Culinary experts have suggested that you can fix overly salty dishes by adding one common vegetable to the pot, and in turn making it more palatable to eat. Good Housekeeping UK’s Food Director, Sarah, tested out the ‘potato trick’, which claims to fix excess salt in food.
The idea is that potatoes will soak up any liquid when boiled, therefore absorbing excess salt. Simply peel a potato and add it to the pot while it’s still cooking. In a recent TikTok video, Sarah said: “The potato trick is to peel a potato and put it in the middle of a dish that you have over-salted.
“The starch in the potato will absorb some of the liquid. So by default it will remove some of the saltiness of the dish.
“The effect, though, is quite subtle, but there are other fixes you can use to balance out the flavour.”
While potatoes may fix the problem if there’s only a slight taste of salt, Sarah recommended using a splash of apple cider vinegar for a touch of acidity, then followed by some honey for sweetness.
Christine Gallary wrote for The Kitchn: “The results were subtle. The potato broth didn’t seem much less saltier than the original broth, but it definitely had lost some of the strong chicken flavor and didn’t seem as intense.
“The potato broth definitely did not taste like a lot of salt had been extracted out of it.”
The experts at Epicurious were also slightly sceptical of the hack. While the potato does absorb moisture and simultaneously release starch into the dish, the results were considered “mild at best”.
If you don’t have a potato lying around that you can use, the food experts at Epicurious suggested some other starchy ingredients which could also do the job.
Instead of placing one ingredient in the pot to draw out the saltiness, Antonio Mora, from Tiny’s sandwich shop, New York, advised “bulking up” the recipe.
Consider adding starchy ingredients such as grains, or potatoes, which are especially adept at soaking in salt, as well as veggies or canned beans that are low in sodium. It’s also possible to dilute saltiness by adding dairy to dishes.
According to Epicurious, the fat in dairy will “coat your mouth, acting as a barrier between your taste buds and the salt”. The likes of cream, milk, sour cream, cream cheese, unsalted butter, and yoghurt will also work to placate the salt.
