John Myers
You don’t have to dispose of oversalted food immediately, because you may still be able to salvage it. The best way to do this depends on the type of food. The food can often be made edible again by adding sweetness or acid, in other cases, you have to stretch it more or less laboriously.
The easiest way to save over-salted soups, stews, casseroles, and sauces is to immediately scoop the salt out with a spoon before it dissolves in the food. For this, however, you must immediately notice that too much salt has gotten into the pot. If it is already too late, you can cook peeled, roughly chopped, raw potatoes, carrots, or dry bread for around ten minutes. The vegetables or bread should absorb some of the salt from the food. Before serving the dish, remove the ingredients again. The same trick also works with prunes, they have to cook for about a quarter of an hour.
If the food still tastes salty afterward, you can dilute liquid food with neutral liquid. However, this is only possible if the consistency does not suffer too much. Water, milk or cream are well suited. Other dairy products are also suitable for rescuing oversalted food: try neutralizing the salty taste with some cream cheese, quark or crème fraîche.
Finally, the sweet flavors of honey, cane sugar, or agave syrup can counterbalance the salty taste. This also works for dishes other than soups or sauces: If a roast has gotten too much salt, you can brush it with honey. The honey sweetness neutralizes part of the salty taste, and it also gives the roast a nice crust.
If you’re concerned that over-salted food might taste too sweet afterward, try something acidic as an alternative and add some lemon juice, orange juice, vinegar, or white wine. Basically, the following applies to these methods: so that the overall flavor does not suffer, only add the balancing ingredients to the food in small portions to avoid that it no longer tastes too salty in the end but tastes too sweet or too sour.
If none of this helps, it may be worth cooking the food again – but this time without any salt. At the end, add some of the oversalted food and mix it all together. Try it from time to time to see if it has already gotten the right taste. If so, freeze the rest of the oversalted food and use it again later in the same dish.
So that you don’t oversalt food in the first place, it is better not to pour the salt directly into the pot, but rather first use it on the open palm of your hand and then with your fingertips. Taste the dish and add a little more salt if necessary. If you prefer to use too little rather than too much salt, the food served can later be seasoned to suit individual tastes.
