17 of your most common cooking disasters – fixed!

Made a major cooking mistake? Before you reach for that delivery menu, try these out-of-the-box ways to salvage that meal.

Whether your hand slipped or you misread the recipe, too much salt is usually the first critique of food that might otherwise be fantastic. Few tastes are more unpalatable than too much salt in a dish, and it’s also really unhealthy. For this reason, you should add a little salt as you go along, tasting after every addition because you can always add it, but taking it away is harder. Too late? The best way to repair your food is to double or triple the recipe – but omit any extra salt! Or, if you’re making a clear soup, add some uncooked pasta or a raw, peeled potato to the pot. The starch will absorb much of the salt. Discard the pasta or potato after 15 to 20 minutes.

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It’s so unpleasant to pour gravy onto your roast dinner, just to find a bunch of lumps. Sauces and gravies often have flour in them and if the flour is not sifted, it can make a sauce lumpy. If the damage has been done and you have clumps in your sauce, pour it into a blender and blend for just a few seconds to make it nice and smooth.

Here are 12 tricks to get cheap meat to taste expensive. 

Wet your fingers and flick some water on them, then microwave in a microwave-safe cooking bag for no more than five seconds, or wrap in foil and heat in a 120-degree oven for ten minutes. Learn more about how to make stale bread not only edible, but tasty!

Find out the least favourite foods of 13 professional chefs. 

Oops! You got caught up in that TV segment on cute puppies, and now your toast is burnt to a crisp. You don’t have to toss it out and start over; simply take a butter knife and scrape until all the char is gone. Try to do this in the sink or directly into the garbage as it can cause a big mess. If the toast is too hard even after all the burnt parts are gone, try brushing with olive oil, sprinkling with Parmesan cheese, and presenting as crostini. You can also repurpose it as croutons for your salad or put it in a food processor to make breadcrumbs.

Here are 5 more great tips to cut down on food waste. 

Even the most proficient Italian cook can get sidetracked and forget the pot of boiling pasta on the stove. If this happens to you, put in ice water or run under cold water for a few minutes to stop the cooking process and contract the starch. Then reheat in tomato sauce – the acid will perk it up further. Another trick is to use that mushy pasta in a batch of minestrone or chicken soup, and no one will ever know.

Try this great minestrone recipe. 

So maybe you didn’t follow the directions, or you couldn’t find your measuring cup and eyeballed and now something is not quite right. It happens to the best of us! If your rice ends up like mush, add some cooked meat or prawns to it, form little balls and either fry them up or envelope them with wonton wrappers and then steam or fry them. Yum!

Don’t miss our guide to the different types of rice. 

Forgot to stir your stew and now the bottom of the pan is completely black and it’s starting to smell like your fireplace? Quickly remove the stew above the burnt part, being very careful not to scrape up the black parts, and put it in another pot. Even if it seems wasteful to discard all the food on the bottom, you have to. Otherwise, it will ruin the taste of the parts you saved.

Here are 10 foods you never knew you could freeze. 

When boiling beans, the goal is to cook them until tender. But what happens if they cook too long, and they turn into slop? Turn them into a healthy, delicious bean soup by fully pureeing them. Another idea: Make a bean dip by adding sour cream or yogurt and some spices. No one will be the wiser!

Learn which 10 foods you should never reheat in a microwave. 

If your chicken breasts were in the oven for just a bit too long and they’re all dried out, cut up the pieces, mix them with mayonnaise, chopped celery, dried fruit and spices, and you have a flavourful chicken salad. Mayo can disguise the driest chicken and turn it into a masterpiece – trust us! Tip: Next time cook dark meat which is much more moist and forgiving if overcooked.

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