter or Margarine: These can be used to grease pans.

How do you grease a pan without PAM spray?

If you don't have a spray, ideally you'd use a neutral oil like vegetable or sunflower oil. Just pour a little in and use a paper towel to rub it onto the bottom and sides of the pan.

What is the healthiest cooking spray?

Experts today often recommend coconut oil as a healthier alternative to vegetable oils. Cooking with coconut oil is ideal for certain dishes, like curries, and if you want to reduce your fat intake, use coconut cooking spray, instead. Unrefined coconut oils and sprays are less processed.

Is avocado spray healthier than Pam?

While PAM Cooking Spray is a classic and convenient option, Avocado Oil Cooking Spray offers a healthier and more sustainable alternative.

Nonstick cooking spray is more nonstick than oil

What is the best neutral oil for baking?

If you want a truly neutral flavor, options like canola, corn, or grapeseed oil are ideal.

What is PAM spray made of?

The leading brand of non-stick cooking spray, Pam, contains canola oil, palm oil, coconut oil, lecithin (from soybeans, as a non-stick agent), dimethyl silicone, rosemary extract (which acts as a natural preservative), and propellants (butane and propane). Other brands are similar with a possible different mix of oils.

Does cooking spray ruin pans?

Nonstick cooking spray can actually cause your cookware to lose its nonstick properties. That buildup also occurs on stainless steel pans, Groesbeck added, but since it's much easier to see on a lighter surface, you're more likely to scrub it off properly before it becomes a problem.

Can you use mayonnaise to grease a pan?

Yes, you can fry in mayonnaise.

What is the best thing to grease a cake pan with?

The verdict: Use butter if you want to. If you have extreme concerns about your cake sticking, use shortening (which is pure fat with no water), cooking spray, or baking spray. Coconut oil or bacon fat will also work, as will clarified butter which has the milk solids removed.

Can I use olive oil instead of vegetable oil?

Yes, you can use olive oil instead of vegetable oil, and it's a substitute you should try and make often. This is because the nutritional value of olive oil is substantially higher than that of vegetable oil.

How to grease a pan without PAM?

Rubbing a stick of cold butter around the pan, applying melted butter with a pastry brush, using an oil-based spray, and spreading vegetable shortening like Crisco around using a paper towel are all common methods for greasing a pan, but which one is best?

What is the healthiest cooking oil to use?

Which cooking oils are healthiest? Skousen says she recommends avocado oil and extra-virgin olive oil, particularly for anyone who wants to reduce their risk of cancer or cancer recurrence. “These two are high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids,” she says.

Can I use parchment paper instead of PAM spray?

Placing cookie dough, biscuit rounds, etc on a sheet pan lined with a piece of parchment paper ensures your final product won't stick. No need to use cooking spray and add extra grease, and clean-up is much easier as you can just throw it away when you're done.

Does olive oil ruin non-stick pans?

The Olive Wellness Institute team often gets asked questions about this common myth, and the answer is NO, cooking in extra virgin olive oil will NOT ruin your non-stick pans.

What happens if you don't have cooking spray?

Use Butter or Lard

Butter and lard are great cooking spray alternatives. They're soft enough to spread into loaf pans and muffin tins with your fingers. You don't have to get your hands messy to use these products, either. Use a piece of parchment paper or paper towel to help grease.

Is it bad to heat a pan with nothing in it?

Empty pots and pans reach high temperatures very quickly, and when heated accidentally over 348 °C (660 °F) the coating can begin to deteriorate.

Can you use oil as baking spray?

Sometimes, you're better off using nonstick spray alternatives like butter, shortening, oil or lard.

Is PAM spray healthier than olive oil?

According to the Pam website, there is about 1 gram of fat and 7 calories in a one second spray of their product. Other products are roughly equivalent. For comparison, one teaspoon of olive oil contains approximately 4.5 grams of fat and 40 calories.

What's the difference between cooking spray and baking spray?

The spray can be applied evenly and fill those areas, helping to prevent the cake from sticking when trying to release it from the pan. The tandem of flour and fat — which is what distinguishes baking spray from a cooking spray — provides a coating that makes it much easier to take a finished pastry from its pan.

What oil should not be used for baking?

The oils which should be avoided for cooking are oils like soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, and safflower.

What oil do Japanese use for cooking?

A widely-used vegetable oil in Japan. Rapeseed oil is the top oil in Japan in terms of both demand and production. The ingredient is rapeseed (canola seeds).

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