How to save over-salted soup

Your soup is almost ready, you taste it and suddenly realize that you have too much salt? This can happen to anyone, even an experienced cook. A new recipe or new salt, as well as an imbalance of ingredients, can fail. But this is not a reason to refuse lunch. We want to offer you some ideas that will help you save the soup and serve it at the table. Take it into service!

More fluid

The most obvious way to make the soup less salty is to adjust the taste with additional liquid. Pour in clean water – the easiest and always accessible way out. You may need a larger pot to accommodate all the soup. Add hot water to the boiling soup in small portions and taste.

Thinning the soup with water will certainly make it less concentrated. If you want to preserve the flavor, you can cook a small portion of the broth in a separate pan and add it to the soup. Season the vegetable or meat broth, but do not add salt.

If the extra liquid makes the soup portion too large for you, prepare a separate pan and pour most of the salty soup liquid into it. Return the reserved ingredients to the pan and add hot water or a fresh portion of broth.

Dairy

Sometimes adding cream, milk, sour cream or natural yogurt, depending on the recipe, can save the situation. Milk fat can slightly balance the taste and reduce the perception of saltiness.

For animal-free soups, coconut milk, avocado or a small amount of vegetable oil are suitable.

Starchy ingredients or fresh herbs

You can adjust the taste with vegetables such as celery or leeks, or fresh herbs: basil, thyme, parsley, for example. Also, starchy foods like potatoes or rice can work. You can add a whole potato tuber, boil it and carefully remove it. Or use potatoes, rice, pasta as an additional ingredient in the soup, if the recipe allows.

Acid

Adding acid will help neutralize the saltiness a little. Lemon juice, vinegar, tomatoes – choose what is most suitable for a particular dish. If acid is added, it may be necessary to balance the flavor with a little sugar or syrup.

Here are a few reasons why your soup may be too salty:

• use of fine salt;
• adding all the salt in one go;
• excessive boiling of liquid;
• using ingredients that are too salty.

Follow simple rules – taste the soup at each stage of adding new ingredients, add salt in small portions, and if you use salty foods, do not rush to add salt.

Unfortunately, the most unforeseen situations happen in the kitchen. But this is no reason to be upset! Most often, everything can be fixed with more or less effort. Or simply turn failure into a culinary experiment and invent a new recipe!

As always, look for other new interesting recipes on our website!