How to Get Too Much Salt Out of a Dish

If you read the recipe wrong and ended up with a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon of salt, don't despair. There's no need to throw the food away. According to MyRecipes, the easiest solution to the problem is to build around the recipe, almost as if you were making a new dish. Double all the ingredients in the recipe except the salt, and you'll end up with a larger dish, in which the salt should now be at the right amount.

Step 1

Thin out the dish. If you made a soup or sauce, add more tomato, water or stock to the dish. By diluting the original dish, you'll end up with a less salty mix. If you're adding stock, make sure it is free of sodium.

Step 2

Add noodles or grain, such as rice, to the mix. According to the cooking website, the kitchn, noodles will absorb some of the extra salt. Sample them after a few minutes. If they're not too salty, you can leave them in as part of the recipe. Otherwise, throw them away.

Step 3

Add acidic elements to the dish. Adding vinegar, lemon or tomato sauce to the dish might help mask the salt flavor, according to MyRecipes. This won't get rid of the extra salt, but it will simply tone down the extra saltiness. You may do the same by adding some sugar or sweet vegetables, such as carrots, to the dish.

Step 4

Add a peeled potato to the pot. Some cooks insist this is just a tale, while others swear by it. According to a 2009 article in The Guardian, cooking the potato for about 15 minutes will solve the problem of too much salt, as the potato will absorb the extra salt. Throw it away when it's soft and you're ready to serve the dish.

Things You'll Need

• Doubled ingredients from original recipe

• Optional:

• Noodles

• Rice

• Vinegar

• Lemon

• Tomato sauce

• Sugar

• Sweet vegetables

• Peeled potato