It happens. With all the best intentions in the world, a soup can end up tasting sour and horrible, but how do you try to fix a soup?
It’s when you try that first spoonful and your tongue protests at the sour / acid taste, and you can’t face trying one more sip of a soup you want to chuck in the bin, try something else first.
These are the things to watch out for and what you can do.
1 – Check Your Ingredients
Honestly, really do. It’s quite simple to use herbs, spices, packets and jars that have gone out of date. I’ve done it myself.
2 – Consider Your Onions and Garlic
Personally, I can cope with onions and garlic, whether they’ve been sautéed or not. Some people swear by the frying process to release the flavours, and a touch of oil used in the process can stave off a sour soup. Some onions just have a strong and pungent taste and if you’re not used to it, those could be your culprit.
3 – Dilute
My first instinct is always to dilute, but to be honest, fixing a sour soup by diluting it, could simply just water down the taste, unless you’ve added something completely different as a new ingredient.
4 – Add Fruit
Some fruit juice might well just combat that acid taste. Apple or orange juice could well do the trick, but add in very small amounts to try it.
5 – Add Dairy
There are some nifty chemistry reactions that can happen when you add a little butter or cream, or perhaps a touch of parmesan or cheese. Not enough to change the flavour, but enough for the protein to neutralise the sour flavour.
6 – Baking Soda
Believe it or not, I’m told a little baking soda can do wonders for fixing a sour soup. This is one method I haven’t tried yet, so it would be interesting to find out if it really worked or not.
7 – Sweeten
When I started cooking, I’d probably have tried lobbing some sugar into the pot and seeing if that made a difference, after all, sweet and sour seems to be a popular taste for Chinese style food. I told myself that it could really be some oriental new delicacy, but sour soups tend not to happen to me very often these days.
8 – Spice It Up
Could a little spice change the flavour. This is a bit of a last ditch effort, but some curry powder or paste, or even some added chillies might take the soup from sour to spice.
9 – Accept Your Taste Buds Recommendation
Let’s face it, we don’t all like every combination of ingredients out there. Sometimes, our taste buds just don’t like something we’ve cooked, no matter what we do to it. If you’ve ruled out the other options, then that version of a soup might just not be for you.
Susan George says
Thanks for sharing
Anne G. says
HELP I MADE HUGE CROCKPOT OF SOUP AND IT’S SOUR WHY HELP
ING=MUSHROOMS, ONIONS, GREEN PEPPERS, GRATED GINGER, BUTTERNUT SQUASH, CELERY, CARROTS, SALT LITE, WHITE PEPPER, LEMON PEPPER, LEMON JUICE, BAY LEAF
HELP
I’m going to try your suggestions, I add LEMON juice cause I used too much WHITE pepp er, I’d like to correct b4 I blend and freeze. THANKS
Karen says
GOOD LUCK ANN HOPE YOUR SOUP OK SOUNDS WONDERFUL
Vicky says
Please help I cooked egusi soup and my sister went to take from it. So its now sour. How can I fix it.
Soup Maker Club says
The only suggestions I have are in the post. I am so sorry your soup is sour. I don’t have a recipe for egusi soup, so wouldn’t know what you might be able to do to try and remedy that type of recipe mix.
Odewade Ruth says
I grind pepper yesterday, there was no light and I forget to cook it, it is now sour, what do I do?
shrutika ambi says
Thank you for this tip.
it really helpful
Natalie says
I rescued leek & potato left in the fridge a day too long before going in the freezer, by adding a splash of white vinegar. Suspect it has the same effect as baking soda.
Markis says
The baking soda worked miracles! You save my lunch!
Davepro says
I accidentally added too much vinegar to my bone broth. One and a half teaspoons of baking soda to a huge crockpot did just the trick! Thank you so much for the suggestion.
Bev says
After skimming off the bubbles I found in my chicken vegetable soup that had soured overnight in the refrigerator, I put it in a pan on the stove and added baking soda as you suggested. Just tasted it and it seems the baking soda worked! I’m about to have a bowl of my delicious soup! Thank you for the tip!
Tina says
Thank you! Made turkey veg soup and forgot to bring up to boil before i went to bed and it soured…put in baking soda as mentioned…not sure if i put in too much though and it worked!