Modifications of starches are carried out to improve their industrial usefulness. However, the consumers prefer natural products. For this reason, various methods of starch properties modification are applied to replace those requiring the use of chemical reagents. The aim of this study was to determine whether it is possible to use binary pastes, containing normal potato starch and xanthan gum, as substitutes of chemically modified starches (with oxidised starch E 1404 pastes as an example). Flow curves with hysteresis loops, apparent viscosity at constant shear rate of 50 s-1 and in-shear structural recovery test with pre-shearing were applied to study the rheological properties of the pastes. It was found that two anionic hydrocolloids, potato starch and xanthan gum, can form binary systems with thickening properties, provided that their proportions are adequately adjusted. Some of the binary pastes under investigation exhibited rheological properties resembling pastes of starch oxidised with hypochlorite (E 1404). The way of tailoring the binary pastes properties is presented.