How to rescue an over-salted dish

What actually works

In order of effectiveness.

• Add more of everything else. More stock, more tomatoes, more vegetables, more cream, a second batch of the base. This is the only real cure, because it is the only thing that lowers the concentration.
• Add an unsalted starch alongside — plain rice, potatoes, pasta, bread, couscous. The dish stays salty; the plate does not.
• Add acid. Lemon or vinegar does not remove salt and it substantially reduces how salty the dish reads. Often the fastest useful move.
• Add a little sugar. Same principle, and a small amount goes a long way.
• Add fat or dairy. Cream, yoghurt, butter, coconut milk, soured cream. They coat the tongue and blunt the edge.
• Split the batch. Take half out, make a fresh unsalted half, and combine. Practical for large quantities.

What does not work

• The potato trick. A raw potato simmered in a salty soup absorbs salty liquid in proportion to its volume — it removes salt and water together, so the concentration barely changes. It also gives you a bland potato. This is the most persistent piece of wrong kitchen advice there is.
• Rinsing. Works for something solid and discrete — over-brined meat, over-salted olives, a salty cheese — and does nothing for a sauce or a soup.
• Adding more of the same seasoning to "balance" it. Adding more spice to salty food gives you salty spicy food.
• Boiling it down. This makes it worse. Salt does not evaporate; water does.
• Sugar alone, in quantity. Enough sugar to genuinely mask heavy salt makes the dish taste odd. A pinch balances; a spoonful confuses.

By dish

Soup or stew

Add unsalted stock or water plus more vegetables, then re-thicken by reducing or with a starch. Then acid.

Sauce

Add cream, unsalted stock, or more of the base. Serve less of it per plate.

Braise or curry

Add tinned tomatoes, coconut milk, yoghurt or more vegetables. Serve with plenty of plain rice.

Meat that has been over-brined

Soak it in fresh water for an hour or two, changing the water, before cooking.

Roast vegetables

Hard to fix. Toss with unsalted vegetables, or serve as part of something larger.

Baking

Cannot be fixed after the fact. This is why bread and cake recipes specify salt by weight.

Not doing it next time

• Salt in stages and taste at each. The single habit that prevents this.
• Use the same salt every time, and know its volume-to-weight relationship. A teaspoon of fine table salt holds far more than a teaspoon of flaky sea salt.
• Under-salt anything that will reduce. The salt concentrates as the water leaves.
• Check whether the stock is already salted. Shop-bought stock cubes are very salty, and a recipe assuming unsalted stock will be wrong.
• Check whether the meat is already brined. Many supermarket chickens and turkeys are.
• Season at the end when using salty ingredients — soy sauce, anchovy, bacon, capers, olives, parmesan, miso. Each of these is a salt decision.

Common questions