Too spicy, too salty, too acidic: How to save over-seasoned dishes

Has it ever happened to you that you experimented with different spices and suddenly found that the balance was lost? With sweat beading on their foreheads, many now aimlessly try to add other spices to balance the taste and end up with a totally over-seasoned dish in the kitchen.

Have you been a little too generous with chillies, cayenne pepper and the like? If you taste your chilli or curry and have to stop for a moment because your taste buds are on fire, don’t panic. It’s usually enough to add mild components to tone down the spiciness. Try yoghurt, sour cream or coconut milk first, but keep in mind that certain dishes need different components. Another very useful tip is to add a couple of raw potatoes to your dish. They could help a big deal with soaking up any excess spice. You can either leave them as part of your dish or remove them and use them up later. And if that’s still not enough, resort to sweeter ingredients like honey or sugar to soften the spiciness. As a general rule, only use as many of the mentioned ingredients as you need – start with a little and increase the amount until you are happy with the taste.

We actually like the image of the chef in love whose thoughts turn to things other than the right salt ratio – so we have nothing against love, but we do have something against saltiness. So if your soup or sauce is too salty, the first step is to add more liquid, like water or a bit of milk.

Can life be too sweet? Not really. But it can happen with food. If too much sugar has found its way into your dessert, a few small tips can help. The most important one: now acid has to come into play. You can compensate for the sweetness with lemon juice, sometimes also with vinegar (make sure to use a mild and sweet one). Start out with just a tiny bit and progress from there. Depending on the dish, you can also add bitter elements that break through the sweetness – dark chocolate with a high cocoa content or espresso, for example. For creams, simply use more yoghurt or cream cheese to make the taste more neutral.

Acidity is an important ingredient in many different dishes. But when it gets too sour, your taste buds are quickly overwhelmed. To restore balance, sweetness is the first choice: add a teaspoon of sugar or maple syrup to a sour curry or sauce and increase the amount until you are entirely happy. Fat is also good for softening acidity. For example, a small piece of butter works wonders when a tomato sauce is too sour.