168 If you’re a real garlic lover, add some additional garlic to broth at the last minute. For example, to give the above recipe for Garlic Broth an even richer garlic flavor, take another half a head of garlic and peel and slice the cloves. Sauté the sliced cloves in one tablespoon of olive oil for three to four minutes, then mix it into the broth. Allow the broth to cool as directed. One Salt Shaker.
BONUS TIP: After having Garlic Broth or anything else made with garlic, chew on a sprig of fresh, chlorophyll-rich parsley to freshen your breath naturally.
169 To make a rich meat broth without the salt, brown beef, veal, or lamb bones in a 400-degree oven for an hour before transferring them to a soup pot and adding water to simmer them. This process seems to allow more of the rich meat flavor to come through in the broth. Cook the broth for two to three hours or more. (Longer cooking produces a more flavorful stock. If enough water is used, the stock can be simmered for as long as eight hours.) When the broth has reduced enough, strain it, cool, and refrigerate or freeze. One Salt Shaker.
170 Condense low-sodium broth to concentrate its flavor. If simmering poultry parts for 1½ hours produces a broth that’s too bland for your taste buds, try this stronger version. One Salt Shaker.
CONDENSED CHICKEN OR TURKEY STOCK*
3 pounds chicken or turkey parts (wings, backs, necks, and giblets work well)
2 celery stalks, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
2 parsley sprigs
2 bay leaves
Put all the ingredients in a large pot with a lid and add enough cold low-sodium water to cover by 1 inch. Bring slowly to a boil. Once it boils, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 1½ hours. Remove the poultry parts and vegetables and strain the stock. Return the stock to the pot and cook longer until the stock is reduced by about 25 percent. (This makes the broth richer.) Set the stock aside to cool, then refrigerate overnight or until the fat has solidified on top. Remove the fat and store the stock in the freezer in containers that are the size you use most frequently Makes about 6 cups.
171 A tasty addition to stock is defatted poultry or meat drippings. When you bake a chicken or a roast, simply pour any remaining juices into ajar or covered cup. Chill it until the fat hardens into a solid white layer, then scrape it off. Use this defatted, concentrated juice for extra richness in any salt-free broth. One Salt Shaker.
172 Keep low-sodium canned broth at home for those times when you are too busy to make broth from scratch. Brands to look for include Hain’s Healthy Naturals No-Salt-Added Vegetable Broth or Chicken Broth, Shelton’s Low-Sodium Chicken Broth, and Health Valley No-Salt-Added Chicken Broth. One Salt Shaker.
173 If low-sodium canned broth tastes bland, jazz it up by simmering it with flavorful herbs and vegetables and reducing it a bit. In the following recipe, Harriet Roth, author of Deliciously Simple, puts this helpful tip into action. She also passes along another important suggestion: freeze broth into ice cubes to make low-salt cooking faster and even more convenient. One Salt Shaker.
CHICKEN BOUILLON CUBES
2 (10½-ounce) cans salt-free chicken broth, defatted
½cup dry white wine or vermouth
2 shallots, chopped
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence or dried thyme, crushed
Combine all the ingredients in a 1-quart saucepan. Simmer until reduced to 1½ cups. Pour into an ice cube tray and freeze. Remove from the tray and seal in plastic bags. (Do not wet the cubes or they will stick together.) Makes 12 cubes.
174 Don’t use bouillon cubes or bouillon powder.
They’re staggeringly high in salt and sodium and frequently contain hidden MSG. Avoid even the low-sodium varieties; they contain sodium-based additives and other undesirable chemicals.
175 Instead, to make broth quickly use unsalted stock concentrates. Perfect Addition is a brand that can be found in the frozen foods section of some health food stores. With wholesome ingredients like fresh vegetables, herbs, and wine, the beef, chicken, fish, and vegetable stocks made by this company are low in sodium but very rich. To make a broth with them, simply combine them with equal amounts of water. What could be simpler? One Salt Shaker.
SOUP BASICS
176 Use any of the already mentioned stocks as a base, then add additional vegetables and poultry or meat pieces to create low-salt soups and stews with hearty flavor. Other ingredients that help make soups tasty include:
177 Leftover liquid from cooked beans. One Salt Shaker.
178 Pureed cooked vegetables like onions and peppers. One Salt Shaker.
179 Defatted gravies. One Salt Shaker.
180 Leftover liquid used to soak dried mushrooms or dried tomatoes. One Salt Shaker.
181 It’s best to salt soup to taste after cooking, but if you do accidentally oversalt your soup during cooking, you can remedy the situation this way. add a peeled and quartered raw potato to the soup, then let the soup simmer for ten to fifteen minutes. The excess salt will absorb into the potato, and you simply can remove and discard the potato.
182 Sauté chopped vegetables in a few teaspoons of oil or butter first before adding to soups. The fat used for sauteing brings out the flavor in vegetables more than fat-free broth, which almost always requires extra salt for flavor. One Salt Shaker.
183 Miso (see tip 65) is a natural for giving a simple vegetable soup more of a salty taste. But refrain from using this condiment in excess: a teaspoon of miso for every cup of water or stock is usually sufficient to flavor soup without using too much salt. To add miso to soup, dilute it in ¼ cup of broth from the soup, mix it well, then add it to the soup and simmer for another minute. Serve immediately. Two Salt Shakers.
184 Try adding a teaspoon of minced fresh lovage leaf to a pot of salt-free soup just before serving. Lovage leaf is an herbal salt substitute that has a flavor somewhat reminiscent of robust celery. You’ll probably be surprised at how well a small amount of this little-known herb can heighten flavor. Look for fresh lovage leaf in the produce section of upscale supermarkets or buy a plant or some seeds and grow your own. One Salt Shaker.
185 Give soups surprising flavor contrasts to keep your taste buds so interested that they’ll forget about salt. That’s exactly what Sal Gilbertie, author of Kitchen Herbs, does in this recipe. By using varied ingredients like chile peppers, lime juice, lemongrass, and fresh cilantro, he creates an aromatic hot-tart soup with a cooling, refreshing garnish. Even more impressive, this gourmet soup tastes as if it should take a long time to make, but it’s exceedingly simple and quick to prepare. Two Salt Shakers.
SPICY THAI SHRIMP SOUP WITH FRESH CILANTRO
3 quarts homemade chicken stock
2 (6-inch) fresh lemongrass stalks, sliced
1 to 2 red chile peppers, seeded and thinly sliced
Zest of 1 lime
½ pound fresh straw mushrooms
1 pound large shrimp (12 to 15 per pound), shelled and deveined
⅔ cup fresh lime juice
4 scallions, sliced
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
In a large soup pot, combine the broth, lemongrass, chile peppers, and lime zest. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Lift out the lime zest and discard. Add the mushrooms and shrimp; simmer for 4 minutes. Stir in the lime juice. Transfer the shrimp to a serving bowl and pour in the broth. Sprinkle with the scallions and cilantro. Serves 4.
186 For convenience, look for no-salt soup mixes or make your own. Popular commercial soup starters and instant cups of soup may be handy, but they actually are small salt mines, often containing more than 500 milligrams of sodium and sometimes as much as 1,000 milligrams per cup! To avoid all that salt, plan ahead and make this simple Speedy Soup Mix. It will allow you the same no-fuss soup preparation commercial soup starters do, but with five to ten times less sodium. This versatile recipe is another one from Deliriously Simple by Harriet Roth. One Salt Shaker.
SPEEDY SOUP MIX
¼ cup small white beans or lima beans
¼ cup red kidney beans or pinto beans
¼ cup green or yellow split peas or lentils
¼ cup barley or brown rice
3 tablespoons dehydrated onion flakes
3 tablespoons freeze-dried chopped shallot
½ teaspoon garlic flakes
¼ cup freeze-dried mushrooms
3 tablespoons dehydrated vegetable flakes
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon crushed salt-free vegetable seasoning
1 teaspoon dried Italian herb blend or herbes de Provence, crushed
To store, combine all the ingredients and place in a covered container or plastic bag. Makes 2 cups dry mix. To prepare, combine 1 recipe dry soup mix with 8 cups of water or salt-free chicken, turkey, or vegetable broth in a 4-quart saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 to 1½ hours, or until the beans are tender. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Remove bay leaf before serving.
187 Don’t be fooled by canned soup labels that sound good for you. Remember that manufacturers often try to cleverly label foods to capitalize on consumers’ interest in eating better. Here are a few examples. Campbell’s Home Cookin’ Minestrone certainly sounds as if it should be full of goodness, but hydrolyzed wheat gluten, yeast extract, MSG, and 990 milligrams of sodium aren’t what most people expect in a cup of good, old-fashioned, home-cooked soup. Healthy Choice makes a country vegetable soup that delivers on its lower-sodium claims, but with 430 milligrams per cup it’s still not exactly low in sodium. (In addition, it contains unwanted sugar, maltodextrin, and added color.) Campbell’s Healthy Request Minestrone is labeled MSG-free—which it is—but it also contains disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, which are potent flavor enhancers that may cause adverse physical reactions similar to what MSG does. Don’t forget that the foods that are best for you come without a label. If this easy-to-make Spring Minestrone from my book Super Nutrition for Menopause had a label, its claims would be impressive: home-cooked, healthy style, low in fat, low in sodium, sugar-free, MSG-free and preservative-free! One to Two Salt Shakers.
SPRING MINESTRONE
1 onion, sliced
1 teaspoon canola oil
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 medium carrots, sliced
1 cup green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup sweet peas
1 teaspoon fresh marjoram
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 1 cup broccoli florets
1 medium potato, cubed
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 strip kombu (see tip 61) (optional)
¼ teaspoon salt (optional)
Sauté the onion in oil over low heat until translucent. Add 1½ quarts of water and bring to a boil. Add all the other vegetables and herbs and stir for 1 minute. Cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. (Remove the kombu, if used.) Season with salt, if desired. Serves 6.
188 Keep Hain Healthy Naturals No-Salt-Added Soups on hand to have when you’re sick or just too busy to cook. Remember, it’s fine to add some Real Salt or sea salt at the table if you need to. One to Two Salt Shakers.
SALAD DAYS
189 Enjoy fresh lettuce salads to your heart’s content. Whether you eat a plain mixed green salad or one chock full of a variety of crunchy vegetables, salads are naturally low in sodium, not to mention rich in nutrients like beta-carotene, vitamin C, and potassium. One Salt Shaker.
BONUS TIP: Choose darker green lettuce like romaine or red or green leaf over iceberg lettuce whenever possible. Although iceberg lettuce is more familiar to many people than its darker green cousins, it is nutritionally inferior (especially in potassium and folic acid). If you can’t forgo iceberg lettuce right away, gradually mix more dark green lettuce leaves into your regular mix to increase your salad’s nutritional content.
190 Don’t be afraid to eat spinach salad, even though spinach is higher in sodium than lettuce. One cup of raw, chopped spinach still contains only 44 milligrams of sodium, which is well within this book’s One Salt Shaker definition. (Besides, spinach is beneficial in other important ways: it is the richest source of hard-to-get lutein’, a nutrient that can prevent age-related eye diseases as we get older.)
191 Before adding salad greens to your bowl, rub the bowl with half a garlic clove. The garlic essence that is rubbed in will heighten the taste of your greens. One Salt Shaker.
192 Top salad greens with minced fresh herbs ranging from familiar basil and oregano to unusual herbs like chervil. Each one gives salad a refreshingly different flavor. One Salt Shaker.
193 Experiment with pesticide-free, edible flowers on salad. They add aroma and flavor to food, and their bright colors are beautiful and springlike against a “field” of greens. Good flowers to try on salads are any herbs that have bloomed; they have peppery, herbal flavors that are nice additions. Leave small blossoms whole, but cut large flowers into small pieces. Here are some that are especially tasty or pretty: hyssop and anise hyssop; borage; rosemary; thyme; sage; lavender; oregano; scented geraniums; chive, onion, and garlic blossoms; cilantro (coriander); citrus flowers; and nasturtiums. One Salt Shaker.
194 Add pungent “bite” to your salad with fiery radish, chopped red onion, or a garnish of jalapeno pepper. Any of these tastes will keep your taste buds electrified. One Salt Shaker.
195 Become a peppercorn connoisseur: change the taste of salads by cracking different varieties of peppercorns in your pepper mill. From traditional black Malabar peppercorns to green, pink, or white peppercorns, these zesty seasonings are fun to experiment with on salads, especially when you’re reducing the salt in your diet. One Salt Shaker.
196 Like croutons on your salad? Few people realize a tremendous amount of salt lurks in those tasty morsels. Fortunately, you still can enjoy seasoned croutons on your salad as long as you make them at home without the salt. They’re pretty simple to make: lightly toast low-sodium, whole-grain bread, then rub it with a garlic clove while it’s still warm. (The garlic will “melt” into the bread.) Sprinkle with any herbs or herbal blends of your choice, then cut into cubes and toast on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven until crisp. One Salt Shaker.
197 Crumbled feta cheese is a popular salad topper, but native Greeks will tell you that freshly made feta cheese is never as salty as the packaged feta cheese Americans are accustomed to. You still can enjoy feta cheese on salads; just get most of the salt out of it first. To lower the sodium content of feta cheese, soak the amount of cheese you want to use in low-sodium water for about five minutes, drain it, and lightly pat it dry with a paper towel. Much of the salt will be removed, but the delicious goat-cheese flavor will remain. One Salt Shaker.
198 To make salad into a meal, top it with leftover, plain-cooked chicken, turkey, or beef slices, or low-sodium canned tuna. One Salt Shaker.
199 For a vegetarian alternative, top salad with low-sodium canned chickpeas. One Salt Shaker.
200 If you have high blood pressure, be sure to add chopped celery to your salad. Although celery is one of the highest vegetable sources of sodium, it is still low in sodium. In addition, it has another bonus: it contains a compound called 3-n-butyl phthalide, which is known to lower high blood pressure. Several holistic doctors such as Michael T. Murray, author of Natural Alternatives to Over-the-counter and Prescription Drugs (William Morrow and Company, 1994), suggest that hypertensive individuals eat four celery stalks per day. One Salt Shaker.
201 Transform any leftover vegetables into an elegant salad. Its easy to do when you follow this recipe from Harriet Roth’s cookbook Deliciously Low. One Salt Shaker.
YESTERDAY’S VEGETABLES BECOME TODAY’S SALAD
Any low-sodium, sugar-free vinaigrette dressing
Leftover bits of raw or cooked vegetables
Fresh lettuce leaves of your choice
Put the vinaigrette dressing in a generous-size jar. Each day, add any leftover bits of raw or cooked vegetables except for sal
ad greens. In a few days, lift the marinated vegetable mixture with a slotted spoon onto fresh lettuce leaves and serve as a delicious salad. You will discover unusual and flavorful mixtures this way. Yield will vary, based on the amount of vegetables used.
202 Dry mixes for grain salads like tabouli may be easy to use, but even the packaged brands carried in health food stores contain entirely too much salt. To have some of the convenience dry mixes offer without all that unnecessary sodium, use leftover cooked grains or quick-cooking grains to quickly prepare grain salads. In this recipe, nutritionist Melissa Diane Smith combines quick-cooking bulgur wheat with bountiful fresh ingredients for a real herbal experience: a refreshing Middle Eastern tabouli salad that takes only about 30 minutes to prepare. One Salt Shaker.
FRESH HERBAL TABOULI
1 cup bulgur wheat
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
3 tablespoons Spectrum World Cuisine Mediterranean Oil or other garlic herbed oil (or extra-virgin olive oil)
⅓ to ½ cup fresh lemon juice (to your taste)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
⅓ cup finely chopped fresh mint
1 to 3 chopped scallions
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil (optional)
2 tomatoes, diced (optional)
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced (optional)
⅛ teaspoon Herbamare herbal salt (optional)
Place the wheat in a bowl, pour the boiling water over it, and leave to soak for 30 minutes to soften. (It should absorb all the water.) While the bulgur is soaking, combine the oil and lemon juice together with the minced garlic. When the bulgur is ready, add all of the herbs and vegetables and lemon juice-oil mixture to it and mix well. If there’s time, allow to chill for several hours for the best flavor. Serves 6.
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