How to make food less salty?

Question

Lately I have been cooking a lot for the family. As with all newbie in the kitchen, I too often end up with overly salty foods so I want to know some tricks to save my dish.

Answer 1

If you are cooking soup or stews, you can just add more water to make food less salty. You can also use other liquid depending on the recipe. For example, if you are cooking a chicken dish with tomato sauce as one of the ingredients, then you can add more sauce to dilute the salt. But remember that adding more liquid into your soup or stew will also dilute its flavor. Take that into consideration before you open the faucet so you won’t end up with a bland dish.

But if the overly salty dish is dry or with very little sauce in it, there is really not much you can do. One trick that you can try to salvage your food is to add a little sugar or other sweeteners. The sweet taste will offset the saltiness and might even enhance the flavor of the dish if you are lucky.

And if you are just in the early part of your recipe, rinsing the food is the best way to remove the salt. Of course this will only work if you are just in the early part of your food preparation. Otherwise, rinsing will totally destroy your food. Rinsing also works great if you are using chunky ingredients like large cuts of chicken or pork.

Answer 2

I would say just double everything in your recipe. Add more sauce, vegetables, meat, and other staple of your recipe, except salt. Starchy ingredients like potatoes and rice absorb salt so dump a lot of them if they are part of your recipe. Some chefs suggest using flour as another salt absorber. But take note that adding flour will thicken the sauce so you’ll have to decide if you want that.

Comments

Thanks. I think yours is the best answer to how to make food less salty.

Answer 3

One trick that I learned from long hours in the kitchen is the use of lemon juice to fix an overly salty dish. Just squeeze a lemon into the food to make it less salty. I use lemon because we have lots of them but there’s no stopping you from using other citrus fruits or even vinegar.