We share three simple ways to reduce the acidity in tomato sauce by adding a few ingredients that you usually have on hand in your kitchen.
Tomato sauce is the base of many dishes, sometimes it can be too sour as tomatoes are naturally sour, and canned tomatoes can be even more so.
We share three easy ways with basic kitchen ingredients that you can use to reduce and balance the acidity of tomatoes when cooking them.
1. Baking soda
Baking soda can improve many of your preparations in the kitchen. If your sauce or other tomato recipe is too acidic, a pinch of this powder may do the trick. Baking soda works because it has an alkaline pH, which helps neutralize the acidity of the tomatoes.
Just add a pinch of baking soda (a quarter teaspoon for every cup of sauce), stir and adjust if necessary.
2. Sugar
A little sugar can enhance the flavor of a tangy tomato sauce. Add a pinch at a time until you reach the desired flavor and avoid excess sweetness.
Sugar doesn’t neutralize the acidity of tomatoes in the same way that baking soda does, but it does change the perception of flavors.
sugar vs. sodium bicarbonate
While baking soda can help with a tomato sauce that is too acidic. Some cooks prefer to use sugar. Cook’s conducted an experiment to determine which ingredient offers the best flavor results.
“The sample (3 cups) enhanced with just ¼ teaspoon of sugar tasted bright, balanced, and more intense in tomato flavor, while the sample with the same amount of baking soda was considered flat and solely sweet,” he shares. Cook’s.
3. Carrots
If the recipe allows it, you can chop or grate carrots and add to your sauce to let it cook slowly.
Carrots have natural sugar and are sweet when cooked, so they can add a bit of sweetness to the sauce and counteract the acid of the tomato sauce as it cooks.