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Alternatively, instead of overloading on salt: for non-bland food:
Get local in-season produce. E.G. Fresh tomatoes vs canned or long distance imports is a night and day difference. Also can be cheaper and you also know that the money is staying local, not feeding some rich fuck's investments.
Mother. Fucking. GARLIC.
Optionally, find a good chili oil.
Great tips, but starting with the word 'alternatively' sorta suggests that these will work instead of salt...
Sadly, some people have to limit their salt intake and aren't allowed to any that's not naturally in there. For them, it would be an alternative. Let us be very thankful we are not them. Especially me, because I can't have hot chili anything and not much garlic.
Agree with all points. To expand on tomatoes...
local in-season tomatoes > canned tomatoes > all other tomatoes
Local is for sure the best but canned, which are picked ripe and processed soon after, are better than tomatoes that have had to be shipped. Those were picked before they were ripe.
Fwiw good quality canned tomatoes can be miles better than buying "fresh" tomatoes for the 8+ months of the year that they aren't actually in season (depending where you live in the world). Growers still grow them, but they're less sweet and less juicy. Canned tomatoes also break down way better for sauces. I agree with your overall point, and almost all of my fruit and veg come from farmers markets, but tomatoes generally don't for both cost and quality purposes.
And especially if you are cooking the vegetables, don't shy away from vegetables that are a little aged.
That little drizzle of decay adds flavor.
Salt often tastes different when added during cooking vs after
Yes, but if you stir it into a warm sauce it will mostly dissolve and it will still substantially improve it compared to no salt at all.
If you forget to salt the pasta water, there's no way of making it taste as if you had. And even if the salt dissolves well in the sauce, it won't permeate whatever chunky things there might be in the sauce as if you'd salted a lit bit every step of the way. But yeah, it'll be ok, even if it won't be as good as it would have been. (I know you didn't say it would be the same, just wanted to add).
Salt in pasta water does not affect taste
It absolutely does. It will salt the noodles themselves, but you need a very healthy amount, not just a few pinches.
Yeah you put salt in pasta water to change the properties of the water so it boils differently, not to flavor the pasta lmao
You don’t want to change the flavor of your pasta by over salting the water, that’s just gross.
Not really. Salt in the water is mostly for flavor, the raise in boiling point is so miniscule by the amount added it's practically ignorable.
Adding oil breaks surface tension so that it's less likely to foam over.
Source? This seems almost impossible
You just aren't putting enough salt in? Literally made pasta two days ago and upon eating my first thought was "damn I almost oversalted the pasta water" because the noodles were in fact, salty
Don't tell my Italian gf that, she'd hold it against you for eternity.
And she'd be right.
Sauce is a different matter.
But yeah, if you didn't salt that yeast dough, you aren't going to be making it better right before it goes into the oven.
Not all foods get the you can salt me whenever pass.
Once i completely forgot the salt in my bread. It was disgustingly bland; like, I couldn't believe a teaspoon of salt would have such a massive effect.
But I actually salvaged it by putting salt on every slice of toast I made with that loaf.
It worked out okay!
The water you boiled the pasta in is not the "pasta sauce".
pasta tea
I raise you pasta coffee
It won't be quite the same as having salted the pasta and the sauce, while cooking it, but "salvageable", absolutely.
Srsly?
This reminds me of a roommate my sister had, who asked her what went into a grilled cheese sandwich. She said just two pieces of bread with a slice of cheese between them. She went into the kitchen a few minutes later to find the roommate staring at the uncooked sandwich on a plate. "Something wrong?" she asked. Roommate answered, "Is this supposed to melt the cheese?"
You can also just add and stir in soy sauce. But add in garlic, some onion powder and chili paste for flavor.
Finding soy sauce was like discovering a cheat code irl. Haven't found a dish yet that isn't improved by some combination of soy sauce, chili sauce, and/or lemon juice (usually all three)
Soy sauce and fermented food in general are full of umami flavor.
Pro tip: if you want your food to taste saltier but you've already salted it, throw a bit of lemon juice in there. Oftentimes when your mouth tells you it's not salty enough, what it actually needs is a bit of acid
Same thing if the food tastes too greasy or fatty. Lemon juice isn't a bad go-to for whenever you go "this dish is missing something, but what?"
I usually cook without much salt because you can always add more, but you can never remove it. This way everyone can eat each meal to their liking.
You could also cut the food with more unsalted food, to fix the balance. Not uncommon in restaurant kitchens.
But the salt absorbing into the pasta will be a bit different than being part of the sauce. If it's a common issue that people you're cooking for want less salt, fine I guess. If not, salt the water when you cook pasta.
Salt is one of those things that works even on raw stuff, go wild
you need to add salt to the boiling water, but if you are trying to cut your sodium intake don't do this. also please make pasta sauce from scratch. don't buy pre mixed, just buy plain "passata" and add your own stuff. its a million times better.
I don't remember the exact numbers (and am not a doctor) but the vast majority of the average person's daily sodium intake comes from processed foods, not home cooking.
Yup. Table salt or spice mixes are usually nothing compared to the frozen food that's 30% of your daily intake per serving.
also please make pasta sauce from scratch.
As someone who frequently makes sauce from scratch, a hunk of ground beef or Italian sausage and a jar of Rao's will absolutely get the job done on a busy weeknight when I can't be bothered with chopping up a bunch of veggies. Plain passata and your own stuff is not "a million times better".
It's literally only better if you have skill and, imo, time. You can't make a good tomato sauce in like 10min from scratch, fight me
So you want the person who can't even cook pasta to do his own sauce?