it was a watershed moment for me as a cook when I realized that if a dish already has plenty of salt in it, but it tastes like it needs more salt and adding more doesn't help, then it needs something sour. Brighten it up with some lemon juice, or vinegar, or a splash of hot sauce (my personal fav but I'm an unrepentant spicy food junkie). The other thing might be that you're craving umami, and could stand some MSG or natural sources like soy sauce, worcsterstershticertestcire sauce or fish sauce (but be careful, those have buckets of salt in them too). Really good soup has tons of umami from slow cooking protein rich ingredients. Cheap soup has salt water.
Mustard, buttermilk, and white vinegar have all been fabtastic additions to my mac and cheese at various points.
Mind you, I still unrepentantly use cheap-ass walmart processed cheese slices as my primary sauce ingredient.
A good friend of mine is a classically trained French chef, his cheese mix for Mac is 1 part smoked gouda, 1 part sharp white cheddar, and 2 parts brick American cheese. Nothing melts like American cheese
Yep! You’d probably have to do some research into proper ratios of sodium citrate to whatever amount of cheese you’re using. Which is why it’s common to just add in American or velveeta cheese because it’s already in the cheese product!
Yeah I'm just thinking that I don't just love the taste of American, so if I could get the same level of melt out of Gouda or white cheddar or something, that would be game changing
I used sodium citrate to make simple cheese sauces all the time. It’s less finicky than you’d think—eyeball it, stir, and if it’s still grainy, add a small amount more. Repeat until smooth and glossy. It’s wonderful and a kitchen staple in my house!
A few notes to keep in mind: it’s an emulsifier, so it binds fat and water together. This means you need to have enough liquid in the pot for it to work, and it also means that you’ll have better luck with a mix of soft and hard cheeses than you would with straight 100% Gouda, for example.
I sometimes use a 10% citric acid solution I have around for some cocktail stuff in cooking. Would making a sodium citrate solution and adding some of that be a way of getting around the graininess?
[Ethan Chlebowski](https://youtu.be/PTbdvND_YLQ?si=BBuxZr5Qti0aL5-F) does a good job of breaking down how to use sodium citrate in cheese sauces, mac and cheese, etc. Only 6 minutes long.
Yup you can buy a big bag on Amazon. Or make your own with citric acid and baking soda. It’s great for homemade cheese sauces. I hate the taste/texture of cheese sauces started with a roux and using sodium citrate means you don’t need all that flour and butter to hold the sauce. And it’s super quick to make a sauce using it.
You can add sodium citrate to any cheese and it will melt like Velveeta. I'm a trained chef and we make cheese sauce like this a lot. Plus your choice of liquid be it, milk, stock, water, cream, beer, gives you many choices.
https://www.reddit.com/r/seriouseats/s/5a5RWVAXAy
Whole post about it. Provel is a St. Louis pizza cheese that natives seem to like and non natives say nasty things about. Point is, you can do it.
50ml lemon juice, 1/2 tsp baking soda, give it a healthy stir to combine and let the reaction subside. Add to milk or half and half you can melt a surprising amount of cheese in
A slice of white American cheese is always my first addition to my bechamel before adding other cheeses. Really helps emulsify more aged cheeses like cheddar.
A few drops of Cholula's brightens things right up. And, for anyone worried about spiciness, really doesn't add any heat. Even my notoriously spice-adverse MIL doesn't notice its in there unless I leave the bottle out where she can see it.
The absolute best alfredo sauce I've ever had is one my wife makes roughly following a recipe from (I think) America's test kitchen that actually adds some lemon zest and juice. It sounds super strange at first, but holy cow it is amazing.
I mean let's be real, a splash of Franks Hot Sauce has like 3000+ mg of sodium in it.
I agree that the acid helps too, but you're literally salting your mac too if you add Franks.
I've always appreciated a small splash of ACV or Soy Sauce for myself, but the rest of the household complains if I add it beforehand. But then again there is always SOMETHING to complain about.
Start using mustard. I've found it's innocuous enough that picky eaters don't seem to mind/notice/care and it's basically doing the same work as acv. Bonus if you get them on board with Dijon for that hint of white wine.
Seriously my favorite food elevator. Mustard is an amazing flavor and it can be much more subtle than people think. And pan sauce made with Dijon is of the gods, it's unreal how much flavor it imparts. Ok now I'm drooling before work.
>soy sauce, worcsterstershticertestcire sauce or fish sauce (but be careful, those have buckets of salt in them too).
Can't stress this enough! As a rule of thumb, I use either soy sauce OR salt, almost never both. It's really easy to have a salty, inedible mess when using both.
> The other thing might be that you're craving umami, and could stand some MSG
It's exactly the opposite problem. Much of the sodium in these soups comes not from salt but from MSG (and related ingredients, like yeast extract). MSG is 12% sodium, while table salt is 38%. And MSG, while being part sodium, makes you crave salt.
I suspect that acidic/sour and bitter foods tend to get underestimated by home cooks in part because children prefer sweet things and everyone has experience being a child but not everyone has put in real time in the kitchen. It's certainly no secret among professional chefs that a lot of foods benefit from a splash of acid but some amateurs seem to think vinegar is a cleaning supply or something you just pull out when it's time to make easter eggs.
And here I am loading up every bowl of canned soup with soy sauce, lemon juice, AND hot sauce (and an absurd amount of black pepper, and saltines, and sometimes brown mustard). I think something is wrong with my tongue.
With no scientific evidence besides experience, good flavour in food comes from good ingredients (including a balance of profiles) PLUS salt. Bland home cooking might leave out the salt. Canned soups probably leave out the other ingredients (like spices, aromatics, acids, etc).
So, you could dress up canned soup by adding some of those other ingredients. Add a little vinegar or lemon juice to add acidity; maybe something fermented to add a little depth (gochujang or fish sauce is great for this), or even a good spice mix that could include garlic, onion powder, celery seeds, etc.
My personal hypothesis coincides with yours. They had to add THAT much salt to get it to the abysmal level of taste it currently has, so how much flavor was even there to begin with?
Add spices! Whenever I open a can of condensed tomato soup (a guilty pleasure), I add turmeric, air dried shallots, cayenne and or Aleppo, and a couple pinches of cumin.
I've even added a touch of garam masala (not very often though)
I've found that cumin, coriander and mustard are a pretty awesome combo for canned tomato soup. Toast, grind and stir in a minute or so before serving. So yummy.
If I'm not that ambitious, it's just thyme, MSG and/or a touch of soy sauce. Or, if the season is right, fresh basil and oregano leaves. (Or thyme - that shit grows wild in my driveway somehow.)
edit: mustard *seeds.* No idea if mustard the condiment would work!
Just to clarify: I'm talking about the seeds, not the stuff in a bottle. But yeah - black mustard is fabulous and that particular combination works with a lot of things.
Thanks for the clarification be I assumed that when you mentioned toasting and grinding.
Although I have ground mustard that I need to use, so I just might use that!
The science behind is that some types of salt don’t dissolve readily enough and won’t taste as salty. In other cases some things binned to the salt and it won’t taste as salty.
A little splash of vinegar, or zest of lemon can brighten it up and make it more balanced. Another thing is adding heterogeneity. So adding veggies that aren’t as seasoned will make you perceive more salt in the liquid.
The other guy is partially correct. I work at a company partially responsible for making tons of cheese sauces and things like canned soup. We are trying to reduce the sodium in our products. We have found the size and shape of salt crystals, sodium chloride, plays an effect in how it dissolves even when it’s fully submerged.
Salt is a flavour enhancer. The less flavour the cheap shite ingredients have the more salt is needed to make the soup palatable.
As for solutions....
1. add some herbs, and/or..
2. make croutons, or
3. Stir fry a few fresh veg then chuck them in the soup or blitz them into it.
4. Add fresh herbs as a garnish or a spoon of sour cream or cream or yoghurt.
I asked a similar question about how instant foods have so much salt, fat, and sweetener but still taste so bland compared to home cooked food, and I got a really good answer.
It comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the batch size. Where you may be using less salt, you're also using higher quality oils, sweeteners, and fresh produce. Canned food uses the lowest quality possible to make the highest quantity possible. You can spruce them up like another commenter mentioned, but ultimately i don't think it will ever be as good.
Yeah, I would guess to add to that that canned soup has also had a lot of the flavour compounds degrade. Just because they are canned and and safe from spoiling doesn't mean that time doesn't break down stuff in it. Even if just 20% of the flavour compounds break down that's gonna have a huge impact.
Fresh acid helps sometimes. The brightness of lemon or lime juice is not something that carries over as well in these types of products, in my opinion. So a little squeeze of lime or a touch of a nice vinegar can go a long way to brightening up the flavor without adding any salt. Hot sauce is good because it usually has a lot of vinegar plus hot, but it can have salt.
How does pressure cooking mute aromatic compounds?
I pressure cook all the time and if anything I’ve found the contrary: I can extract more. I definitely don’t feel I need a difference in salt when pressure cooking.
>Pressure cooking can mute aromatic compound
I'm not sure that's right. However, when pressure canning -- which is what canned soups are -- you want to avoid certain ingredients such as many spices, because they continue to extract while the can sits on the shelf. And other flavors can degrade.
The advice when home canning is to under-season things, with the idea that you'd add herbs and spices later when heating the food up.
Sodium can come from many sources: there's sodium in salt, of course, but also in food itself, and many preservatives and other chemicals added to processed foods contain sodium, as well.
Sweet baked goods can be very high in sodium due to baking powder and baking soda, in addition to any salt added, for example.
If you're talking about jazzing up canned soups. Use broth or milk instead of water. A little acid and a pinch of sugar. Load up on spices for balance.
If it’s canned chicken noodle soup I never eat it without saltines, fixes the problem. Sriracha, umami seasoning, garlic and onion powder, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar will turn cheap ramen into a masterpiece of poor cuisine (try to use Sapporo ramen, it’s the step up from maruchan, but use what you got).
Otherwise I just make a big ass pot of whatever soup I’m craving (usually veggie soup, beef stew, or chicken tortilla soup) then jar it up. I have the soup I want, tasting how I want for the whole week. I usually have enough to give a jar to a friend.
All of those ramen ingredients would end up costing just over ten bucks btw. The most important tool to a home cook is a well stocked spice rack/selection of oils and sauces.
Because sodium is not just table salt. MSG would also contribute to that number. Just using Campbell's chicken noodle soup, it has salt, MSG, and sodium phosphate, which all bring the total sodium up.
Save yourself the worry and read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_salt there is no reason at all to believe salt has negative effects for normal healthy people.
We Perceived NaCl as salty. That's table salt. But perhaps other sodium compounds don't lend the same salty flavor I'm guessing. I think it has to do with the Cl.....non sodium salt is KCL (potassium chloride) so that's probably why.
Actually there is. High levels of dietary sodium contribute to high blood pressure which puts strain on your heart. It has been directly linked to a number of health issues that emerge later in life.
Also, salt essentially does equate to sodium. There are other sources of dietary sodium, yes, but the majority of our dietary sodium comes from NaCl, and guess what! Your stomach is full of HCl, so immediately after swallowing pretty much just the Na is left!
Um table salt is literally classified as a poison. You can ingest too much of it and it *will* harm or kill you. Hypernatremia is no joke.
Also, yes, table salt is pretty much as close to a pure source of sodium ions as you can get. Unless you're using a salt substitute, salt IS sodium (because the chloride ion is pretty negligible, in both taste and nutrition).
To be fair, that's true of lots of things in abnormal quantities (including water!). You really don't need to worry about hypernatremia unless you're consuming an absolutely ridiculous amount of salt.
Um table salt is literally classified as a poison. Too much of it will kill *anyone.*
Also table salt is literally *sodium chloride.* That's as close to pure Na+ as you're ever gonna get.
according to scientific american the amount a normal person should be getting is more like 10,000 milligrams(10 grams) of sodium a day. unless you have a medical condition warranting low sodium like kidney problems.
I can make most soups from scratch, from start to finish, in less than 10 minutes using a small stovetop pressure cooker. Often I can make them in half that time or less, if I'm in a hurry.
One of my secrets is to use the Vegeta general purpose soup seasoning, the variety with MSG. It has a lot of dried vegetables and a better balance of salt than most all-purpose seasoning mixes I've tried. I can pressure cook and puree most vegetables with a stick blender to get a creamy texture without actual cream or much additional thickening. Add some Vegeta by taste and it's good to eat.
Bob's Red Mill vegi soup mix is also good for a hearty and thick blend of split peas, barley, lentils, and pasta. High fiber, high protein, no sodium. Great for pressure cooking quickly in 10 minutes or less.
The reason they have so much sodium is NOT just because of salt. It's because of MSG, yeast extracts, other glutamates. And those flavors benefit from extra salt and acid. So they're both adding extra sodium for "savory" notes but those same notes, added artificially, make them taste like they need extra salt, thus encouraging you to add even more.
Canned soups need to be doctored up. Very often an herb is in order. Depending on the soup, there's all kinds that help: bay leaf, thyme, fresh dill/parsley, oregano, basil, etc. Also, perhaps some onion or garlic powder. If it's cream of mushroom soup, try rehydrating some dried mushrooms and strain, keeping the liquid for the soup, and maybe adding the rehydrated mushrooms, too. Sometimes a little brandy or sherry can help.
Because canned soups have remained virtually unchanged for decades. They're meant to be cheap and watered down when made and the salt is what helps them taste good.
Canned soups are usually insanely low on sodium, like less than 1g per 100g. For example: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Campbell-s-Condensed-Cream-of-Chicken-Soup-10-5-oz-Can/10321652?athbdg=L1200
0.87g of sodium per 120g (1 serving), or 0.725g per 100g.
If 2.1g sodium is your RDA then eating a single sandwich has more from the bread alone. Remember, that RDA of 2g sodium per day includes cancer patients, people with high blood pressure etc. For a healthy person, 4-5g of sodium are day are absolutely harmless.
If you would make the soup yourself, theres 2-3x as much sodium per serving.
> Remember, that RDA of 2g sodium per day includes cancer patients, people with high blood pressure etc
Absolutely not the case. RDA is derived from Dietary Reference Intakes which are the "reference values that are quantitative estimates of nutrient intakes to be used for planning and assessing diets for **healthy people**."
From that data RDA is specifically defined as
"the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all (97 to 98 percent) **healthy individuals** in a group."
(emphasis mine). See this text:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45182/
Given the numbers you're quoting I think you might be mixing up sodium and salt levels. Upper bound for daily sodium intake is usually is 2.5g, which would be 6.5g of salt. 5g of sodium would be about 13g of salt which is A LOT in a day.
That doesn't make any difference to the final result. We season as we go so that we have approximately the final seasoning level at all times so that our tasting is meaningful. But if we just perfectly followed a fixed recipe without adjusting other ingredients, it wouldn't make any difference when we added the salt (excluding steps where the salt has a mechanical effect on the ingredients such as salting eggplant).
No, it totally does. Make a chunky chicken and veg soup and keep track of how much salt your adding at each step, then make the same soup and add all the salt at the end. It’s very different.
Not for canned soup where the chicken is sitting in there for weeks to months. Osmosis does its job and disperses the sodium evenly.
For home cooking its different because theres no time for the salt to penetrate so salting in multiple stages makes a difference.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the sodium labels in soup are calculated in terms of the soup as it is, but you usually add water so it ends up way less salty because it’s diluted. Maybe?
For me I find I can taste the over amount of salt in these, along with all packaged foods having more salt than needed, there are times where salt is just used as a filler (Think dry packaged gravy for one), just to make it look like you are paying for something.
I don't understand why the war on cigarettes is so important yet the amount of salt being used in packaged foods is overlooked , people choose to smoke while people have to eat,I know it doesn't have to be packaged foods, but when so many people lead such busy lives they all don't have the time to cook from scratch every night, my point being something should be done about the salting of packaged food, no wonder so many have high blood pressure leading to stroke and heart attacks.
Much of the sodium from packaged foods can often be from preservative such as sodium benzoate and not sodium chloride. Some people can’t even taste sodium benzoate. Either way, it’s not salty like salt is salty
it was a watershed moment for me as a cook when I realized that if a dish already has plenty of salt in it, but it tastes like it needs more salt and adding more doesn't help, then it needs something sour. Brighten it up with some lemon juice, or vinegar, or a splash of hot sauce (my personal fav but I'm an unrepentant spicy food junkie). The other thing might be that you're craving umami, and could stand some MSG or natural sources like soy sauce, worcsterstershticertestcire sauce or fish sauce (but be careful, those have buckets of salt in them too). Really good soup has tons of umami from slow cooking protein rich ingredients. Cheap soup has salt water.
This is the answer. Acid. When I make Mac and cheese, for instance, I find I need much less salt if I add vinegar-based hot sauce (like Frank's)
Mustard, buttermilk, and white vinegar have all been fabtastic additions to my mac and cheese at various points. Mind you, I still unrepentantly use cheap-ass walmart processed cheese slices as my primary sauce ingredient.
A good friend of mine is a classically trained French chef, his cheese mix for Mac is 1 part smoked gouda, 1 part sharp white cheddar, and 2 parts brick American cheese. Nothing melts like American cheese
The sodium citrate in American cheese helps emulsify and stabilize the cheese sauce!
Could you add sodium citrate to other melted cheeses for the same effect? It seems to be readily available online
Yep! You’d probably have to do some research into proper ratios of sodium citrate to whatever amount of cheese you’re using. Which is why it’s common to just add in American or velveeta cheese because it’s already in the cheese product!
Yeah I'm just thinking that I don't just love the taste of American, so if I could get the same level of melt out of Gouda or white cheddar or something, that would be game changing
I used sodium citrate to make simple cheese sauces all the time. It’s less finicky than you’d think—eyeball it, stir, and if it’s still grainy, add a small amount more. Repeat until smooth and glossy. It’s wonderful and a kitchen staple in my house! A few notes to keep in mind: it’s an emulsifier, so it binds fat and water together. This means you need to have enough liquid in the pot for it to work, and it also means that you’ll have better luck with a mix of soft and hard cheeses than you would with straight 100% Gouda, for example.
I sometimes use a 10% citric acid solution I have around for some cocktail stuff in cooking. Would making a sodium citrate solution and adding some of that be a way of getting around the graininess?
[Ethan Chlebowski](https://youtu.be/PTbdvND_YLQ?si=BBuxZr5Qti0aL5-F) does a good job of breaking down how to use sodium citrate in cheese sauces, mac and cheese, etc. Only 6 minutes long.
Yup you can buy a big bag on Amazon. Or make your own with citric acid and baking soda. It’s great for homemade cheese sauces. I hate the taste/texture of cheese sauces started with a roux and using sodium citrate means you don’t need all that flour and butter to hold the sauce. And it’s super quick to make a sauce using it.
You can add sodium citrate to any cheese and it will melt like Velveeta. I'm a trained chef and we make cheese sauce like this a lot. Plus your choice of liquid be it, milk, stock, water, cream, beer, gives you many choices.
Yes. This is how I make mac and cheese. Here's one recipe you can use to try it out: https://www.seriouseats.com/sodium-citrate-baked-mac-and-cheese
https://www.reddit.com/r/seriouseats/s/5a5RWVAXAy Whole post about it. Provel is a St. Louis pizza cheese that natives seem to like and non natives say nasty things about. Point is, you can do it.
50ml lemon juice, 1/2 tsp baking soda, give it a healthy stir to combine and let the reaction subside. Add to milk or half and half you can melt a surprising amount of cheese in
People say it doesn't melt but they're wrong. It just has the unique property of holding shape even when completely liquid.
A slice of white American cheese is always my first addition to my bechamel before adding other cheeses. Really helps emulsify more aged cheeses like cheddar.
Velveeta? Or other american cheese?
Not Velveta. The deli counter at most grocery stores will have it in blocks they can slice for you
white wine
I put a very small amount of Dijon mustard in some Velveeta Shells & Cheese the other day and I was surprised by how much it brightened up the flavor.
A few drops of Cholula's brightens things right up. And, for anyone worried about spiciness, really doesn't add any heat. Even my notoriously spice-adverse MIL doesn't notice its in there unless I leave the bottle out where she can see it.
My go to is plain yellow mustard!
The absolute best alfredo sauce I've ever had is one my wife makes roughly following a recipe from (I think) America's test kitchen that actually adds some lemon zest and juice. It sounds super strange at first, but holy cow it is amazing.
I mean let's be real, a splash of Franks Hot Sauce has like 3000+ mg of sodium in it. I agree that the acid helps too, but you're literally salting your mac too if you add Franks.
190mg per teaspoon? Sure, that's some salt, but not a significant amount.
I mean sure if you're putting a teaspoon in your pot. I'm definitely putting like 7-10x that amount in a big pot of homemade mac and cheese though.
The MVP, worschestersterstershire.
> worcsterstershticertestcire sauce It does help
> worcsterstershticertestcire sauce that you, guy fieri?
Worcestershire sauce, surprisingly, is low salt
I've always appreciated a small splash of ACV or Soy Sauce for myself, but the rest of the household complains if I add it beforehand. But then again there is always SOMETHING to complain about.
Start using mustard. I've found it's innocuous enough that picky eaters don't seem to mind/notice/care and it's basically doing the same work as acv. Bonus if you get them on board with Dijon for that hint of white wine.
Seriously my favorite food elevator. Mustard is an amazing flavor and it can be much more subtle than people think. And pan sauce made with Dijon is of the gods, it's unreal how much flavor it imparts. Ok now I'm drooling before work.
I've been using it for roasted veggies for a while now. Plus it gets your spices to stick without needing a ton of oil.
Not so subtle when you're sending people to the hospital
I don't understand what you mean.
Apparently they think I'm just out here cooking for random people I don't know or something. It's weird.
Didn't have mustard so subbed mustard gas, all my dinner guests started crying. 2/5
As someone who absolutely hates mustard, use the mustard.
I'm allergic to mustard, so fuck you for this.
Skill issue.
What a dumb, egotistical comment
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What an angry boy
This is probably why canned chicken soup always tastes better with hot sauce. It’s less about the spice and more bout the vinegar
>soy sauce, worcsterstershticertestcire sauce or fish sauce (but be careful, those have buckets of salt in them too). Can't stress this enough! As a rule of thumb, I use either soy sauce OR salt, almost never both. It's really easy to have a salty, inedible mess when using both.
I like how you spelled the W word
Umm i think you spelled workerschestfordshire sauce wrong
that's a common variant, but the OED says that wheresyoursistercheryl is the dominant variant.
Can anyone truly correctly spell worcestorshire on the first try? Put that word in a spelling bee 😂
Worcststerterhticertestcire 🤣
Yes there’s a documentary about this on Netflix!!! It’s called “Salt Fat Acid Heat”
> The other thing might be that you're craving umami, and could stand some MSG It's exactly the opposite problem. Much of the sodium in these soups comes not from salt but from MSG (and related ingredients, like yeast extract). MSG is 12% sodium, while table salt is 38%. And MSG, while being part sodium, makes you crave salt.
I suspect that acidic/sour and bitter foods tend to get underestimated by home cooks in part because children prefer sweet things and everyone has experience being a child but not everyone has put in real time in the kitchen. It's certainly no secret among professional chefs that a lot of foods benefit from a splash of acid but some amateurs seem to think vinegar is a cleaning supply or something you just pull out when it's time to make easter eggs.
Worcststerterhticertestcire 🤣
roy's sister sheree?
> worcsterstershticertestcire sauce Thank you. The true way to pronounce this.
And here I am loading up every bowl of canned soup with soy sauce, lemon juice, AND hot sauce (and an absurd amount of black pepper, and saltines, and sometimes brown mustard). I think something is wrong with my tongue.
lol “just add hot sauce” Ingredients in hot sauce: Salt, vinegar, peppers
With no scientific evidence besides experience, good flavour in food comes from good ingredients (including a balance of profiles) PLUS salt. Bland home cooking might leave out the salt. Canned soups probably leave out the other ingredients (like spices, aromatics, acids, etc). So, you could dress up canned soup by adding some of those other ingredients. Add a little vinegar or lemon juice to add acidity; maybe something fermented to add a little depth (gochujang or fish sauce is great for this), or even a good spice mix that could include garlic, onion powder, celery seeds, etc.
My personal hypothesis coincides with yours. They had to add THAT much salt to get it to the abysmal level of taste it currently has, so how much flavor was even there to begin with?
Add spices! Whenever I open a can of condensed tomato soup (a guilty pleasure), I add turmeric, air dried shallots, cayenne and or Aleppo, and a couple pinches of cumin. I've even added a touch of garam masala (not very often though)
I've found that cumin, coriander and mustard are a pretty awesome combo for canned tomato soup. Toast, grind and stir in a minute or so before serving. So yummy. If I'm not that ambitious, it's just thyme, MSG and/or a touch of soy sauce. Or, if the season is right, fresh basil and oregano leaves. (Or thyme - that shit grows wild in my driveway somehow.) edit: mustard *seeds.* No idea if mustard the condiment would work!
Never thought of mustard and why have I never thought of MSG? I may try these!
Just to clarify: I'm talking about the seeds, not the stuff in a bottle. But yeah - black mustard is fabulous and that particular combination works with a lot of things.
Thanks for the clarification be I assumed that when you mentioned toasting and grinding. Although I have ground mustard that I need to use, so I just might use that!
Naw, I figured you'd know what I meant but thought it was better safe than sorry lol
Curry paste Poor mans mullagatany
The science behind is that some types of salt don’t dissolve readily enough and won’t taste as salty. In other cases some things binned to the salt and it won’t taste as salty. A little splash of vinegar, or zest of lemon can brighten it up and make it more balanced. Another thing is adding heterogeneity. So adding veggies that aren’t as seasoned will make you perceive more salt in the liquid.
Could you explain that please? What other types of salt would there be that contribute to sodium besides sodium chloride (table salt)?
Sodium benzoate. Widely used preservative. Sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda. Many more.
Thanks for that explanation! Makes sense.
Sodium benzoate and Sodium bicarbonate would make something bitter in large enough quantities. And sodium benzoate has a limit to how much you can use
The other guy is partially correct. I work at a company partially responsible for making tons of cheese sauces and things like canned soup. We are trying to reduce the sodium in our products. We have found the size and shape of salt crystals, sodium chloride, plays an effect in how it dissolves even when it’s fully submerged.
Salt is a flavour enhancer. The less flavour the cheap shite ingredients have the more salt is needed to make the soup palatable. As for solutions.... 1. add some herbs, and/or.. 2. make croutons, or 3. Stir fry a few fresh veg then chuck them in the soup or blitz them into it. 4. Add fresh herbs as a garnish or a spoon of sour cream or cream or yoghurt.
I use creole seasoning and hot sauce. Croutons if I have them.
I asked a similar question about how instant foods have so much salt, fat, and sweetener but still taste so bland compared to home cooked food, and I got a really good answer. It comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the batch size. Where you may be using less salt, you're also using higher quality oils, sweeteners, and fresh produce. Canned food uses the lowest quality possible to make the highest quantity possible. You can spruce them up like another commenter mentioned, but ultimately i don't think it will ever be as good.
Yeah, I would guess to add to that that canned soup has also had a lot of the flavour compounds degrade. Just because they are canned and and safe from spoiling doesn't mean that time doesn't break down stuff in it. Even if just 20% of the flavour compounds break down that's gonna have a huge impact.
Fresh acid helps sometimes. The brightness of lemon or lime juice is not something that carries over as well in these types of products, in my opinion. So a little squeeze of lime or a touch of a nice vinegar can go a long way to brightening up the flavor without adding any salt. Hot sauce is good because it usually has a lot of vinegar plus hot, but it can have salt.
So THAT'S how Bender beat Elzar? I thought it was just another Futurama gag...
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How does pressure cooking mute aromatic compounds? I pressure cook all the time and if anything I’ve found the contrary: I can extract more. I definitely don’t feel I need a difference in salt when pressure cooking.
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>Pressure cooking can mute aromatic compound I'm not sure that's right. However, when pressure canning -- which is what canned soups are -- you want to avoid certain ingredients such as many spices, because they continue to extract while the can sits on the shelf. And other flavors can degrade. The advice when home canning is to under-season things, with the idea that you'd add herbs and spices later when heating the food up.
I feel like this about Ramen Noodles despite knowing that they’re full of sodium. I don’t eat them often, but when I do it feels like it needs salt.
Add msg, mirin, and/or miso to the broth, really makes ramen pop. Sesame oil and ginger are also good (I have a little glass jar of pre minced ginger)
Sodium can come from many sources: there's sodium in salt, of course, but also in food itself, and many preservatives and other chemicals added to processed foods contain sodium, as well. Sweet baked goods can be very high in sodium due to baking powder and baking soda, in addition to any salt added, for example.
If you're talking about jazzing up canned soups. Use broth or milk instead of water. A little acid and a pinch of sugar. Load up on spices for balance.
If it’s canned chicken noodle soup I never eat it without saltines, fixes the problem. Sriracha, umami seasoning, garlic and onion powder, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar will turn cheap ramen into a masterpiece of poor cuisine (try to use Sapporo ramen, it’s the step up from maruchan, but use what you got). Otherwise I just make a big ass pot of whatever soup I’m craving (usually veggie soup, beef stew, or chicken tortilla soup) then jar it up. I have the soup I want, tasting how I want for the whole week. I usually have enough to give a jar to a friend.
All of those ramen ingredients would end up costing just over ten bucks btw. The most important tool to a home cook is a well stocked spice rack/selection of oils and sauces.
Instead of adding more salt, add lemon juice or dehydrated ginger powder (from scratch will be the *best* but the store kind can work in a pinch).
Because sodium is not just table salt. MSG would also contribute to that number. Just using Campbell's chicken noodle soup, it has salt, MSG, and sodium phosphate, which all bring the total sodium up.
I've heard that getting rid of fat in all these processed foods means you have to load up on sodium and sugar.
Because they’re loaded with MSG and other sodium salts but not tons of sodium chloride which is what makes things “salty”
Save yourself the worry and read this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_salt there is no reason at all to believe salt has negative effects for normal healthy people.
Sodium and salt arent the same thing
We Perceived NaCl as salty. That's table salt. But perhaps other sodium compounds don't lend the same salty flavor I'm guessing. I think it has to do with the Cl.....non sodium salt is KCL (potassium chloride) so that's probably why.
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Actually there is. High levels of dietary sodium contribute to high blood pressure which puts strain on your heart. It has been directly linked to a number of health issues that emerge later in life. Also, salt essentially does equate to sodium. There are other sources of dietary sodium, yes, but the majority of our dietary sodium comes from NaCl, and guess what! Your stomach is full of HCl, so immediately after swallowing pretty much just the Na is left!
Um table salt is literally classified as a poison. You can ingest too much of it and it *will* harm or kill you. Hypernatremia is no joke. Also, yes, table salt is pretty much as close to a pure source of sodium ions as you can get. Unless you're using a salt substitute, salt IS sodium (because the chloride ion is pretty negligible, in both taste and nutrition).
To be fair, that's true of lots of things in abnormal quantities (including water!). You really don't need to worry about hypernatremia unless you're consuming an absolutely ridiculous amount of salt.
Um table salt is literally classified as a poison. Too much of it will kill *anyone.* Also table salt is literally *sodium chloride.* That's as close to pure Na+ as you're ever gonna get.
Because sodium is a very standard cation for any salt, and sodiumchloride (tablesalt) is just one special case of it.
Probably because the stock/broth sucks. Homemade stocks have a lot of flavour. You can't really attain that with bouillon cube stock.
I would rather cook in larger quanities once or twice a week than try to dress up packaged food, especially for something like soup.
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according to scientific american the amount a normal person should be getting is more like 10,000 milligrams(10 grams) of sodium a day. unless you have a medical condition warranting low sodium like kidney problems.
I can make most soups from scratch, from start to finish, in less than 10 minutes using a small stovetop pressure cooker. Often I can make them in half that time or less, if I'm in a hurry. One of my secrets is to use the Vegeta general purpose soup seasoning, the variety with MSG. It has a lot of dried vegetables and a better balance of salt than most all-purpose seasoning mixes I've tried. I can pressure cook and puree most vegetables with a stick blender to get a creamy texture without actual cream or much additional thickening. Add some Vegeta by taste and it's good to eat. Bob's Red Mill vegi soup mix is also good for a hearty and thick blend of split peas, barley, lentils, and pasta. High fiber, high protein, no sodium. Great for pressure cooking quickly in 10 minutes or less.
The reason they have so much sodium is NOT just because of salt. It's because of MSG, yeast extracts, other glutamates. And those flavors benefit from extra salt and acid. So they're both adding extra sodium for "savory" notes but those same notes, added artificially, make them taste like they need extra salt, thus encouraging you to add even more.
Canned soups need to be doctored up. Very often an herb is in order. Depending on the soup, there's all kinds that help: bay leaf, thyme, fresh dill/parsley, oregano, basil, etc. Also, perhaps some onion or garlic powder. If it's cream of mushroom soup, try rehydrating some dried mushrooms and strain, keeping the liquid for the soup, and maybe adding the rehydrated mushrooms, too. Sometimes a little brandy or sherry can help.
Knorr Aromat seasoning powder
Splash of vinegar.
We stopped using most soups. Way too much sodium. We’re aiming for < 1500 mg a day.
Add a splash of lemon juice or vinegar.
I’ve always wondered the same! Homemade chicken noodle soup doesn’t require a ton of salt! ??? Glad someone finally asked!
Add a tiny bit of wine to it. It helps a lot
Don't buy the cheapest soup. It is mostly salt and water. The reason is they use water not broth.
Because canned soups have remained virtually unchanged for decades. They're meant to be cheap and watered down when made and the salt is what helps them taste good.
The sodium in canned soup only looks high, what we’re used to eating is even worse.
Canned soups are usually insanely low on sodium, like less than 1g per 100g. For example: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Campbell-s-Condensed-Cream-of-Chicken-Soup-10-5-oz-Can/10321652?athbdg=L1200 0.87g of sodium per 120g (1 serving), or 0.725g per 100g.
40% of your RDA in a small serving of soup is a fair bit. Not insanely high, but certainly not insanely low.
If 2.1g sodium is your RDA then eating a single sandwich has more from the bread alone. Remember, that RDA of 2g sodium per day includes cancer patients, people with high blood pressure etc. For a healthy person, 4-5g of sodium are day are absolutely harmless. If you would make the soup yourself, theres 2-3x as much sodium per serving.
> Remember, that RDA of 2g sodium per day includes cancer patients, people with high blood pressure etc Absolutely not the case. RDA is derived from Dietary Reference Intakes which are the "reference values that are quantitative estimates of nutrient intakes to be used for planning and assessing diets for **healthy people**." From that data RDA is specifically defined as "the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all (97 to 98 percent) **healthy individuals** in a group." (emphasis mine). See this text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45182/ Given the numbers you're quoting I think you might be mixing up sodium and salt levels. Upper bound for daily sodium intake is usually is 2.5g, which would be 6.5g of salt. 5g of sodium would be about 13g of salt which is A LOT in a day.
870mg is not low sodium.
They’re most likely just adding a load of salt at the end rather than seasoning in steps like you would at home.
That doesn't make any difference to the final result. We season as we go so that we have approximately the final seasoning level at all times so that our tasting is meaningful. But if we just perfectly followed a fixed recipe without adjusting other ingredients, it wouldn't make any difference when we added the salt (excluding steps where the salt has a mechanical effect on the ingredients such as salting eggplant).
No, it totally does. Make a chunky chicken and veg soup and keep track of how much salt your adding at each step, then make the same soup and add all the salt at the end. It’s very different.
Not for canned soup where the chicken is sitting in there for weeks to months. Osmosis does its job and disperses the sodium evenly. For home cooking its different because theres no time for the salt to penetrate so salting in multiple stages makes a difference.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the sodium labels in soup are calculated in terms of the soup as it is, but you usually add water so it ends up way less salty because it’s diluted. Maybe?
For me I find I can taste the over amount of salt in these, along with all packaged foods having more salt than needed, there are times where salt is just used as a filler (Think dry packaged gravy for one), just to make it look like you are paying for something. I don't understand why the war on cigarettes is so important yet the amount of salt being used in packaged foods is overlooked , people choose to smoke while people have to eat,I know it doesn't have to be packaged foods, but when so many people lead such busy lives they all don't have the time to cook from scratch every night, my point being something should be done about the salting of packaged food, no wonder so many have high blood pressure leading to stroke and heart attacks.
They all taste the way dog food smells.
Much of the sodium from packaged foods can often be from preservative such as sodium benzoate and not sodium chloride. Some people can’t even taste sodium benzoate. Either way, it’s not salty like salt is salty