PrintToo much salt!
Maybe I'm the only one who makes this mistake, but I tend to oversalt some recipes, I try not too but I have a heavy salting hand....does anyone know how to unsalt a too salty dish?
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10 Comments:
piece of raw potato soaks up a lot. add more liquid, sour cream, milk, water. wine cooked down adds a salty taste.
JerzeeTomato at 2:26AM on 04/20/08
Sugar can sometimes help if it is a dish you can pull that off in. Just a little at a time. The potato trick has kinda been debunked as not helping very much sadly.
Yup on more liquid if the dish can handle it, and wine/liquor can help too.
You sure aren't the only one who does it! I have had to train myself to try to remember to not add hardly any and taste/add as I go in tiny amounts.
A grain or pasta added to something can help some too...I often have messed up my red beans and rice, but once I add the rice it becomes okay.
sadiepix at 3:07AM on 04/20/08
If it's a stew or soup, add water (a little at a time) until you reach the flavor you desire. Adding other liquids (flavored) may throw off the balance of the other flavors in the dish.
Also, adding more of the core ingredients (meats, beans, grains, etc.) to bulk up the amounts that your seasonings would have to flavor overall can dilute the saltiness.
When all else is exhausted, serve the dish up with lots of plain, unflavored white rice.
Amandarama at 7:53AM on 04/20/08
The only fool proof way to do it is to make another whole batch of what you're making minus the salt. Blend the two batches and taste.
Remember, you can add but you can't take out.
Next time you're salting something, decrease the size of your normal pinch, add, blend, taste. Give the bit of food you tried some time to register in your palate and ask yourself if it truly needs more salt.
chiff0nade at 8:00AM on 04/20/08
This happened to me when I was making Coq au Vin once...had no potatoes so I tossed in three slices of cubed bread. Not only did it repair the saltiness but also thickened up the juices nicely.
bessfour at 11:40AM on 04/20/08
I'm pretty sure the cut potato solution has been disproved.
The only real solution, as chiff said, is to increase the size of the recipe in order reduce the ratio of salt to liquid/food.
If it's just slightly oversalted, you can offset the perception of saltiness with acid -- vinegar is the usual source, but lemon, wine, etc., can also work. I remember reading about an experiment that involved adding small amounts of vinegar to salty water, a little at time, tasting after each addition. Supposedly, the taster will be less and less aware of the saltiness after each addition.
In future, add your salt in small increments, getting it almost as salty as you like, and adding the final adjustment near the very end. If it's a dish that will reduce, such as soup or sauce, be extra conservative.
LoCo at 11:57AM on 04/20/08
Jerzee, as much as we tend to agree, I'm gonna go the other way with the potato, too; Just hasn't worked for me, and I've tried it every five years or so for the past mumble-mumble decades. And then there was a period when everything I made out of a particular cookbook was turning out too salty. That was when I began adding half the suggested amount of salt, stirring it in, tasting and upping from there. Interestingly, the problem stopped with that cookbook eventually, and now I can't even remember which one it was.
But I do believe that kosher salt, teaspoon for teaspoon, is less salty than regular table salt (that wasn't the problem with the cookbook; I checked), and that's something to keep in mind.
lemons at 12:39PM on 04/20/08
Bottom line: there is no way to remove salt once it has been added. So the only solution is to add less to start with. Cooking down salted ingredients concentrates the salt so look at your other ingredients ... it may not be the salt you are adding but the extra salt from other ingredients that is putting you over the top. Use unsalted butter. If you use prepared stocks, get reduced or salt free versions. If you make your own, use less salt in them. Add salt in stages, and taste, taste, taste!
On kosher salt -- I'm not sure it is actually less "salty" than table salt but the crystals are a lot bigger. So teaspoon for teaspoon, you are using less when you use kosher salt.
kjgibson at 1:23PM on 04/20/08
Well, the potato trick does work for me - maybe its only certain things it works with? Worked in salty rice for sure. I have finally learned to add ENOUGH salt to things - always been too conservative. I use Kosher salt a lot - seems less salty to me too. It may be the crystal size - good thought
sbonorman at 4:37PM on 04/21/08
If it's bread dough, add a heaping tablespoon of horseradish. It works!
CookiePie at 5:20PM on 04/21/08