Celebrity chef Ina Garten offers her audience plenty of tips and tricks to make simple but delicious meals, including modern comfort food, old-fashioned desserts, and a wide range of soups. If you've ever made a basic chicken soup that was a bit underwhelming and bland, Garten recommends adding more of this basic ingredient.

In a clip from her show "Barefoot Contessa," Garten adds all the ingredients to her chicken soup before adding two large pinches of salt. Some cooks are afraid of salt due to health concerns, not to mention overly salty food is unappealing, but the right amount of salt is a must for making umami flavors shine in basic dishes like chicken soup.

Salt can also help to make foods taste more concentrated and aromatic, enhancing your chicken soup into something special rather than ho-hum. Garten usually doesn't specify how much salt to add to her recipes, but it's probably best to start small, taste the soup, and add more if needed to really boost those umami flavors.