Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough!

Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough! - From above of broken eggs on flour pile scattered on table near salt sack and kitchenware

Help! I added three times the amount of salt needed for my sourdough bread recipe (1/4 c. versus 1 T.) Can I save it?



Best Answer

The short answer is no, unfortunately you cannot save this bread. Once the salt is mixed in you cannot remove it, and that much salt is likely to kill all the yeast in that dough, or at least slow it way down.

Diluting the salt by mixing it in with 3 times more bread is possible in theory, but realistically there's a lot of potential to be throwing away a lot of good ingredients. You could also use 1/4 of it mixed in with 3/4 fresh ingredients, but for my money you may was well start out anew as you aren't saving enough ingredients to make the extra trouble worthwhile. Mixing autolysed salty dough in with other dough so it completely combines and distributes the salt is problematic unless you mix it with the recipe's water, and then you're adding the salt before the yeast, which creates a hostile environment to put your sourdough starter in.




Pictures about "Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough!"

Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough! - Flour and eggs scattered on table before bread baking
Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough! - Crop anonymous female cooks at table with tomato salsa on raw dough near assorted ingredients for pizza in house
Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough! - Close-up Photo of Sourdough



Quick Answer about "Help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough!"

4 TBS in 1/4 cup. You basically have enough salt for a 4X recipe. So, you have to increase everything else by 3 to have the correct proportion of salt in your recipe. Good point @The Photon (below)...or reduce by 3/4 and replace with salt-free ingredients.

What happens if I put too much salt in my sourdough?

If there is an excess of salt in bread dough, the yeast is retarded to the point that there is a marked reduction in volume. If there is no salt, the yeast will ferment too quickly. In this sense, the salt aids the baker in controlling the pace of fermentation.

How do you reduce saltiness in dough?

How to remove the extra salt in dishes
  • Kneaded dough: Cooking the dish with a ball of kneaded dough also helps absorb the excess. ...
  • Curd: You can use this method and add curd to a dush to dull out the saltiness.


  • Why does my sourdough taste salty?

    They discovered that sourdough with the same salt levels as regular bread actually tasted saltier. "So it means that the sourdough bread with glutamates does enhance the salty, because it tasted saltier," said Zhao. Therefore, reducing the salt would not unduly affect the taste.

    How do you counteract too much salt in baking?

    If you add too much salt, Curtis recommends using a splash of vinegar. This provides a counterbalancing punch of acid that will lessen the salty taste. And in the event that you add too much spice, all you have to do is drizzle in a bit of honey to mellow out the heat. SO much easier than starting from scratch!



    How much salt is too much or too little in your sourdough bread? | Foodgeek




    More answers regarding help! Too much salt in my sourdough dough!

    Answer 2

    This depends on when you recognize the problem. If your recognition is immediate then:

    4 TBS in 1/4 cup. You basically have enough salt for a 4X recipe. So, you have to increase everything else by 3 to have the correct proportion of salt in your recipe. Good point @The Photon (below)...or reduce by 3/4 and replace with salt-free ingredients.

    If you are well-into the fermentation stage, the excess salt could certainly be problematic for yeast and bacterial growth.

    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: Flora Westbrook, Flora Westbrook, Katerina Holmes, Cats Coming