The Cardiac Cuisine

Low-Sodium Diets Shouldn’t Be Sad & Bland

Filed Under: Kitchen Hacks

There are tons of good reasons to adopt a low-sodium diet, and one big reason to avoid it. Simply, “low sodium food doesn’t taste as good.” Salt often carries a lot of the flavor in foods, which is why, if we’re being honest, low-sodium foods just don’t taste as good as the higher-sodium versions.

Picture of a salt shaker: How To Make Low Sodium Food Taste Good

Taste matters! Food needs to be satisfying! If we’re going to stick to a low-sodium diet for the long term, it’s important to find ways to make low-sodium foods taste absolutely delicious.

My stance on this is that anyone who lives long enough will eventually need to have a reckoning with the sodium content in their diet. Although my husband needs to watch his sodium intake, I personally don’t have blood pressure issues — but it’s only a matter of time until excess sodium starts negatively impacting my health, so why not start now?

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The FDA currently recommends no more than 2,3000mg of sodium per day, but many Americans eat about 1,000mg more than the recommendation based on recent CDC estimates. For people at risk of hypertension, stroke and heart disease, the American Heart Association recommends sticking to 1,500mg per day!

Sodium really adds up, and it hides in a lot of pre-packaged foods, and restaurant foods. Around 70% of the sodium in Americans’ diets is hidden in highly-processed foods and restaurant meals! All packaged, shelf-stable food contains sodium, even if it doesn’t have a “salty” flavor. (Look at candy labels!) You can cut your sodium intake tremendously just by cooking at home, limiting commercially processed foods, and eating-out less often.

No ingredient can truly mimic the flavor of salt, but there are many ways to distract the mind from looking for salt. Adding other strong flavors makes low-sodium food taste delicious.

1. Acid

The #1 way to add more flavor without salt is adding some type of acid to a dish. Acids like lemon juice, lime juice, and vinegar bring out the natural brightness of foods and give flavors a little extra “pop.” Try tossing your veggies and grains with citrus or vinegar to liven them up. Make a quick vinaigrette for a salad dressing with lemon juice or vinegar and a little bit of olive oil. Marinate meats in citrus and vinegar with some aromatics and herbs to add even more flavor.

Play around with different types of vinegar. Vinegar basically never goes bad, so you can buy a bunch of different kinds and keep them until you use them up. Aldi sells lots of kinds, and they are all cheap! Cider vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine and red wine vinegars, balsamic vinegar all have different flavors.

Buy a citrus zester. Citrus zest adds a bright burst of flavor to an otherwise boring dish. Lemon tastes amazing with fish, and lime goes great with any type of Tex-Mex or Southeast Asian cuisine.

Plain, unsweetened yogurt is another acidic-tasting food that adds a ton of flavor. I use it in any recipe that calls for sour cream, and I love swirling it into creamy soups for an extra flavor kick.

2. Add some heat

My kindergartener doesn’t do “spicy” at all, so this isn’t an option for my family. I wish we could though, because heat is an excellent way to add so much flavor to food! Hot sauces, cayenne, dried chilies, chipotles, jalapenos are all delicious and they add a ton of flavor without adding any sodium, calories or fat.

Some of our favorite hot sauces are Sriracha, Gochujang and chili-garlic sauce. These all add a lot more flavor than just “hot.”

3. Spices

Spices like cumin, chili powder, paprika, cinnamon, and cloves add a ton of flavor to food. Since they don’t really ever expire, you can keep them handy in the pantry so you’ll always have lots of options. Play around with them, and you’ll learn which ones go together and which ones don’t. Sometimes, those tiny bottles of spice can be pricey, so look at the international foods aisle in the supermarket, or Ocean State Job Lot.

I like to make my own seasoning blends. My favorite taco seasoning is 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon smoked paprika, 1 tablespoon oregano, 2 teaspoons cumin. (fyi, it’s totally unnecessary to buy “pumpkin pie spice” or “Italian seasoning” as long as you’ve got the basics on hand.)

Your local Asian grocery store has harder-to-find spices like five-spice and white pepper at good prices.

Use black pepper! Use white pepper too. You might not realize that there are different colors of peppercorns, which all bring different flavors to food. White pepper is more “savory” than black pepper, while green pepper is more piquant and “fresh” tasting. We avoid red peppercorn due to an allergy problem.

4. Herbs

Herbs bring so much life and flavor to meals without adding any calories, salt, or fat. (But herbs do add a bunch of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants! Win-win.) Parsley, mint, dill, basil, rosemary, chives all add bursts of flavor and make beautiful garnishes.

I strongly recommend starting a herb garden. Herb plants are cheap seedlings to buy in the spring, they’re easy to grow, they’re usually happy in containers on your windowsill or patio, and they last well into winter. It’s November in New England right now, and most of my herb plants are still going strong.

Dried herbs are more potent than fresh ones, so you’ll want to use 1 teaspoon of dried herbs for every 1 tablespoon of fresh herbs (a 1:3 ratio) If you’re using dried herbs, add them earlier during the cooking process so they’ll have time to release all their flavor. Fresh herbs are better added towards the very end of cooking.

  • Cut up fresh herbs, mix them with a little olive oil, and freeze them in ice cube trays so you can enjoy them all winter. These are great to use as a foundation for marinades, or as a seasoned cooking oil.
  • Use herb blends instead of salt, like Mrs. Dash.
  • Herbs bring very strong flavors to food, so play around and get a feel for which herbs you like and which you don’t like (I hate cilantro; I always use its close cousin parsley instead. My kids hate rosemary.)

5. Alcohol

Wine and beer can add a lot of flavor. The alcohol tends to burn off quickly, so it adds lots of flavor without adding many calories.

6. Umami ingredients

Mushrooms and seaweeds like wakame can add a lot of flavor without adding salt. Try making a broth from umami-rich dried mushrooms, and use that as your foundation for a soup or a stir-fry. Sauteéd mushrooms are awesome, and they add massive flavor without the salt.

Cheese is salty, but you can get a big punch of creamy, umami flavor without adding very much. Use cheese sparingly, but a little can go a long way — especially with strongly flavored cheeses like Parmesan and blue cheese.

7. Aromatics

Aromatics like garlic, ginger and onions add a lot of flavor. Sauces, stir-fries, curries, stews, soups, all typically start with aromatics that the flavor foundations of these dishes. Try making a soup without onions, you’ll see what I mean!

  • Sauté onions, shallots and garlic in a bit of olive oil, or roast them to bring out their sweetness. Roasted garlic can be squeezed out over meat, or kept in the fridge as an easy-to-use flavoring paste that won’t add any extra sodium. Sautéing onions, garlic and shallots adds tons of flavor and texture to a dish.
  • Chives and scallions can be added at the end of cooking for a fresh flavor.
  • The classic French “mirepoix” of onion, carrot and celery is a classic foundation for many soups and stews.
  • Many Asian dishes start with a flavorful foundation of garlic and ginger.

8. Get creative with sauces

Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, Hoisin sauce and ketchup are packed with flavor. They also tend to be quite high in sodium, but you can use these sauces very sparingly. A little dash of sauce can go a long way, and these sauces all tend to pack a huge amount of flavor.

  • Low-sodium broth adds great depth of flavor to whole grains.
  • Tomato paste is intensely flavored, and doesn’t add much sodium.
  • Mustard has a tangy flavor that can really make a meal “pop”

9. Roast & toast things

It’s called the Maillard Reaction, and it’s delicious. Roasting vegetables is amazingly transformative. Steamed broccoli is “meh,” while oven-roasted broccoli is awesome. If it’s warm outside, try to cook your veggies out on the grill. Grilling, searing, toasting and smoking can add many layers of complex and delicious flavor.

  • Grilling anything adds a ton of extra flavor. We grill all the time in the summer because it tastes so good.
  • Sear your meat, let it darken up and get a caramelized crust on it.
  • You know the browned caramelized bits of food that stick to the bottom of the pan as you’re cooking meats and veggies? Don’t let it go to waste! Fond is the culinary term for this brown substance, and it holds a ton of flavor. Add a little bit of liquid to “deglaze” the pan, scrape up all that fond, and re-incorporate it back into whatever you’re cooking.
  • Roast nuts in the oven: Spread the nuts on a parchment lined baking sheet, and put them in the oven at 350F for about 8 minutes. Roasting nuts makes them SO much more flavorful.
  • Toast sesame seeds in a skillet over medium or medium-low heat.
  • Roast your potatoes in the oven, or lightly pan-fry them.
  • Oven-roasted carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. are totally awesome while the boiled/steamed counterparts are just “meh.”

10. Fat naturally carries flavor

Anyone at risk of hypertension, heart disease or stroke needs to watch their fat intake closely, but a tiny drizzle of olive oil added right before serving can really ramp up the flavor.

11. Eat more potassium!

Potassium works along with sodium to regulate blood pressure, and most Americans don’t eat enough of it. Up your intake of potassium-rich foods like potatoes, dried fruits, beans, lentils, beets, squash, dark leafy greens, avocadoes, bananas (but, be careful of swapping sodium chloride for potassium chloride — excess potassium is just as problematic as excess sodium.)

12. Start with the best ingredients you can get

Seasonal, local produce packs a ton of flavor. When food needs to be trucked in from far away, it often loses lots of flavor in the process and, therefore, needs more “help”. If you can, try growing food in your own backyard because it’s awesome. Often you won’t need to add any extra ingredients to “boost the flavor” of your backyard veggies.

There’s nothing like a fresh, juicy, sweet tomato plucked straight from the vine in the middle of summer. You can make amazing meals with your backyard tomatoes without adding anything extra at all. We made tomato sauce with my mother-in-law’s tomatoes and my kindergartener wondered if we’d put sugar in the sauce. Nope, tomatoes are just really that sweet when eaten straight-off-the-vine.

You don’t have to do very much to “help” the flavor of in-season, local produce. Hit up your local farmer’s market!

A few other points on sodium:

  • Salt can hide where you least expect it, especially in baked goods, cereals, breads, noodles. Breads, pastries and cereal are some of the biggest contributors to sodium overload. Check the labels. A couple slices of commercially packaged bread can contain upwards of 300mg of sodium.
  • Check the labels to find lower-salt varieties of common processed foods. We’ve been surprised that it’s possible to find such low-sodium chips and salsa! A huge shout out to Green Mountain Gringo’s bottled salsa and Late July’s tortilla chips!
  • You can still eat canned foods. The reason I do most of my grocery shopping in WalMart is because WalMart’s Great Value brand offers a ton of unsalted, low-sodium, no-salt-added versions of canned soup, canned broth, canned tomatoes, canned beans and veggies. Canned foods are super-convenient, and a huge time-saver in the kitchen.
  • The majority of excess salt in the American diet comes from ultra-processed foods and restaurant foods. If you’re trying to cut back on your sodium intake, this is a great place to start.
  • Measure your salt. Instead of using a pinch here or a dash there, take out your measuring spoons and actually measure it.
  • Add salt towards the end of cooking. As salt cooks, its potency lessens.

The most important thing is building a diet around whole foods. Although there’s naturally occurring sodium in some foods like dairy products, fish, spinach and beets, the amount is tiny compared to compared to commercially processed foods.

Above all, be patient with yourself. It takes time to adjust to any new way of eating. Make small changes at first– start by adding 50/50 salt and Mrs. Dash to your salt shaker, and take baby steps from there.

Your taste-buds will change and you won’t miss the salt anymore. What seems bland today won’t seem bland 3 months from now — seriously, you’ll come to appreciate the way less-salty foods don’t bludgeon you in the mouth with overpowering saltiness. Chips, salty snacks and Chinese takeout used to taste delicious, but it’s like drinking the ocean now.

How To Make Low Sodium Food Taste Good

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