Lasagna Sauce questions/problems

[sherin65]

I'm making lasagna on the weekend for DH's bday. I'm making the sauce today and I'm trippling the batch because I'm making two pans of lasagna and we always like extra sauce.

#1. The recipe called for a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. I picked up three cans without realizing that one of the cans was tomato sauce not crushed tomatoes. I added it to the pan already, kind of noticing while pouring it in that there weren't any tomato chunks. Will it be ok?

#2. I also realized the recipe calls for Kosher salt and I have regular iodized salt and I have sea salt. Can I substitute the same amount or should I go out and buy the kosher salt?

Sher

 

[YT2095]

use sea salt, it`s exactly the same

Tomatoe sauce and a can of tomatoes is how I`de make mine anyway (I use V8 instead though), make your sauce and adjust it before you commit to construction anway, I think you`ll be Just Fine and he`ll love it

 

[jennyema]

The tomato sauce will be fine.

Do not run out and buy kosher salt. You don't need it.

IMO, I would use table salt. It's cheaper than sea salt. The subtle flavor differences in sea salt will be totally lost in a big vat of pasta sauce. But remember to use 1/3 less table salt than kosher salt. In other words, if the recipe says 1T of kosher salt, use 2/3 of a T. Or cut it in half and add more after you taste it.

 

[mish]

I'm making lasagna on the weekend for DH's bday. I'm making the sauce today and I'm trippling the batch because I'm making two pans of lasagna and we always like extra sauce.

#1. The recipe called for a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. I picked up three cans without realizing that one of the cans was tomato sauce not crushed tomatoes. I added it to the pan already, kind of noticing while pouring it in that there weren't any tomato chunks. Will it be ok?

#2. I also realized the recipe calls for Kosher salt and I have regular iodized salt and I have sea salt. Can I substitute the same amount or should I go out and buy the kosher salt?

Sher

Sher, I would check the label for ingredients of the canned tomato sauce & crushed tomatoes, because most canned products/sauces already contain a huge amount of salt. You may not need any salt. If you have some fresh tomatoes, dice them and add to your sauce. I would squeeze out the seeds, as well.

 

[Michael in FtW]

As for #1: Basically, only difference is that the sauce will not be as "chunky". Technically, "sauce" contains some herbs - but that shouldn't matter.

As for #2: Salt - use only 1/2 the amount of table salt as Kosher salt, you can always adjust it at the end (aka - add more to taste). Using sea salt, in my opinion, is a waste of good salt - the delicate flavors from the minerals in the sea water (which is what gives sea salt it's unique flavor) will be totally lost in a pot of sauce.

Picking up on what Mish said - don't add salt until you taste your sauce! Canned tomatoes contain salt, and different canners include different amounts of salt. Bring your sauce "to temp" and then taste - and only adjust the seasoning at the end of cooking "after" the sauce has reduced.

 

[YT2095]

Kosher salt IS sea salt, only prayers have been said over it or something, but for a Direct 1:1 conversion sea salt is the one to use.
with fine ground table salt you have to convert and work in terms of Mass rather than Volume.

 

[jennyema]

Kosher salt is salt mined from deposits, like table salt. It is not harvested directly from the sea, like most "sea salts" people have recently come to use.

But the salt in salt mines originated from sea water, so you can say that table salt = sea salt with equal authority.

All salt is 99.9% NaCl, so you can really use any food-grade salt. But sea salt almost always costs much more than table or kosher salt. IMO it's a waste of money to use it in an application where it's subtle flavor and/or crunch won't be appreciated.

And, like kosher salt, because sea salt comes in several different crystal sizes, it is not a 1:1 substitution for kosher salt in a recipe.

 

[YT2095]

the mean AVG is ~ 1:1 yes.
as I said when you get into Fine grains, you need to equate with Mass and Not Volume, a T spoon of one and a T spoon of the other will Not be the same.
and I`m surprised it`s more expensive also???
it`s roughly the same price here Kilo for Kilo.

 

[jennyema]

Sea salt that is harvested from the ocean is VERY expensive and really should not IMO be used for cooking. It's a finishing salt. That would be like using a $200 bottle of wine in your sauce.

Here in the states, there are less expensive sea salts meant more for cooking and table use, but because they are "sea salt," they generally command a premium -- certainly lots more $$ than table salt. Most of this kind of sea salt either fine grain or coarse grain and neither seems to me to be a 1:1 ratio to kosher salt -- particularly not the coarse grain. True the only way to accurately sub is to weigh the salt, but really who is going to bother to do that?

Because table salt and kosher salt comes in generally uniform size crystals, the commonly accepted ratio is 1 1/2 of Morton's Kosher salt to 1 of table salt and 2 of Diamond Crystal to 1 of table salt. Diamond Crystal brand has larger crystals.

 

[YT2095]

True the only way to accurately sub is to weigh the salt, but really who is going to bother to do that?

ME


What!??? I`m a Scientist, that what we DO!

 

[jennyema]

I conjured up a mental image of you and my mother cooking together. I don't think she has measured anything in her life! Seriously, I don't think she owns measuring cups any more. She is a great cook, unless she forgets one or more of the ingredients ....

You'd be huddled over your scale .... she'd be pouring salt directly from the box into the pot of sauce ....

 

[Caine]

Sea salt is difinitely NOT 99.9% NaCl. Sea salt contains many different salts other than Sodium chloride. Unrefined sea salt contain 98.0 % sodium chloride, as well as 2% other salts, such as epsom salts, magnesium salts, calcium salts, potassiumm salts, manganese salts, phosphorus salts, and iodine salts. That is why it is so expensive and why it has such subtle underlying flavors.

 

[CharlieD]

kOSHER SALT IS CALLED THAT ONLY FOR ONE SIMPLE REASON IT'S USED IN KOSHERING PROCESS, NOT FOR QUALITY BUT RATHER FOR THE SIZE OF THE CRYSTALS. tHE TABLE SALT IS THE SAME SALT JUST SMALLER IN SIZE. bACK IN rUSSIA TABLE SALT WAS CALLED TABLE SALT AND KOSHER SALT WAS CALLED SALT. hAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY PRAYERS EITHER. oops, sorry for posting like this.

 

[Michael in FtW]

Yep, Charlie - if all it took was a prayer to make salt "Kosher" - then all it would take would be another prayer to make pork both Kosher and Halal!

Table salt crystals are small solid "double pyramid" crystals - Kosher salt crystals are hollow single "pyramids". 1 Teaspoon table salt = 1.5 teaspoons Morton's Kosher salt, 2 teaspoons Crystal Diamond (or is it Diamond Crystal?) Kosher salt. Sea salt, depending on how it is harvested, is somewhere between Morton's and Diamond kosher salt.

 

[auntdot]

To get back to the lasagna sauce, I frankly could not tell the difference between salts tossed into it.

And so I would probably go with the cheap stuff.

Also absolutely agree that one should never add salt to a sauce like that until one tastes it at the very end of cooking.

I usually toss a bit of hot sauce into the mix, enough to keep the hot just under the taste buds for noticable piquante flavor, but sufficient to give it a little interesting zing. And hot sauces add salt, so the final product usually does not need any extra NaCl.

Just my take on things.

 

[sassy]

I never use table salt when cooking or baking. Just as I never use salted butter.

 

[Caine]

First of all, "hot sauce" does not belong in any type of Italian cooking. It is a concoction of pickled peppers and will add a particularly Unitalian flavor to your sauce and to whatever you use the sauce in or on. If you want to add some heat to Italian food, you use crushed red pepper flakes. That's why Italian restaurants put the shaker on the table.

Second, whoever came up with the idea that you need to use unsalted butter to control the salt in your food should be taken out behind the building and have their butt kicked thoroughly and severely. The actual contents of salt in salted butter is approximately 1/8 teaspoon per 1/4 pound. That is 1/2 teaspon PER POUND! I challange anyone who is not a professional food taster to detect that amount of salt in their finished product, unless of course you are using an Ina Garten recipe and have put 3 or 4 pounds of butter into an 8 inch single layer cake or something. But then, her recipes always have a couple of cups of salt in them too, so I don't think an extra 1/2 teaspoon per pound of butter is even going to be noticable.

 

[Candocook]

I don't add any extra salt to tomato sauces as there is already SO much in the canned tomatoes. Taste at the end and see what is needed.
You might like to get some kosher salt and/or sea salt (they aren't really exactly the same). They just taste better/less chemical than Morton's salt. But once incorporated in the liquid of a recipe, they are "salt". Kosher salt has a different structure so does require a different measurement, as others have pointed out.

 

[Corey123]

I'm making lasagna on the weekend for DH's bday. I'm making the sauce today and I'm trippling the batch because I'm making two pans of lasagna and we always like extra sauce.

#1. The recipe called for a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. I picked up three cans without realizing that one of the cans was tomato sauce not crushed tomatoes. I added it to the pan already, kind of noticing while pouring it in that there weren't any tomato chunks. Will it be ok?

#2. I also realized the recipe calls for Kosher salt and I have regular iodized salt and I have sea salt. Can I substitute the same amount or should I go out and buy the kosher salt?

Sher

It'll be just fine!

I usually use tomato sauce in sauces for spaghetti and lasagna.

As for Kosher salt, I think you'll need to go get some. I think it's less salty tasting than regular salt. You could end up with an unbearably salty sauce.

 

[jennyema]

lasagna.

As for Kosher salt, I think you'll need to go get some. I think it's less salty tasting than regular salt. You could end up with an unbearably salty sauce.

Kosher salt in and of itself isn't less salty tasting. As discussed before, it has a larger crystal size. If you measure out a teaspoon of kosher salt and dissolve it in a cup of water and do the same with table salt, the kosher-salted water would be less salty-tasting. But that's not because the kosher salt itself is less salty, it's because less salt fit into the teaspoon and thus less salt is in the water.