Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <soup>
Title: Too much sugar in soup -- how to make it less cloying?
Question: I was making this recipe:  Cabbage Borscht , which was from the old Lincoln Del, one of my mom's favourite places. I mistakenly doubled the sugar, putting in 1/2 a cup instead of a 1/4 of a cup. Given the 2/3 of a cup ketchup, which was Heinz, the soup turned out way, way too sweet.   Is there any way I can rescue this?

Answers:
sents: text: Removing dissolved sugar from a recipe, as in your soup, practically impossible.
text: You have two main choices: Reduce the impact of the sweetness.
text: Increasing acidity (lemon juice or vinegar for example--since ketchup contains vinegar, vinegar or more ketchup may be most compatible with your specific recipe) may mitigate how sweet the soup seems.
text: This may or may not work--you would have to experiment, and it could make the soup taste worse worse (the risk being you would then still have to discard the soup.)
text: If you really like the borsht, and can eat (or freeze)
text: it all: make a second batch with considerable lower sugar, and combine them.
text: You will now have twice as much soup, but flavor balanced.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14401/SAJ14SAJ
score: 6
sents: text: I'm adding this answer more for completeness than anything else but it is possible to reduce the sweetness in a dish by using a sweetness inhibitor.
text: From McGee On Food
text: And Cooking : Not only are there artifical sweetners: there are also substances that block us from experiencing the sweetness of sugars...
text: Lactisole is phenolic compound found in small quanities in roasted coffee...
text: In very small amounts it reduces the apparent sweetness of sugar by two-thirds.
text: From Wikipedia :
text: At concentrations of 100–150 parts per million in food, lactisole largely suppresses the ability to perceive sweet tastes, both from sugar and from artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.
text: A 12% sucrose solution was perceived like a 4% sucrose solution when lactisole was added.
text: However, it is significantly less efficient than gymnemic acid with acesulfame potassium, sucrose, glucose and sodium saccharin.
text: Research found also that it has no effect on the perception of bitterness, sourness and saltiness.
text: According to a recent study, lactisole acts on a sweet taste receptor heteromer of the TAS1R3 sweet protein receptor in humans, but not on its rodent counterpart.
text: There is a branded blend of lactisole, sucrose and maltodextrin called Super Envision, which is the only commercially available version of this product afaik.
text: It is used in concentrations of 0.5%-1%, e.g., if you have 500g of soup then you use 2.5g-5g of Super Envison.
text: It can be found on websites selling Modernist cooking ingredients such as Modernist Pantry: http://www.modernistpantry.com/super-envision.html
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/7552/Stefano
score: 6
sents: text: I would remove some of the borsch and replace with water (removing some of the sweetness) and then rethicken it with a souring agent such as Amchoor (ground unripe Mango).
text: Then add soured cream at the end to further thicken, improve consistency and remove sweetness.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/14539/spiceyokooko
score: 4
sents: text: I was making Spanish rice, which, called for Ketchup to taste.
text: Uh....the lid wasn't on tight
text: and I put more than I liked.
text: Result
text: ....
text: dish was too sweet.
text: Not undaunted, I considered adding tomato paste, which is not usually sweet and is in fact, slightly bitter due to the concentration of tomatoes.
text: Added, until the sweetness was virtually gone.
text: A good save for me.....
text: Try it next time but be sure that you taste the paste and make sure it's not sweet.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/22531/Max
score: 3
sents: text: I have always used pepper to reduce the taste of too much sugar and this also works the other way although sometimes I use a different sweet substance than sugar if I have put too much pepper in a sauce.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/19464/Ian
score: 1
sents: text: Salt, pepper, hot sauce.
text: All in very judicious doses.
text: Worked for me
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/35957/Debi Smith
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Salt, pepper, vinegar, hot sauce or tomato paste may be able to mitigate the sweetness, or you could replace some of the borscht with water before thickening it again with a souring agent like Amchoor.
You can add something acidic or add some pepper.