Soups are delicious, inexpensive, and easy to prepare. Sipping steaming hot soup on a cold day is a great way to get warm and toasty. Unlike hot caffeinated beverages that leave you dehydrated, soup nourishes you from within and helps raise body temperature. Soup can easily get spoiled by too much salt. Whether you are trying a new recipe that didn’t work out or are disappointed by the overly-salted soup that you bought, there are plenty of ways to correct this. Taste your soup as you continue to cook and avoid ingredients with too much salt when making homemade soup to get the perfect blend.

Here are a few tips to help you fix that salty mess:

• Diluting soup
• Dilute brothy soup with water or stock. The most reliable solution for fixing salty soup is adding more liquid. Add a little bit of water or stock at a time and then bring the soup to a simmer. This reduces the concentration of salt in the broth. If you are using stock to dilute your soup, make sure it is unsalted. Alternatively, you can strain off the salty stock so that you retain the ingredients. Then add fresh, unsalted stock and bring the soup to simmer again.
• Add cream or milk to dairy-based soup. Add a splash of milk or cream for dairy-based soups. Although water or stock would also dilute the salt, adding milk or cream retains some of the richness and flavor of the soup. Don’t worry about diluting the flavor of the soup. You can always add more seasoning.
• Mix the salty soup with a batch of unsalted soup. Make another batch of soup with no salt. Then, mix the two soups. You’ll end up with a double batch of flavor-balanced soup. Try freezing any soup you have left over by putting it into a Ziploc bag and then leaving it in the freezer. You can then warm this soup and use it if you ever need to dilute a salty soup!
• Add other ingredients
• Put some celery, onion, or leeks in your soup to freshen it up. These ingredients will help clean up the flavor and correct saltiness. Chop them up and add them to your soup, then allow them to cook for around 30 minutes. The amount depends on your taste. This works best for brothy soup that has a lot of vegetables. You can also try some fresh, crushed tomatoes.
• Add a dash of acid to trick the tongue. Balance out the salty flavor by adding something sour. Try adding an acid such as lemon or lime juice, vinegar, or wine which will obscure the salty taste. This trick works well with any kind of soup or stew. Add a little bit of acid at a time and taste as you go.
• Mix in 2-3 teaspoons of sugar to sweeten the soup. If your soup is just a little bit too salty, balance out the flavor with a small amount of sugar. This will help reduce saltiness. Make sure to add a little at a time and taste as you go. You can also try a dash of brown sugar or honey.
• Add starch to absorb the salt. Adding food like potato, rice, or pasta is a commonly-given suggestion for overly salty soup, but it won’t make a huge difference. Try slicing a potato into small pieces and simmering them in the soup for 30 minutes to subtly reduce the salty taste of the soup.
• Preventing salty soup
• Salt your soup after boiling it instead of before. Avoid salting your soup before cooking it. Once the soup boils, the liquid will evaporate off and the remaining soup will be saltier than you intended. Salting at the end of cooking means the flavor will taste the same when you add the salt as when you serve. The longer soup boils, the saltier it will become.
• Add a little bit of salt after incorporating each ingredient. Rather than putting all of the salt in at once, add salt about 1g at a time, tasting in between to get it just right. Taste the soup as you cook it.
• Avoid adding salt if the soup contains ingredients high in sodium. If the soup already has bacon, ham, or other salty ingredients it might not need any salt at all. Cooking with cheese also means you don’t have to add much salt.
• Rather than relying entirely on salt as a flavoring, try adding some fresh herbs. Plus, fresh herbs pack a lot of flavor without adding any sodium to your soup. You can also use dried herbs or spices if you don’t have any fresh ones on hand.
• Replace salted butter with unsalted butter in your recipe. If your soup recipe calls for sauteing vegetables in butter, for instance, make sure to use unsalted butter. This will reduce the amount of salt in your soup.
• Use low-sodium broth to keep the soup from being too salty. Stock can taste bald without salt, but it is the perfect blank slate for you to add to your seasoning. Using broth that is pre-salted makes it easier to over-salt your soup.

Soups are so easy to make and easy to take with anything, there is a reason why doctors tell you to have a warm bowl of pumpkin or chicken soup. Besides these benefits of soups, the thing we like most is that they’re so versatile. You can play around with ratios and measurements to create a warming, delicious bowl of goodness with any ingredients. Let people salt their soup to suit their tastes. People often vary in their preference for saltiness.