"You may have heard some old-timey recommendations that send you searching for a quick fix; maybe you could add a potato, sprinkle in rice, or stir in sugar. But salt isn't a flavor that can be masked or neutralized. The only way to make an over-salted and hearty stew taste less salty is to give the sodium more room to spread out, and the only way to do that is by adding volume, namely water."
"With other flavors, you can sometimes balance one with another. But salt is not something you cancel; it's something you have to dilute. Think of it like dye in water. A single drop of food coloring turns a glass blue, but the same drop in a bathtub would look barely tinted. Likewise, sodium disperses through the liquid until every spoonful has the same concentration."
Salt dissolves evenly into cooking liquid, so every spoonful of soup or stew shares the same salt concentration. Absorbent fixes like potatoes, rice, or bread only soak up salted broth but leave the salt present in the eaten starch. Dilution lowers the ratio of salt to liquid by increasing volume with water or other cooking liquids such as broth, cream, or wine. Long cooking concentrates sodium as water evaporates, which can cause dishes to become oversalty over time. Adding more liquid spreads the sodium across a larger volume and reduces perceived saltiness.
Read at Tasting Table
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]