The Easy Step You Can Take To Prevent Oversalted Soup
Soup is a hearty meal that offers loads of options. Whether you are a fan of homemade chicken noodle soup, pasta e fagioli, or a slow cooked minestrone, soup is part of practically every cuisine there is. According to the Soup Maker Guide, soup is probably one of the first foods we were cooking. In fact, they report that the first soup can be traced back to 20,000 B.C. in China when pottery was used for cooking. Fast-forward to modern times and soup continues to be an important staple that is both comforting and full of nutritional sustenance.
Châtelaine explains that there are several steps to creating a delicious soup. Conversely, there are a lot of pitfalls that can lead to a not-so-appetizing spoonful of soup, from leaving out your spices/aromatics to failing to consider the various cooking times your ingredients require. One mishap that you may have encountered in your own soup preparation is oversalting it. It's easy to do, but oversalting your soup is also a preventable offense. Here's what you need to keep in mind if you find yourself in such hot water.
Taste as you go
Southern Living explains that the key to not oversalting your soup is to use the tried-and-true practice of tasting as you go. As the publication gently reminds readers, you can always add more, but it can be a little trickier to fix a broth that has been oversalted. Ashley Seelig, Director of QA and Product Development at Fischer & Wieser, told Southern Living that soup lovers need to read the labels of any spice blends as well as meats like bacon and sausage they plan to add, as they may already be quite salty. Châtelaine concurs, noting that stocks, beans, and other canned ingredients can also add to the amount of salt in your soup. They recommend waiting until the end of the cooking process to add seasonings to avoid oversalting.
Of course, if you do find that you've accidentally added too much salt to your soup, MasterClass suggests adding a peeled potato to soak up some of that excess sodium. This will add 30 minutes to your soup's cook time, and the potato needs to be fished out of the pot before it is fully cooked.