Way too much salt in dish I just made

Is there any way to save it?

I misread the chicken salad recipe (which serves 4) and put way too much salt in it (I thought it was 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 teaspoon - read the wrong line on the recipe). As you might imagine, it's inedible even after I added more celery, argula, etc. (I have no additional chicken to add). I hate to throw it out since I just spent $$ and the past 2 hours traveling to Fairway, getting the deli guy to cube the chicken and now chop-chop-chopping everything. Should I buy more chicken tomorrow and add it to the dish or am I just wasting more money and time at this point?

(Or should I just open the wine and forget about dinner?)

Oddly enough, I was having this conversation with my wife the other day, who made a rather salty chicken soup.
I read once you can put a potato in stews/soups, and that will absorb some of the salt. I've never actually tried it.
As far as chicken salad, I don't know if there's anything you can do short of diluting it with more chicken, lettuce, etc.

Hey Superclam, thanks for responding! I just googled it and got the same advice:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071017103740AAOHTvp

I'll let you know tomorrow if it works!

Oh sweet jusus girl! How much wine have you had that 1/4 cup of salt even seemed right at all? Ok best advice I can think of is to throw it all in a pot of water and then drain, taste and repeat if necessary.

Hey Scarlett - I'm a lot of things, but "cook" isn't one of those things! ;-) If the potato suggestion doesn't work, I will try your suggestion. Thanks.

I'm no cook either, but was wondering why 1/4 cup of salt sounded right to you. I vote for wine (except that you might have already been hitting it when you poured that shitload of salt into your salad)

I once used way too much salt, which I thought was sugar because it was in a unlabeled container, but that's different.

Because I was on auto-pilot/zombieland after spend the day in the searing sun.

i think you should be able to throw it all in a colander and rinse the salt off.

Sugar always moderates the effect of salt, even for savory salads/dishes.

A potato probably won't work with a mayo based dish- it's mostly for stews and sauces. You need to add more chicken, more of everything in fact. You could also try adding non-traditional things likes purple grapes or chopped apples, chopped walnuts or almonds.

Sugar won't really help, it'll just make it sweet AND salty.

That is way too much salt to try to repair the dish. Toss it. (Sorry to bear the bad news ) You'd have to more than quadruple the quantity to save it, and even then it might not be right.

Although it feels like a waste of money to toss it, it will be much less than what you spend trying to repair it.... and then tossing it.

A quarter cup is 24 x 1/2 teaspoons...so you'd need to increase all the other ingredients by 24 times to make it right. You should probably host a brooklyian picnic at that point ;-)

arches wrote: A quarter cup is 24 x 1/2 teaspoons...so you'd need to increase all the other ingredients by 24 times to make it right. You should probably host a brooklyian picnic at that point ;-)

might not be enough food.....

just add an equal amount of pepper ;-)

These pretzels are making me thirsty.

Im curious to find out what happened with this dish. Very simply, all you needed to do is rinse off the chicken with hot water and start all over again. The potato trick usually works with soups and stews.

Who knew that this post (of all my posts) would get the most responses. I now know that if I want responses to my posts, I should talk about food!

Anyway, here's what happened:
1. I put large potato slices in the salad overnight. The dish was still too salty this morning but better (and it already had apples and walnuts in it, WUW); the recipe was on Goop, Gwyneth's website: http://www.goop.com/newsletter/46/
2. Then I tried Vidro's suggestion, and put some of the chicken salad in a colander and rinsed it off A LOT; it was still salty but edidble;
3. I added it to a regular green salad and it ended up being really delicious.

Next question - can I freeze this because there's no way I'm going to be able to eat all this salad in the next 2 days before it goes bad.

danielle123 wrote:

Next question - can I freeze this because there's no way I'm going to be able to eat all this salad in the next 2 days before it goes bad.

You can't freeze lettuce leaves or anything like it. It'll wilt and be nasty when it de-frosts.

Danielle:
1) throw that shit out already
2) stay off of GOOP. Nobody needs Gwynnie to teach them how to make a sammie (seriously - she had a post saying "take two pieces of bread, put mustard on each side" like she was the fucking messiah)

Flexi, I added accurate details to my posts (amount of salt added; URL to recipe) to purposefully encourage more conversation (successful) not to encourage more Brooklynian judgmental finger-wagging (although I knew there was that possibility). Please kindly fuck off.

alrighty then.

am wagging another finger at you now. Please kindly guess which one

Ay oh danielle!!! Don't think Flexi was being judgemental, just an opinion about goofy or whatever site you got recipe from. Dems strong words you speak!

Also I would say send that salad thisaway but I am currently in a veggie household. Boo. LOVE chicken salad.

Flexichick wrote: I'm no cook either, but was wondering why 1/4 cup of salt sounded right to you. I vote for wine (except that you might have already been hitting it when you poured that shitload of salt into your salad)

I think Flexi got up on the wrong side of the bed for this string of posts.

But thanks to those in this string who actually had something HELPFUL to post.

MOD NOTE:

chicken salad, guys.

chicken salad.

please do not make me mod a thread about chicken salad.

be nice.

Someone make me some chicken salad

I have to say- I got the Cosco chicken (in a can) and it makes THE BEST chicken salad! I felt like a total hick when I bought it (I hate anything in a can, 'cept tuna), but it really is the shit when it comes to chicken salad.

chicken in a can is great for chicken salad! If its just for me I wouldn't spend the time making "real" chicken just to shred it up and cover it in mayo.

I made a curried chicken salad sandwich last night to bring to work. I used leftover "beer butt chicken." It was delicious. I wouldn't cook a chicken just to make chicken salad, but it's a great way to use leftovers.

I love curried chicken salad. Or more traditional with red grapes and almonds. Nom nom

Whatchuwant wrote: I have to say- I got the Cosco chicken (in a can) and it makes THE BEST chicken salad! I felt like a total hick when I bought it (I hate anything in a can, 'cept tuna), but it really is the shit when it comes to chicken salad.

true dat.