Kitchen Myths

Facts and fiction about food and cooking, by Peter Aitken

Adding salt to the cooking water keeps greens green

Nope. You may want the salt for the taste, but it has no effect on the color of the final product. A pinch of baking soda could actually improve color by making the water more alkaline, but because most people have water that is already a wee bit alkaline to begin with, you may not notice a difference.

5 responses to “Adding salt to the cooking water keeps greens green

  1. anthony September 13, 2011 at 9:20 am

    I’m in class for culinary arts. My teacher has us use salt to blanch greens (makes them brighter was his reason.) are you telling me that the salt is unnecessary?

  2. Mookster October 25, 2011 at 5:08 am

    Just a comment on adding salt. I can’t prove or disprove it, but the reason I was given was that as the dissolved salt raises the boiling point of the water, the greens will cook quicker, due to the higher temperature of the water. As with a lot of ‘received wisdom’ that makes ‘obvious’ sense, when I think about it, the levels of salt may not be high enough to make a difference. I’ll have a look into it….

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