The best tips for eggless French toast center on the batter, particularly with respect to creating a rich, flavorful soak that will stick to the bread but still crisp up when exposed to heat. Eggless cooking is usually most successful when some other moist ingredient or series of ingredients is used to mimic the egg’s oily, binding characteristics. In traditional French toast, egg batter is what makes the bread crisp to a thick golden crust when cooked. Mimicking that texture without eggs can be a challenge, but is not insurmountable: often all it takes is a little experimentation. Syrups, milks, and different oily seed and nut combinations can closely mimic the characteristics of the original, and are often considered more health-conscious, too.
A basic French toast batter is little more than an egg beaten in milk. The milk provides a liquid base for the moisture and oil of the egg. Simply leaving egg out of the batter is one way to make eggless French toast, but bread fried in milk alone is rarely very successful. Something else with an oil or natural sugar base is usually required in order to recreate a golden crust.
Some cooks find that the easiest way to avoid egg in French toast preparations is to use a commercial egg substitute, but care must be used when taking this route as not all substitutes are actually egg-free. Many are little more than low-fat, low-cholesterol modifications of the original. Egg-free iterations do exist, but few are all natural. Substitutes commonly contain synthetic egg approximations and flavoring agents that are chemically-derived. This will often yield the right texture and crispness to eggless French toast, but many cooks prefer something a bit more organic.
Mixing in flax oil or ground flax seeds can be a good option. Some cooks use maple syrup, particularly if mixed with different thickening agents — sometimes flour, or even something as thick as a mashed banana. The main idea is to prepare a batter that contains a good enough balance of textures and oils that it will form a protective crust around the bread once fried.
Coating the bread in crystallized sugar, rolled oats, or chopped nuts can also be a good way to approximate a crust. Cooks often experiment to find a combination that they find both workable and pleasing. Balance is always key, but there are few wrong choices.
In order for eggless French toast to be truly eggless, the bread at the core of the dish must also be egg-free. This is a detail that many cooks overlook. Most bread, particularly that which is commercially produced, contains egg or egg-based products.
Milk remains a staple ingredient of many eggless French toast preparations. Whether or not a particular cook chooses to include milk is largely a matter of personal preference. Someone who is allergic to eggs often has no reason for avoiding dairy products. A person who has adopted a vegan lifestyle, however, must consume no animal products whatsoever.
Vegan cooking requires that eggless foods also be wholly animal-free. Eggless French toast does not usually qualify, on account of the milk used. Soy milk, almond milk, or rice milk can be good substitutes in these situations.