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up vote 27 down vote favorite
4

I imagine this depends on what the food is. With spaghetti, you can add water or change water if you detect it on time. But what about grilled meat? Or a tomato sauce?

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10 Answers

up vote 23 down vote accepted
  1. Determine correct ratio of food to salt.
  2. Add more food until proper ratio is achieved.

Or just serve extra beer with it.

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24  
Serving extra beer with a meal can cover a multitude of errors. :) – Bryant Jul 9 '10 at 21:57
That would work for tomato sauce or spaghetti, but it's hard to grow a chunk of meat :-), especially while cooking it. – Vinko Vrsalovic Jul 9 '10 at 21:59
@Vinko: well, you could always switch up and make hamburger... – Shog9♦ Jul 9 '10 at 21:59
up vote 0 down vote

If there is liquid in the dish (soup, sauce, etc) you can add peeled carrots to help absorb the salt. Pre-cut and peeled baby carrots work best. They aren't as easy to pick out at the end as a potato is, but you don't risk having the potato break down and over-starch/thicken your dish.

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2  
The potato thing is a myth; why would carrots work? – SAJ14SAJ Jan 17 at 0:16
up vote 1 down vote

Well, rinsing the pulled pork worked wonders! No problem bc we wanted to add sauce to it anyway.

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up vote 1 down vote

If the curry gets too salty, adding 2 to 3 wheat flour dough rolls helps a lot. It just absorbs salt the same way as raw potato does. And for dry cooked food (i.e. food without curry) adding lemon juice works perfectly for me.

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up vote 1 down vote

I made a potato lentil soup and used some ham base..... Wow... Too salty.... Added a couple of packets of spllenda and two TAB of balsamic vinegar.... Really helped... Slightly worried about it as it gets used up... Wondering g if the salty flavor will return as some evaps....!???? Thinking about adding more potato to help that??

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on the contrary.. as the mix dries, add water before you reheat.. saltiness and flavor should return. I do this for just about everything I nuke. – zanlok Dec 3 '10 at 0:08
up vote 4 down vote

Spice it generously with pepper, curry and/or hot chili! When's very hot and spicy you don't taste the salt as much any more. But you will be very thirsty.

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1  
Yes: cayenne is my favorite method, especially after a touch of sugar and/or lemon/vinegar hasn't fully worked :) – zanlok Dec 3 '10 at 0:07
up vote 16 down vote

I sometimes add a bit of lemon juice... works to a degree.

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3  
Yes, acid reduces the perception of how salty (or sweet, for that matter) something is. – daniel Aug 1 '10 at 21:13
Orange juice helps also. (Same principle as lemon juice, I assume.) – Neil Fein Aug 15 '10 at 4:05
agreed. you're offsetting salt with tang and/or sweetness, which changes the nature of the flavor, but I've done it many times – zanlok Dec 3 '10 at 0:06
up vote 3 down vote

Parsley, or other very leafy stuff. Specifically, I've noticed that adding parsley to a dish that's too salty works wonders. It's good for almost any sauce you're making, as well as pasta or casserole. Probably won't work so well with over-salted meat though. Perhaps a parsley and mint sauce for the meat?

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That's interesting, because I find parsley to have a natural salty taste (though I might be biased from traditional meals where it was served in salt-water). – Ocaasi Jul 30 '10 at 0:21
Fresh herbs and greens such as parsley add more bitterness than saltiness. Increasing the bitterness will distract the palate from any of the other four primary tastes - which means your food won't taste as salty. – vincebowdren May 2 at 9:27
up vote 12 down vote

Good practice is to under-season food when cooking and adjust the seasoning at the end if necessary. It's very difficult to fix over-seasoned food at the end of cooking, and excess salt is also bad for your health.

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1  
"...excess salt is also bad for your health." = unproven nutritional claim. – Mrs. Garden Dec 2 '10 at 15:00
1  
bad advice -- flavor from herb seasonings in some (most?) recipes only properly develop if you cook them a while, especially when you're working with dried stuff like the general home kitchen populace. while that doesn't apply to salt, it's still way better to let it absorb into things like elements of soups. ps: agreed @Garden – zanlok Dec 3 '10 at 0:04
@zanlok - true, but it will be pretty difficult to reduce the saltiness of food if you over-season to begin with. Much easier to add more in the end if necessary, even if it won't necessarily taste as good as if you put it in at the start. – LeopardSkinPillBoxHat Dec 3 '10 at 2:29
Discussion on salt and health: skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/415/is-salt-white-death – s_hewitt Feb 16 '12 at 17:59
up vote 13 down vote

Slice a raw potato and add it to the over-salted sauce. As it cooks it'll draw in the salty liquid.

You may need to add more liquids to keep the sauce from drying out.

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Yes, the potato trick. Works! +1 – Stefano Borini Aug 1 '10 at 19:38
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The potato trick has never worked for me. I think it is a myth, as I said in a similar thread. – daniel Aug 1 '10 at 21:14
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I've never tried this trick, but am now inspired to over-salt something this week just to try it out. – stephennmcdonald Aug 2 '10 at 15:40
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This didn't work for me with chili. My wife says it doesn't work with soup either. – Neil Fein Aug 15 '10 at 0:53
@neil fein: Those may be too thick? Seems like if it does work, the liquid would need to circulate freely. (Disclaimer: I've never used this trick). – Satanicpuppy Dec 3 '10 at 4:16
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