Too much salt in spaghetti sauce?

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tkatz

Assistant Cook
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
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Atlanta, GA
Can someone tell me if they know how to get rid of too much salt in my spaghetti sauce? i added sea salt, and apparently way too much. now i've ruined it. any suggestions on something i can add to eliminate the salty flavor?

thanks, tkatz:cat:
 


Hi tkatz,

I saw this OChef, online that addressed your problem:

"There are a few possible antidotes. The flavor of lemon often mutes salt, so if it’s not too, too salty, you could add a little lemon juice, bit by bit, and taste to see if that relieves the problem without adding enough to make your sauce taste lemony.
Another trick is to add a skinned quartered potato or two to a sauce or stew and let it cook for 15 to 20 minutes before removing the potato. It will absorb some of the liquid and seasoning, cutting the salt, and you may want to replace the liquid you removed, as well, thereby diluting the salt further.
The more drastic solution, of course, is to increase the volume of most or all of the other ingredients to catch up to the amount of salt present."
 
Depending on how salty it is you probably need to build it into a larger batch. Tomato sauce freezes well so you can freeze the rest until you need more. There really is no way to remove salt.

JDP
 
I agree with JDP; make more sauce without salt and combine. Anything wlse will just mask the salt--you can't get it back out.
 
This sounds extreme salty to me. Cut your loses and dump it. It would probably take ten more batches of sauce to catch up to the salt level.
 
Ok, for my own position, I've done what JDP has done..and I will also confess here that I have on occasion, actually dumped the sauce completely if it's too salty and past correction, and substituted another kind of sauce or changed the entree altogether, if time is of the essence.
 
Simmering a quartered potato will help, it really depends on the degree of salinity the sauce has hit. If that fails, it is time for the disposal.
 
I think I would dump it out. Sea salt is alot more saltier than table salt in my experience. Chalk it up to experience and use just a tiny pinch at a time and taste as you go, you can always add more.
 
too much salt in spaghetti sauce

thanks to everyone for the quick replies and suggestions !!!

i remembered hearing about the potato trick and decided to try it. YIPPEE---it worked ! i threw in too much sea salt.....have never used it in my homemade spaghetti sauce before, and sure won't again !

tkatz:cat:
 
I'll remember the potato trick in future. I was just thinking about dumping lots of tomatoes in it and simmering further...
 
Sorry but the "potato trick" is a kitchen myth which has been dispelled over and over again by food scientists.

A potato does not selectively soak up only salt. It's just a sponge, soaking up some of the liquid.

Robert Wolke says " There was no detectable difference whatsoever in the salt water before and after being simmered with potato. That is, the potato did not lower the concentration of salt at all, either in the one-teaspoon-per-quart sample or in the one-tablespoon-per quart sample. The potato treatment just doesn't work. Period."

Read more here

The only way to save a salty soup or sauce is to dilute the liquid or add more of the nonsalty ingredients.

Also, sea salt isn't saltier than table salt or kosher salt. All salt is equally salty. What is different is the size of the salt crystals. The larger the crystal, the less salt per volume in a measuring unit. Kosher salt's crystals are larger than table salt's, thus you need more kosher salt to achieve the saltiness of one teaspoon of table salt. So it depends on crystal size,
 
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I`ve done similar myself in the past, what you Could do if it isn`t Too bad, is just not salt the pasta at all, the same works if it`s a rice dish too.
 
jennyema said:
Sorry but the "potato trick" is a kitchen myth which has been dispelled over and over again by food scientists.

A potato does not selectively soak up only salt. It's just a sponge, soaking up some of the liquid.

Robert Wolke says " There was no detectable difference whatsoever in the salt water before and after being simmered with potato. That is, the potato did not lower the concentration of salt at all, either in the one-teaspoon-per-quart sample or in the one-tablespoon-per quart sample. The potato treatment just doesn't work. Period."

Read more here

The only way to save a salty soup or sauce is to dilute the liquid or add more of the nonsalty ingredients.

Also, sea salt isn't saltier than table salt or kosher salt. All salt is equally salty. What is different is the size of the salt crystals. The larger the crystal, the less salt per volume in a measuring unit. Kosher salt's crystals are larger than table salt's, thus you need more kosher salt to achieve the saltiness of one teaspoon of table salt. So it depends on crystal size,


Jen's right on. The potato posesses no magical ability to draw salt out of liquid. It soaks up salty liquid. You could accomplish the same thing by taking out a ladle full of the sauce and replacing it with water. ...and you don't waste a potato.

All food salt is sodium chloride. Sodium chloride comes in only one strength. Differences in taste for sea salt are due to the other minerals that are present along with the sodium chloride.

BTW, comparison taste tests with professional food tasters (I'd like that job), suggest the majority of the population cannot detect a taste difference among table, kosher and sea salts.
 
I remember the point that Jennyema and Andy have made. It was discussed on some thread a while back. Robert Wolke's scientific explanation makes all the sense.

I am just struck and impressed by tkatz's whooping assertion that the potato trick worked for him/her.
 
I am sure it is the placebo affect. Robert Wolke's experiment was very carefully done and proves that the potato trick is just an old wives tale.

The only way to reduce the saltiness and keep the intended flavor is to make a second batch minus the salt and combine the two.
 
Glad you were able to salvage your sauce. I come from the same school of thought as just increasing the recipe accordingly to compensate for the extra salt. That may just be the Italian in me, thinking there is no such thing as too much "spaghetti" sauce!
 
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