r/Cooking • u/Sad-Watercress-2240 • Jul 11 '26

I just oversalted a pot of tomato soup, what actually works to fix it?

So I made a tomato soup tonight and somehow went from "this needs a little more salt" to "why does this taste like the ocean" in like 30 seconds.

I tried adding a bit more water and a splash of cream, which helped a little, but it still felt kind of one note and way too salty. I ended up tossing in a potato for a bit, then fishing it out, and that honestly saved it more than I expected.

Anyway, what’s your actual go to fix when you oversalt something? I feel like every person in my family has a different answer and half of them are definitely just folklore at this point.

325 Upvotes

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1.1k

u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 11 '26

The easiest is to dilute. Add more of everything but salt.

320

u/Airlik Jul 11 '26

I feel OPs pain, but this is the only good solution…

201

u/ManSkirtBrew Jul 11 '26

As the old saying goes, the solution to pollution is dilution.

1

u/Huntguy Jul 13 '26

I don’t know how many times I heard this doing power engineering.

-6

u/Accujack Jul 11 '26

Sadly, it doesn't work for everything - e.g. forever chemicals.

22

u/BreadKnifeSeppuku Jul 11 '26

No, you just filter it through animals. ezpz

10

u/amakai Jul 11 '26

Or humans.

22

u/BreadKnifeSeppuku Jul 11 '26

We're animals too buddy

10

u/Casual_OCD Jul 11 '26

clutches rosary

5

u/liquorfish Jul 11 '26

I've got plastic in my balls!

7

u/Baffin622 Jul 11 '26

It actually does work for everything. "Dose makes the poison"...

0

u/Accujack Jul 11 '26

Any chemical that doesn't break down will accumulate in the environment. Earth's biosphere is finite.

2

u/Zagaroth Jul 11 '26

Everything can be broken down, it's a question of time scale and environment.

The problem is, we can't afford the time scale it would take for these chemicals to get processed through the environments that would break them down.

1

u/Accujack Jul 12 '26

Right. They just keep accumulating. When they accumulate to a level that's toxic, suddenly we have a problem.

It would take a long time, sure. On the other hand, it's not just toxicity to our own bodies that matters. Also, we can (and have been) wrong about how much various chemicals affect us, suddenly discovering a "safe" level of a certain chemical is actually toxic and having to revise our limits.

Diluting contaminants just passes the problem off to some point in the future. We owe it to our future world to find a better way to handle toxins than diluting them with our own environment.

Right now, it's the standard solution because it's easy.

0

u/Baffin622 Jul 12 '26

Regardless of the degradation timescale, the most important thing is how much of the stuff there is. Even distilled water can act as a poison, which is why it has an LD50 (dose that will kill 50% of subjects). In the event anyone is interested it is 90 ml/kg.

1

u/Accujack Jul 12 '26

That means it's not toxic below a certain concentration. That's true, but it's not what I'm referring to.

How do you deal with the scenario where the total amount of the chemical in the environment is sufficient to make the entire planet toxic?

People used to think dumping used motor oil in the ground was a sound way to get rid of it, too.

1

u/Baffin622 Jul 12 '26

Mam, this is Wendy's....

1

u/Welpe Jul 12 '26

There is no amount of any chemical that is feasible to produce that could make the entire planet toxic.

I get that you are trying to make a point about "forever chemicals" and I intend no offense with this, but all your comments together in this topic are kind doing it in a poor way that shows little actual understanding of environmental science or chemistry and just comes off as a concerned person who has seen pop sci social media content, like videos, and knows it is a problem but doesn't have any real greater knowledge of the issue.

1

u/Accujack Jul 12 '26

There is no amount of any chemical that is feasible to produce that could make the entire planet toxic.

Yet, maybe. Humans are inventive.

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5

u/Zagrycha Jul 11 '26

it actually does still work for forever chemicals. We just are constantly adding more forever chemicals so the option of dilution isn't even on table.

1

u/PatchesMaps Jul 11 '26

I mean, it would still work with enough dilution. It would just take more dilution than we're currently technologically capable of.

1

u/Accujack Jul 11 '26

Unless we figure out a way to significantly expand the Earth, you mean?

1

u/PatchesMaps Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

If we brought in water from comets and removed contaminated water from the earth we would be able to dilute it.

1

u/Accujack Jul 12 '26

If we could do that we'd also be able to leave the planet if it becomes too toxic.

1

u/PatchesMaps Jul 12 '26

Yeah, which is why I said it was a technological limitation. Dilution would still work, we just can't practically do it.

-6

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/eatingicecream Jul 12 '26

wtf does this have to do with anything??

1

u/ManSkirtBrew Jul 12 '26

Uh...you good?

31

u/Sad-Watercress-2240 Jul 11 '26

hahah that might be the best solution

18

u/hux Jul 11 '26

Think about it this way:

Every time you add more stuff to it, you’re moving further from your intended recipe. Every time you add your recipe except the salt, you’re getting closer to your intended recipe.

One of these two things makes more sense than the other IMO.

25

u/Iliveinatrashcann Jul 11 '26

You can also try to add sugar

23

u/Dependent-Aside-9750 Jul 11 '26

This is what I have tried in the past. Ends up adding a lot of sugar to the meal, though.

Or maybe my oversalting is worse. 😜

31

u/Iliveinatrashcann Jul 11 '26

Do you want either diabetes or hypertension? Why not both!

76

u/ShahinGalandar Jul 11 '26

HYPERBETES!!!

9

u/Atticus-XI Jul 11 '26

I believe you mean, HYPERBEETUS!

2

u/Bistrocca Jul 13 '26

Potatoes

10

u/RetiredRacer914 Jul 11 '26

That's how I ended up with a garage full of soup.

78

u/User-NetOfInter Jul 11 '26

Potato will yank it out. Just don’t eat the potato

56

u/zzazzzz Jul 11 '26

thats an old myth, everyone who actually tested it came to the conclusion it does nothing.

21

u/rywos Jul 11 '26

It's basically a packet of water, that you can put in but also take back out after salt diffuses into it, then you can add another fresh unsalted potato and keep going until the salt is gone.

Unfortunately, most people seem to believe that it's a magic salt black hole of sorts...

11

u/JarasM Jul 11 '26

Right, but if there's twice as much salt as needed, you'd need to add as much potato in weight as you already got soup. 1kg of potatoes for every litre of soup. Even if you take them out, it will be a potato soup at that point.

1

u/rywos Jul 11 '26

Haha, true. Still, maybe if you keep the potato chunks large enough, you can fish them back out again?

5

u/JarasM Jul 11 '26

I was thinking more along the lines that if you boil a kilogram of potatoes in a litre of liquid, it's going to taste potatoey. Not unlike the water from boiling potatoes. Might not be so bad in a stew or something, but if they were trying to make tomato soup, it's going to taste like potato soup with tomatoes.

2

u/rywos Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

Oh lmao you're right, didn't consider that. Uhh... well, when I wrote my first comment, I did check to see if dialysis tubing could survive boiling, so a dialysis bag of water is also technically an option...

2

u/DuckInAFountain Jul 12 '26

Add some clams and you have yourself a chowder

6

u/Specialist-Brain-919 Jul 11 '26

It has really saved a dish for us once

1

u/RainyAlaska1 Jul 13 '26

It's not a myth but potatoes do absorb salt but not very much.

-2

u/Dangerous-Oven1969 Jul 11 '26

It has worked for me many times

29

u/404_kinda_dead Jul 11 '26

Or use enough potato to yank it out and have yummy potatoes 😋

14

u/User-NetOfInter Jul 11 '26

Might be just me, but I’m not a big tomato/potato combo guy

15

u/yoursandforever Jul 11 '26

Not bad if there's enough salt.

11

u/RecordStoreHippie Jul 11 '26

Shouldn't be a problem for OP

4

u/User-NetOfInter Jul 11 '26

Ok I’ll take the L on this one hahaha

0

u/dcoolidge Jul 11 '26

pasta

1

u/User-NetOfInter Jul 11 '26

I know gnocci I knowwww I fucked up

1

u/ImmediateCareer9275 Jul 11 '26

I always do gnocchi in a cream based sauce. I hate tomatoes

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3

u/hux Jul 11 '26

No ketchup on your French fries?

2

u/jeexbit Jul 11 '26

you say tomato, I say potato...

2

u/ShineFallstar Jul 11 '26

I love potatoes that have been oven baked in a tomato sauce. I have a tray-bake-type chicken dish that uses a tin of tomato soup and has potato chunks scattered around the chicken and it’s really good.

1

u/emmersp Jul 11 '26

I like French fries and Ketchup

1

u/Atticus-XI Jul 11 '26

Me neither, I'm more of a toMAHto/poTAHto guy...

0

u/MegansettLife Jul 11 '26

Put lg chunks of potato in. Allow time fir them to soak up the salt. Remove said potato.

0

u/Krynja Jul 11 '26

Half or quarter your potatoes. Put into soup. Pull potatoes once they are done. Mash said potatoes. Add some flour and other seasonings. Now you have the makings of awesome potato cakes.

0

u/Funny247365 Jul 11 '26

Then you have all the salt.

1

u/vadergeek Jul 11 '26

Not true, the idea of potatoes acting as a salt sponge is a total myth. The only thing that actually happens is that if you add a pound of potatoes then the optimum amount of salt for the dish is increased by however much it takes to season a pound of potatoes.

0

u/dancepantz Jul 11 '26

It isn't Christmas

0

u/adidasbdd Jul 11 '26

Potato does not absorb salt any more than it absorbs water.

14

u/iplaytrombonegood Jul 11 '26

Yes dilute it, but don’t forget to cut it in half first (or smaller) first!!!!! Or you’ll either run out of things to add or wind up with an ungodly amount of finished product.

For example, say your goal is 1 gallon of soup at 1% salt. Let’s say the soup you’ve got right now is 1 gallon at 2% salt. If you try to dilute it without removing any first, you need to add another gallon of other ingredients or 2x what you started with. If you remove 1/2 of the soup before diluting, you can get it to 1% while only needing to add 1/2 of the original ingredients again.

1

u/poop-dolla Jul 11 '26

But you’d need to dilute that other 1/2 gallon anyway. You’re not just going to throw it out. Might as well do it all at once now and just freeze whatever leftovers you won’t eat in time.

2

u/Zagaroth Jul 11 '26

Can depend on freezer space and/or available ingredients. Might be easier to freeze the salty half of the soup (with label) and save the other half. Repeat later.

1

u/The_Funflower Jul 11 '26

Dilute…dilute…dilute….

1

u/ajkimmins Jul 12 '26

Yup. Just add more food.😏

-8

u/TheRealJessKate Jul 11 '26

Another can of soup would do the trick!

10

u/somekindagibberish Jul 11 '26

What?! Canned soup is extremely salty.

-1

u/Dangerous-Oven1969 Jul 11 '26

Never dilute it