Why do you need to salt food at the end of cooking? When to salt beef soup When to salt vegetable soup

Everyone seems to know that this is how it should be done. And no one does. Oh, in vain.

This is what the salt norm per day looks like for each of us - 5-6 g:

And this is what the portion we consume daily looks like:

It's very simple to explain: we don't know how to salt food.

Remember:

Undissolved salt penetrates the product rather slowly. Therefore, salt crystals from the surface of food fall directly onto the taste buds of the oral cavity and cause the sensation of saltiness of the food. To salt the entire dish to the same taste would require significantly more salt.

Salt dissolved in water (broth, decoction) is absorbed faster and more intensely by foods, which means more of it is required. Salt the soup immediately before eating - reduce the amount of salt significantly.

Iodized or sea salt loses iodine during heat treatment. If you want to preserve nutrients, add salt to food before eating.

Salt complicates the cooking process and even spoils some foods!

In the presence of salt, the cell membrane of some products becomes thicker. This makes it difficult for them to become soft during cooking. Therefore, solid foods (for example, beans) in salt water are cooked through longer heat treatment. It is very difficult to boil even ordinary potatoes in sour cabbage soup until soft. And meat or liver salted at the beginning of cooking will always be tough.

Salt inhibits the process of softening the gluten of flour. Therefore, salty baked goods are not so porous, fluffy and soft. Although a small amount of salt helps maintain the shape of the product. Because of this, the spice is added a little to all flour products, even sweet ones.

The presence of salt slightly increases the boiling point of the liquid. Those. foods in a salty solution will cook at temperatures exceeding one hundred degrees Celsius. This should be taken into account when strict temperature conditions are required, for example, when preparing porridge or stewing.

Salt helps to release juice from food. This can only be useful if the juice of the product is bitter and it is better to remove it before cooking (for example, this is what you do with eggplants). Salads should be salted immediately before serving, and fried meat should be salted only after a golden brown crust appears.

Salt is absorbed more evenly into an almost finished product than into a raw product. Therefore, adding spices at the end of cooking ensures that all parts of the dish taste the same.

During heat treatment, especially long-term cooking, the volume of the dish changes due to the evaporation of liquid. When adding salt at the beginning of cooking, there is a high risk of oversalting the dish. When the food is almost ready, it is easy to estimate the amount of salt needed for the final product.

How to salt food correctly? The question is not idle. After all, like any spice, you can not only improve a dish, but also completely ruin it. My grandmother, Anna Nikolaevna, said: “You know how to salt, you know how to judge.” From time immemorial there have been culinary rules: when and how much to salt. Let's remember them.

Rule one

Any liquid or semi-liquid dishes prepared with water should be salted only then , when they are completely ready, because food absorbs salt more evenly at the end of cooking.

The meat broth is salted 20-30 minutes before the end of cooking, so it will become transparent.

Vegetable soups - 10 minutes before the end of cooking.

Mushroom broth - at the very end.

Legumes(beans, beans, lentils, peas) are salted after cooking. If you salt them at the beginning, they will cook for a very long time.

However, from this rule there is exceptions: If you cook cereals, pasta, vermicelli, dumplings, dumplings, dumplings, as well as fish, fish soup or vegetable broth, then you need to salt the water at the beginning of cooking. In this case, the water boils faster.

Rule two

Meat should be salted very moderately; it already contains various salts. The delicate taste of a meat dish and its pronounced smell are preserved only with moderate salt consumption.

If you stew meat, you need to salt it 10 minutes before cooking, otherwise it will be tough.

When frying, pieces of meat (langettes, entrecotes, escalopes) are salted only when a golden brown crust has formed on them (usually 3 minutes before the end of cooking, otherwise they will be dry).

Meat dishes cooked on a spit are salted just before the end of roasting.

The liver is fried unsalted, otherwise it turns out too tough.

Rule three

Fish (either boiled, fried, or stewed), you need to salt it generously.

To make fish with a soft consistency firmer, it needs to be salted an hour before frying.

If you are going to fry or stew fish, then it is better to salt and pepper it raw 10-15 minutes before cooking, then it will not fall apart during the frying process.

Fish for baking in the oven is salted 5-7 minutes before cooking.

Rule four

Potatoes are salted differently, depending on how they are prepared.

Boiled potatoes, peeled, are salted as soon as the water boils.

Jacket potatoes are salted at the very beginning of cooking (if salted at all).

It is better to salt fried potatoes when they are almost ready, otherwise the slices or strips into which the potatoes are cut will fall apart.

If potatoes are boiled for mashing, then they add salt at the end of cooking, then it will be tastier.

Rule five

When frying vegetables, salt is added at the very end, otherwise the vegetables turn out stewed.

When frying eggplants, salt the pan, not the vegetables themselves - this makes it almost impossible to over-salt them.

Raw salads are salted before serving, otherwise the juice will stand out, the taste will deteriorate, and the dish will be unappetizing.

As you can see, salting food is an art.

If you also know the rules of this art, tell us about them and remember that under-salting is on the table, over-salting is on the back.

    First courses should be salted when the main products are cooked and are able to absorb salt evenly. Before adding salt to the soup, you need to taste the meat and potatoes for doneness. If you add salt too early, the soup will take longer to cook and the grounds will be tasteless.

    Usually, when cooking soup, salt is added almost before the end; I add salt after adding the potatoes; if you add salt before, you can make a mistake, and the soup will most likely turn out to be too salty. But sometimes I use soy at the beginning, when the broth just boils.

    I usually add salt at the end of cooking, for example, if I cook soup with meatballs, there is already salt there, but if you add salt earlier, you can simply over-salt it. If I cook soup with chicken, I cook it first, then add salt at the end, after that I add the rest of the ingredients to the soup, such as potatoes, noodles, vegetables, and if necessary, I add salt to the soup at the end of cooking.

    About meat soup. Since the meat is salted twenty minutes before it’s ready, it turns out that I salt the soup at the stage of cooking the meat. And then (after, as you said, throwing everything else away) I just taste and add salt if necessary.

    I salt all soups 5-10 minutes before they are ready. I add fried onions, carrots and herbs, salt and cook for another 5-10 minutes.

    It seems to me that all soups are salted the same way, in the sense that there is not much difference, either at the beginning or at the end of cooking. For example, I salt it in the middle. And at the end I taste it; if I haven’t added enough salt (which happens more often), then I add more salt towards the end.

    Each person has their own method and amount when using salt. For example, when preparing soup, I try to salt it only when it contains all the necessary ingredients in order to thoroughly saturate them with salt.

    Some soups already initially contain foods containing a large amount of salt - these could be pickles, sauerkraut, even a simple stew contains a lot of salt and spices. So by adding these ingredients you are already salting the soup. All that remains is after adding all the ingredients, wait for it to boil and add salt to taste. In soups prepared exclusively with unsalted foods, it is also better to add salt at the very end - many foods, such as potatoes, intensively absorb salt at high temperatures. However, my grandmother always said that potatoes will not take excess salt, but over-salted soup can always be saved by adding potatoes to it.

    Usually soups need to be salted and seasoned with seasonings 5-10 minutes before they are ready. This will distribute the salt evenly. Usually I still try the soup after it has been checked and stood for about 10 minutes; if there is not enough salt, then add more salt. But if you have over-salted, you can add more potatoes and boil a little.

    at the very beginning, so that all the dirty foam comes out of the meat, and it can be collected with a spoon

    It is better to salt the soup after adding all the ingredients, shortly before it is fully cooked. This is due to the fact that everything takes longer to cook in salt water, which means there are fewer vitamins and other useful substances that are destroyed by temperature.

    Once you add salt to the soup at the beginning of cooking, all the flavor is absorbed from the ingredients into the broth. Therefore, you need to add salt to the soup 10 minutes before removing it from the heat.

    In 10 minutes, all the products in the soup have time to salt, but the taste does not have time to boil out of them and the beneficial properties are preserved.

    I usually add salt towards the end of cooking. After I put the potatoes there, because potatoes tend to boil, and in salt water they retain their shape. Yes, and of course, salt destroys the beneficial vitamins contained in vegetables, and it is better to add salt at the end of cooking.

Salt is an essential food additive that has long been present in the human gastronomic world. Despite modern contradictions between benefits and harms, it is rarely possible to completely eliminate it from the diet. It is almost impossible to prepare a delicious soup without salt, because it adds an interesting taste to the dish. But what to do if you over-salted the soup and how to salt it correctly to avoid this?

Unfortunately, there is no universal rule, since much depends on individual preferences. However, some general rules still exist:

  • Most dishes are recommended to be salted at the last stage of cooking;
  • Solyanka is salted in small quantities, since it contains salty components;
  • Before testing the dish for salt, it must be cooled, otherwise it may seem less salty;
  • When checking a soup for salt, just taste the broth;
  • try the dish no more than twice, otherwise sensitivity to salt may become dulled and you won’t notice the saltiness;
  • salt from different manufacturers may have different concentrations, so it is better to choose a specific brand and use only that one.

What to do if you over-salt your soup?

Depending on the type of soup, the method for solving the problem may differ. To avoid confusion, you can use the following recommendations:

  • Soupwith vermicelli can be corrected by adding a bag of rice or flour for 10 minutes.
  • What to do if you have over-salted cabbage soup, borscht, solyanka or tomato soup? Just add a small amount of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar.
  • You can throw a handful of rice into the pickle or green cabbage soup or add a raw egg.
  • Adding tomato paste or sour cream will help with the problem with any “red” soup.
  • Lemon will perfectly correct fish soup and solyanka.
  • Soup-Mashed potatoes can be saved by adding cream.
  • Bean, chicken, mushroom or pea soup will be improved by adding a raw egg.
  • The excess salt will be absorbed by the peeled potatoes. If the first dish is thick enough, the “auxiliary” potatoes can be removed and used as a side dish or added to a salad. In empty soup, you can simply mash the potatoes and leave them.
  • Cereals such as rice, buckwheat or millet absorb salt perfectly. The cereal must be wrapped in gauze and placed in a pan. The bundle can remain there until completely cooked.
  • Chicken eggs are great for fixing heavily salted fish soup or other fish dishes. The egg is broken into a bowl, mixed and carefully poured into the soup. What to do if a liquid dish with boiled eggs is not eaten in the family? You can simply remove them with a slotted spoon before serving.
  • Instead of cereal, you can add wheat flour, wrapped in clean gauze or cloth, to a pan with over-salted soup. After some time, the bag is removed. The disadvantage of this method is the appearance of turbidity in the broth.

How to properly salt various dishes

Different dishes require different amounts of salt, but at what stage should food be salted and in what amount?

Soups

It is better to salt the soup when all its components are cooked. In a three-liter saucepan, 3 teaspoons of salt are enough.

Meat

The meat does not require much salt because it is not completely bland. This is what causes problems during cooking. A teaspoon of salt is needed per kilogram of steak cooked over an open fire; half a teaspoon is added per kilogram of baked meat. How much salt do you need per kg of minced meat? Half a teaspoon is enough.

Fish

Fish is not salted like other products. Before you start cooking, you need to rub it with salt. Per kilogram you need 3 teaspoons. When it comes to preparing fish soup, it is better to add 4 tablespoons, since some of the salt will be absorbed by other ingredients. Fish dishes are salted before cooking.

Vegetables

Salt gives vegetables juiciness. It is better to salt them towards the end of cooking, otherwise they may become tougher. When frying eggplants, it is necessary to salt the oil used for cooking. There is no need to salt the fruit itself. Boiled potatoes are salted 15 minutes after boiling. A teaspoon of salt is enough for a kilogram of potatoes.

Pasta and dumplings

Any dishes made from unleavened dough that are cooked with broth or water must be salted while the liquid is boiling. It is from the broth that the dish will absorb the required amount of salt. For pasta you need 1 teaspoon per liter of water, for dumplings or dumplings - half a spoon.

Sweet pastries

Sweet baked goods are salted to emphasize the sweetness and airiness of the dough. For sweet dough, one pinch per kilogram is enough, and for yeast dough, two. A teaspoon of salt is added per kilogram of puff pastry prepared with an oil base.

How to save dishes from excess salt

There are methods that will help you cope with the problem using products.

What to do if you oversalt your meat or fish?

Over-salting meat is a complex problem that requires some sacrifices: the taste of the dish will most likely suffer, but you will still be able to save it from the trash. The meat must be removed and washed in cold water. After this, it is kept on fire for some time.

Grilled, lightly salted fish can be treated with the addition of lemon juice.

What to do if you over-salt your mashed potatoes?

In this case, adding some unsalted mashed potatoes helps. If this option is not suitable, then you can use butter. Many people like potatoes with the addition of butter, which adds tenderness, mutes the salty taste and makes the mashed potatoes thicker.

How to fix rice?

The most suitable method in this case is to rinse with plenty of cool water. The lower the water temperature, the better the end result. Washed rice will become more attractive and will get rid of excess salt.

Correcting over-salted porridge, buckwheat and other cereals

If the porridge was prepared with milk, then you can get rid of the oversalting by adding a small amount more. Otherwise, it is better to use peeled raw potatoes, which will absorb excess salt.

How to avoid oversalting

There are several small tricks that will help you avoid repeating mistakes in the future:

  • taste food while cooking, but not too often, once or twice is enough;
  • study the components of the dish in advance for the salt content;
  • remember: you can always add salt to taste, but it’s less common to save soup and other dishes from over-salting!

Mushroom soup You can prepare it from many types of mushrooms, but it turns out to be especially tasty and aromatic from white ones. It is perhaps difficult to imagine a more “summer” first course than freshly picked mushroom soup. But even in winter, such a soup can be prepared; champignons or dried mushrooms are great for it.


To prepare the soup, you need to sort out the mushrooms, rinse thoroughly with running cold water and peel them. It is fashionable to cut large ones into pieces, small ones are placed whole in the broth. After preparing the broth, it is fashionable to catch the mushrooms with a slotted spoon and fry them, and then add them back to the soup. Fans of dietary dishes can do without frying. If you plan to put dried mushrooms in the soup, then you should first soak them in cold water for 3-4 hours, and only then cook them.


For cooking mushroom soup required a saucepan of suitable size and a frying pan for frying the mushrooms or vegetables themselves (carrots, onions).



Preparing this soup requires a minimum of time and effort, and the dish turns out tasty, aromatic and appetizing. The best addition to it would be white bread croutons, fried on vegetable butter, a handful of chopped fresh herbs and a couple of spoons of sour cream, which will give the soup a special tenderness and a pleasant creamy taste.


500 g fresh champignons
2 medium onions
1 medium carrot
3 medium potatoes or 150-200 g vermicelli (preferably “spider web”)
salt (to taste)
greens (to taste)
sour cream (to taste)


Prepare mushroom broth. To do this, wash the champignons thoroughly and cut them into four parts. Place in a saucepan, pour in 2.5-3.0 liters of water, and place over medium heat. As soon as the broth begins to boil, skim off any foam that has formed with a spoon and reduce the heat. Cook for about 1 hour, periodically removing the foam, add salt. At this time, peel the carrots and onions, chop them finely and fry in vegetable or olive oil for 3-5 minutes. Then remove the mushrooms from the broth, cool slightly and finely chop. Add them to the carrots and onions and fry lightly. If you plan to cook soup with potatoes, then you need to peel it, cut it into cubes and put it in boiling broth, and when it is almost ready, add mushrooms and vegetables. If the soup is prepared with noodles, then mushrooms and vegetables are added first, the soup is simmered over low heat for 5-7 minutes, and then the vermicelli is added. Next, the soup is cooked for another 2 minutes, after which the pan is removed from the stove. Before serving, the dish should sit for at least half an hour; it is better to add sour cream and herbs not to the pan, but to the plate.



The highlight of this dish is that almost all the ingredients can be assembled or made yourself. This gives it a special, truly homely taste, and not to mention the delicious aroma of porcini mushrooms. Well, if you manage to get your hands on real country sour cream, rest assured that a pot of this mushroom soup will be eaten in one sitting!


500 g porcini mushrooms
2 onions
2 medium carrots
2.5-3 cups flour
50 ml vegetable oil
water
salt (to taste)
greens (to taste)
sour cream (to taste)


Prepare the noodle dough: Place half the flour on a board and form a small well in the center. Pour oil and 100 ml of boiled water at room temperature mixed into it in a separate container. Lightly salt and knead the dough, which is thick enough to resemble liquid sour cream. Then gradually add the remaining flour until the dough becomes stiff enough. Roll it out with a rolling pin into a thin layer and cut into strips. Place the board with noodles in a warm place for several hours to dry.


When the noodles are ready, you can start preparing the mushroom broth. The mushrooms must be sorted, cleaned and washed thoroughly with cold running water. Then place them in a saucepan with 2.5-3 liters of water and cook over low heat for about 1 hour, periodically skimming off the foam, and add salt. After this, you need to place the noodles in the broth and cook over medium heat for 10-12 minutes. At this time, fry finely chopped onion in a frying pan in vegetable oil and transfer it to the broth. Let the soup simmer for another 2-3 minutes, remove from heat, and leave for about half an hour. Serve the soup with sour cream, white bread croutons and finely chopped fresh herbs.



This soup has a delicate consistency, making it sure I'll like it children. For it you can use champignons, porcini mushrooms or boletus. It is better if the mushrooms are small, they give a richer aroma.


Rinse the mushrooms thoroughly under cold water, peel and cut into medium pieces. Boil in salted water for 40-45 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and fry in butter, adding flour and finely chopped garlic. When the mushrooms are slightly browned, pour about 2 cups of mushroom broth into the frying pan, bring to a boil, add salt and pepper to taste. Then cool the soup a little, pour into a blender, use it to grind all the ingredients to a puree-like consistency, pour in the cream and serve the dish, garnishing with chopped herbs.


Boil water in a saucepan. Chop the peeled potatoes into small pieces and place in boiling water. Cook for ten minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, peel and wash the carrots and onions. Chop the onion into cubes. Grate the carrots using the large segment of a grater. Wash the mushrooms, place on a disposable towel, dry, and cut into slices. Pour oil into a preheated saucepan and add mushrooms and vegetables to it. Fry over low heat, stirring occasionally, for five minutes. Cook the stir-fry soup for another 10 minutes. Cut the processed cheese into pieces. Finely chop the washed greens. Pour the cream into the pan and add the cheeses. Add salt and pepper. As soon as the soup boils, remove to the slab and add the herbs. Leave the soup covered for 10 minutes.


Sort and wash the beans. Place in a saucepan, add a liter of water and leave for five hours or overnight. Then we put it on the stove

and bring to a boil. Cook over low heat, covered, for about an hour. We wash the champignons, put them in a separate pan and fill them with two liters of water. From the moment it boils, cook for another five minutes. Peel, wash and cut the potatoes into pieces. Peel the onion and finely chop it. Cut the peeled carrots into thin strips. Using a slotted spoon, remove the champignons from the pan and cut into small pieces. Wash the rice well. Place potatoes, half of the chopped onions and carrots, and rice into the boiling mushroom broth. Cover with a lid and cook for 15 minutes over low heat. Stew the remaining vegetables in hot oil until soft, stirring occasionally. Place the mushrooms in the pan and fry them with the vegetables for a while. Add the roast to the soup. Salt, pepper, season with your favorite spices. Place the boiled beans in the pan and cook for another seven minutes. Add finely chopped greens to the soup. Let the soup sit for about 15 minutes and serve.

Boil vegetable broth in a saucepan. Wash and separate the broccoli into florets. Peel the potatoes, wash them and cut them into cubes. Finely chop the peeled and washed onion. Melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the onion in it until golden brown. Wash the champignons, dry lightly and chop into slices. Rearrange add potatoes and mushrooms to boiling broth and cook over low heat for ten minutes. Add broccoli and roast, add salt and cook for another five minutes. Pour the hot soup into portions and sprinkle with parsley.


Sort the pearl barley, rinse and soak overnight. In the morning, rinse the cereal, add broth, add a whole onion, and cook over intense heat. After boiling, turn down the heat and cook for about 20 minutes. Peel the carrots and potatoes, rinse and chop them: potatoes into small pieces, carrots into small chips. Transfer the vegetables to the soup and simmer for five minutes. Wash the champignons, cut them into slices and fry in butter until tender. Pepper and salt. Transfer the mushrooms to the soup and simmer for five minutes from the moment they boil. Add cream in a thin stream, add bay leaf and salt, keep on fire until boiling and remove from heat. Add chopped herbs and garlic pressed through a garlic press. Stir and serve.


Peel and wash the carrots and onions. Chop the vegetables into small cubes and fry in vegetable oil in a cauldron. We clean the mushrooms, wash them and cut them into thin slices. We put them in a cauldron with vegetables. Add the sorted and washed lentils here and fry everything together. Pour in the heated broth. Peel the potatoes and zucchini, rinse and cut into cubes. Place in boiling broth. Cook for another quarter of an hour. Rinse the greens, peel the garlic and chop it finely with a sharp knife. Add everything to the soup, cover with a lid and we insist for a while.


Clean and wash the mushrooms, chop them coarsely. Place in a saucepan, add 2.5 liters of water, wait until it boils, and cook for 20 minutes. Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes. We sort and wash the buckwheat. Place buckwheat and potatoes in a saucepan and boil for a quarter of an hour. Grate the peeled carrots into strips. Peel the onion and finely chop it. Fry vegetables in butter until soft. Transfer the roast into the soup and boil for a couple of minutes. Season with salt, add chopped herbs and remove from the stove.


1. You can put a bay leaf in the mushroom soup, but this should be done at the very end of cooking (about 10 minutes), and when the soup is ready, the bay leaf should be removed immediately.


3. From boletus and especially boletus mushrooms, the broth turns out to be quite dark, so it is better to prepare soup from them with the addition of processed cheese. The cheese is placed at the very end of cooking, pre-cut into cubes.