How to fix food that got extra salty?

Question

How to fix food that got extra salty? I imagine this depends on what the food is. With spaghetti, you can add water or change water if you detect it on time. But what about grilled meat? Or a tomato sauce?

score 39 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 09 '10 at 21:55

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Determine correct ratio of food to salt.
Add more food until proper ratio is achieved.

Or just serve extra beer with it.

answered Jul 09 '10 at 21:55

Shog9

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Serving extra beer with a meal can cover a multitude of errors. :) – Bryant Jul 09 '10 at 21:57
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That would work for tomato sauce or spaghetti, but it's hard to grow a chunk of meat :-), especially while cooking it. – Vinko Vrsalovic Jul 09 '10 at 21:59
@Vinko: well, you could always switch up and make hamburger... – Shog9 Jul 09 '10 at 21:59
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Is this general "beer makes you notice less overall" advice, or does beer actually have some specific quality that diminishes salt flavour? – DVK Sep 07 '14 at 13:10

score 34 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 01 '10 at 13:57

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I sometimes add a bit of lemon juice... works to a degree.

answered Aug 01 '10 at 13:57

Tobias Op Den Brouw

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Yes, acid reduces the perception of how salty (or sweet, for that matter) something is. – Aug 01 '10 at 21:13
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Orange juice helps also. (Same principle as lemon juice, I assume.) – Goodbye Stack Exchange Aug 15 '10 at 04:05
agreed. you're offsetting salt with tang and/or sweetness, which changes the nature of the flavor, but I've done it many times – zanlok Dec 03 '10 at 00:06

score 20 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 10 '10 at 00:01

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Slice a raw potato and add it to the over-salted sauce. As it cooks it'll draw in the salty liquid.

You may need to add more liquids to keep the sauce from drying out.

answered Jul 10 '10 at 00:01

Kev

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Yes, the potato trick. Works! +1 – Stefano Borini Aug 01 '10 at 19:38
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The potato trick has never worked for me. I think it is a myth, as I said in a similar thread. – Aug 01 '10 at 21:14
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I've never tried this trick, but am now inspired to over-salt something this week just to try it out. – stephennmcdonald Aug 02 '10 at 15:40
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This didn't work for me with chili. My wife says it doesn't work with soup either. – Goodbye Stack Exchange Aug 15 '10 at 00:53
@neil fein: Those may be too thick? Seems like if it does work, the liquid would need to circulate freely. (Disclaimer: I've never used this trick). – Satanicpuppy Dec 03 '10 at 04:16
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The potato thing is a myth. Google "potato salt myth" and you will find many references. – SAJ14SAJ Dec 03 '12 at 00:50
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This is not a myth. Cooks and chefs have been using this trick for ages quite successfully. Depending on the size of the dish you're cooking, you may need more than one potato. How much water the potato absorbs depends on its type. Boiling potatoes (which are often red) don't tend to absorb water at all, but they also take longer to absorb the salt and don't absorb as much. Baking potatoes (often white) absorb water, and also more salt than boiling potatoes because of that water they absorb. They also do it more quickly. But then you may have to replace some of the water they take out. – Kurt Fitzner Dec 17 '18 at 04:33

score 14 · Answer 4 · edited Aug 01 '17 at 08:40

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Good practice is to under-season food when cooking and adjust the seasoning at the end if necessary. It's very difficult to fix over-seasoned food at the end of cooking.

edited Aug 01 '17 at 08:40

rumtscho

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answered Jul 10 '10 at 00:03

LeopardSkinPillBoxHat

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*bad advice* -- flavor from herb seasonings in some (most?) recipes only properly develop if you cook them a while, especially when you're working with dried stuff like the general home kitchen populace. while that doesn't apply to salt, it's still way better to let it absorb into things like elements of soups. ps: agreed @Garden – zanlok Dec 03 '10 at 00:04
@zanlok - true, but it will be pretty difficult to reduce the saltiness of food if you over-season to begin with. Much easier to add more in the end if necessary, even if it won't necessarily taste as good as if you put it in at the start. – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat Dec 03 '10 at 02:29
Whether or not this is bad advice, it doesn't answer the question that was asked. Presumably someone who has oversalted a dish knows to be careful the next time. Telling them to be careful is neither helpful nor does it answer the question. – Kurt Fitzner Dec 17 '18 at 04:36

nalply · Answer 5 · 2010-08-01T19:23:18.840

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Spice it generously with pepper, curry and/or hot chili! When's very hot and spicy you don't taste the salt as much any more. But you will be very thirsty.

edited Aug 01 '10 at 19:23

answered Aug 01 '10 at 19:16

nalply

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Yes: cayenne is my favorite method, especially after a touch of sugar and/or lemon/vinegar hasn't fully worked :) – zanlok Dec 03 '10 at 00:07

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 17 '10 at 18:55

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Parsley, or other very leafy stuff. Specifically, I've noticed that adding parsley to a dish that's too salty works wonders. It's good for almost any sauce you're making, as well as pasta or casserole. Probably won't work so well with over-salted meat though. Perhaps a parsley and mint sauce for the meat?

answered Jul 17 '10 at 18:55

Carmi

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That's interesting, because I find parsley to have a natural salty taste (though I might be biased from traditional meals where it was served in salt-water). – Ocaasi Jul 30 '10 at 00:21
Fresh herbs and greens such as parsley add more [bitterness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_(taste)#Bitterness) than saltiness. Increasing the bitterness will distract the palate from any of the other four primary tastes - which means your food won't taste as salty. – Vince Bowdren May 02 '13 at 09:27

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 22 '12 at 09:23

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If the curry gets too salty, adding 2 to 3 wheat flour dough rolls helps a lot. It just absorbs salt the same way as raw potato does. And for dry cooked food (i.e. food without curry) adding lemon juice works perfectly for me.

edited Sep 22 '12 at 09:23

Chris Steinbach

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answered Sep 22 '12 at 03:23

neyo

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 01 '16 at 00:01

You can't remove salt from a dish once it's added, so Shog9 has the only correct answer to this question: add more ingredients to dilute the salt.

The commonly suggested "remedy" of adding potato in various forms is only really attempting to mask the salt flavor. It does nothing to actually remove the salt from the dish.

Any starch will lessen your perception of saltiness, hence why so many starchy dishes (think baked potato) require higher levels of salt to taste good.

Adding starch to the dish (potato starch, cornstarch, etc.) or serving the dish with a starch (bread, pasta, potato, etc.) can lower the perceived saltiness of the dish.

Do keep in mind that starch is not a panacea, as parts of the dish may still taste salty. Also, while starch does mask our perception of saltiness, it also masks other flavors as well, so your dish will taste blander overall.

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 02 '13 at 00:23

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Well, rinsing the pulled pork worked wonders! No problem bc we wanted to add sauce to it anyway.

answered Jan 02 '13 at 00:23

Arby

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score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 01 '17 at 05:17

Like a chef-instructor told us in one of our first classes: heavy cream fixes everything. Specifically, fat fixes oversalting if the dish can handle more fat. Fat coats the tongue which prevents as much salt from hitting your taste buds. If you have a very heavy, fatty sauce, it will need much more salt than, say, a tomato sauce. This makes heavy sauces challenging to season, but it can save your ass if you oversalt something.

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 24 '10 at 19:33

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I made a potato lentil soup and used some ham base..... Wow... Too salty.... Added a couple of packets of spllenda and two TAB of balsamic vinegar.... Really helped... Slightly worried about it as it gets used up... Wondering g if the salty flavor will return as some evaps....!???? Thinking about adding more potato to help that??

answered Oct 24 '10 at 19:33

on the contrary.. as the mix dries, add water before you reheat.. saltiness and flavor should return. I do this for just about everything I nuke. – zanlok Dec 03 '10 at 00:08

score -1 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 17 '13 at 00:11

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If there is liquid in the dish (soup, sauce, etc) you can add peeled carrots to help absorb the salt. Pre-cut and peeled baby carrots work best. They aren't as easy to pick out at the end as a potato is, but you don't risk having the potato break down and over-starch/thicken your dish.

answered Jan 17 '13 at 00:11

lostinthespiral

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The potato thing is a myth; why would carrots work? – SAJ14SAJ Jan 17 '13 at 00:16

score -1 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 28 '16 at 22:48

I add a large, peeled potato or several peeled carrots to the soup or stock as it cools. Cooking the desalinating root vegetable interferes with the osmotic process. As the salty soup cools, the starchy root vegetable(s) absorb the excess salt. This is not a quick fix and requires several hours or overnight refrigeration. Remove the root vegetable(s) and reheat. PS: Peanut butter (one big tablespoon) is a wonder for over salted, burned, or otherwise "ruined" dishes. Bon appetit!

How to fix food that got extra salty?

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