Is Your Dish Too Salty? Sweet? Sour? Spicy? Here's How to Fix It. | Cook's Illustrated (2024)

FAQs

What do you do if your dish is too salty? ›

Add an Acidic Ingredient

It won't reduce the sodium level of your dish, but adding an acidic ingredient, such as lemon juice, vinegar, or even a tomato product, can neutralize the saltiness of a dish. Start with a dash or a squeeze, stir well to combine, and give it a taste before adding any more.

If your dish tastes too sour try to add sweetness—think sugar, honey (it's healthy!), cream or even caramelized onions. You can also dilute the dish (same as you would with a dish with too much salt). As a last resort, add a pinch of baking soda to make the dish more alkaline.

2️⃣ Sugar! Sweet can balance salty. 3️⃣ Dairy! A splash of cream or dollop of Greek yogurt (or sour cream) can mellow it out.

How Do You Neutralize Sour Taste in Food? If a dish is too sour, add a little bit of sugar! Sweetness balances out sour flavors, so if something makes your mouth pucker, a dash of sugar may help soften the blow of the sour food.

Lemon or lime juice or vinegar are all acidic and will tame the salt taste. Adding a creamy or fat component like yoghurt, sour cream or butter (unsalted) will also help to reduce overly salted flavours in your dish. With all of these methods, it is important to taste the dish while you attempt to fix it.

Too Sweet. The Fix: Tone down an overly sweet dish by adding a sour, salty, or bitter ingredient to it. Sour fruit (such as blackberries or cherries), cooling herbs such as mint, and chopped nuts work well in sweets such as cakes, cookies, and pies.

Dairy products like milk, cream, yogurt, or sour cream can help balance out the saltiness of a soup or stew. The fat and protein in dairy products can help to coat your tongue and reduce the perception of saltiness. Fresh herbs like parsley, basil, or thyme can help to mask the saltiness of soup, too.

Popular choices include black pepper, basil, cinnamon, garlic and cayenne.

How to Make Food Less Acidic. Add a fat such as butter, heavy cream, sour cream, cheese, or olive oil to coat the tongue and physically block some of the acidity from your taste buds. You might also try adding a sweetener such as sugar, honey, or maple syrup.

Balancing it with an acid can help neutralize the molecule's activity. This means drinking or eating something acidic — such as lemonade, limeade, orange juice or a tomato-based food item or drink — may also help cool your mouth down. (Milk is also acidic, by the way.) DO down some carbs.

What to do with over salted food? ›

Squeeze some lemon juice or orange juice over your dish. The sour flavor provides a new layer of complexity to the meal and should mellow out the salt. Drizzle in a mild vinegar like all-purpose vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar to help mask the salt with acidity by distracting the taste buds.

Sweetness: From sugar, honey, fruits or otherwise, sweetness will counteract bitter and sour flavours. It can also be used to cut down the heat of a particularly spicy meal.

Add Sugar

Sugar is one of the most effective ingredients when it comes to adjusting flavours in a dish. This is also true for reducing sourness from curries. Add half teaspoon of sugar to your curry and give it a nice mix. You can add more sugar if you feel the curry is still sour.

Acid: Adding vinegar or lemon juice does a great job of balancing saltiness. Sweetness: You can also add a dash of honey or sugar. Opposites attract here and create balance. Fat: Another fix is adding some fat, a few pads or butter or a healthy glug of olive oil can absorb some of that saltiness.

Drink Plenty of Water

This is because water helps the body flush out excess sodium. Not only is hydration important for managing sodium levels, but it is also important for overall health.

Add Lemon or Vinegar

A squeeze of lemon can balance out a mildly oversalted soup with its acidic flavor. A splash of vinegar can also do wonders for taming the salty flavor.