Kitchen hacks: Easy ways to tone down the spiciness of food

Cooking is an art, and you may sometimes miss adding spices or end up adding too much resulting in a dish which is either too sweet, salty, spicy or absolutely bland. No matter how often you cook, there is always a chance of forgetting to add an ingredient or adding too much of it. While you can always season bland food, balancing the flavours of a dish too sweet or spicy can get tricky.

Not everybody can handle spicy food — so if you end up cooking a meal which is high on spices, do not worry. Here are some tricks that you can bookmark and refer to them the next time you find yourself with a spicy meal for company.

Add a silent ingredient

If you have prepared noodles or pasta and end up seasoning it with too much pepper, do not worry. All you need to do is add in some more noodles or pasta or even vegetables like beans, carrots or even onions. Onions have an inherent silent sweet flavour which help balance out the dish. Or, if you feel your soup or stew is too spicy, just add some more water to it.

Dairy always works

Dairy products are widely used in the kitchen to prepare dishes. However, did you know that the casein protein in milk helps tone down the spiciness of the food, making your curry mild? So, the next time you feel your sandwich filling is too hot, just add generous amounts of grated cheese. Easy, isn’t it?

Add sugar

It is a very common trick, but you need to be careful when adding sugar to a dish to balance out the flavours. Sugar does not always have to mean powdered sugar, honey, or even other sweeteners. You can instead opt for tomatoes, which are sweet in nature. So, if you mistakenly add too much red chilli in your paneer curry, just add some extra tomato puree or mix some brown sugar into the pure to double the effect.

Squeeze some lime

A few drops of lime juice helps cut down the spiciness of the food. So next time your dal or fried rice is too spicy, just add lime or vinegar — whichever works better for you.

Have your food cold

It might seem odd, but some people enjoy their food cold. While cold food is not something everyone enjoys, it is not as hot and spicy as food that is freshly prepared.