Maybe my post title is a bit unfair. The stuff we made was in fact edible, and not the worst thing we've ever concocted in the kitchen. But our initial experiences in taking beloved recipes and trying to make them with far less sodium have not exactly been rousing successes. Like most people, we had settled into a culinary routine at home with an occasional adventure with new recipes, but mostly well-honed repertoire of tried and true (and very yummy) dishes that we make quite often. Of course, 99% of those are now off limits due to their sodium content.
Since I am the reason we have to change the way we eat, it was only fair for me to be the first one to attempt to cook a low sodium meal. (My husband does far more of our home cooking on any given day, and he is much better at it than I am.) I chose a spicy shrimp and pasta dish that is simple and makes a great summer meal. My thought was that since it has a lot of strongly flavored ingredients maybe we wouldn't miss the salt so much.
I was wrong.
My two rookie mistakes were adding way too much of the other seasonings and not adding anything to compensate for the missing salt. We had a dish that was about an 11 on the hot-and-spicy scale, yet still managed to taste sort of bland.
Next time I try this, I will use the normal amount of everything, leave out the salt, and add lemon juice to compensate. It still may need work at that point, but I think it will be an improvement. If I ever get this recipe to taste good, I will publish it here. Don't hold your breath!
The next low sodium meal was much better. PDM (that's my husband) grilled some steaks and did everything he would normally do except omit the salt from the seasoning he rubs on prior to grilling. I missed the salt just a little bit, but the steaks were still flavorful and delicious. I cooked some corn on the cob and didn't have to change a thing - I never use salt in the cooking water and fresh corn on the cob is so good you don't even need butter on it. And since corn tastes great all by itself, we'll probably eat a lot more of it this summer. I also cooked a zucchini dish that is normally delicious, but I once again over seasoned it to make up for not using salt and it did not work out very well. Again, I suspect that keeping the other ingredient amounts the same and substituting lemon juice for the salt will be the way to go.
For me, enjoying low-sodium foods was quite difficult at first. But after about 9 months, I have adapted and now find most commercially prepared foods too salty :-).
ReplyDeleteCan't say that I've had much success with recipe adaptations as there isn't really a substitute for salt :-(. I look forward to reading about your successes. If you find a good source for low-sodium recipes, please share.
Meals around here have shifted from the rich cream and butter filled French-influenced dishes that I used to frequently prepare to much MUCH simpler fare. Nowadays we are eating meat seasoned with Mrs.Dash and simply seasoned vegetables. We don't eat out much anymore and when we do, I no longer enjoy the over-salted meals.
Good luck with all of this, I look forward to reading about your progress.