New: Meal Planner
Plan your weekly meals instantly from anywhere on the web
Try the Meal Planner!
When preparing a dish, it can happen that you mess up because you use a lot more salt than needed. Fortunately, there are some tricks that help to remove excess salt.
What you need to know is that a dish too salty may not be missed totally. Indeed, our grandmothers had some secret tricks that have the potential to desalinate a dish easily. One can, for example, use vegetables, such as potato or carrot, added to the dish, to absorb the salt or mitigate the taste. Moreover, depending on the type of dish or prepared food, other ingredients, such as bread or sugar can also be used.
Here are my tips to desalinate an over-salted dish:
Desalinate with vegetables
Vegetables can help desalinate some cooked dishes:
- For soups and stews, the most appropriate ingredient is potato,
- For sauces, use carrot.
Desalinate cooked food with potato
The potato is the best known and most used vegetable when desalinating a dish which is too salty. Indeed, this vegetable is rich in starch, a substance that readily absorbs excess salt. To do this, simply peel one or two potatoes. Depending on the type of dish, the potatoes can be cut into strips or diced. Cook the vegetables as part of the preparation. Simmer for a few minutes, then taste. When the salt level is to your taste, you can remove the potatoes.
Use carrot to desalinate
You can save a sauce which is too salty by introducing a carrot. Because carrot contains sugar, it makes it possible to balance the taste. Like with potato, you must cook some carrots with the other ingredients of the sauce during the time it takes for it to desalinate. And if you don’t have a carrot at hand, don’t panic as a little sugar will do the trick.
Other tips to desalinate food
It is quite possible to desalinate a dish with a drizzle of lemon juice because the acidity of the fruit counteracts the excess salt.
Also, adding a crust of bread to the preparation has the same effect as potato.
For steaks, the best solution is to rinse them in a little water to remove the salt.
For a soup too salty, prepare a second soup with the same ingredients but without salt. Then mix it with the first, and the concentration of salt will be reduced.
Some objects that are in your kitchen can also be used to desalinate. Thus, another trick is to simply introduce a cork wine stopper in your pot. You can also dip a silver spoon in the preparation for a few seconds to desalinate it.
