4 Amazing Kitchen Hacks to Repair Burnt Food

If you’ve been cooking for a long time, you’ve probably experienced food burning or overcooking. Most cooks would just throw it away, but that’s a waste – there are plenty of quick fixes you can try to save your plate! It depends on the type of dish you’re cooking, but if you want to learn some useful cooking hacks to fix burnt food, keep reading!

Meat

If you burn steak or any meat on a grill or in a skillet due to high flames, the interior is likely underdone. What you can do is brown the meat in a skillet (preferably oven proof) and then move it into the oven (300F) until cooked through.

If you are cooking meat to put into a stew or soup and it starts to burn, stop cooking. Wash the pan before re-cooking the meat, or cook the meat in a completely different pan.

vegetables

If you steam or boil items for too long, drain and plunge into ice water in a bowl. This stops the cooking process. After a few minutes, drain again.

If the vegetables are overcooked, you can still use them for other dishes! Overcooked vegetables can be pureed, grilled with butter or cheese, or frozen to use later as a soup or sauce.

Rice, pasta or potatoes

Carbohydrates like rice, pasta, and potatoes cook quickly, so it’s very easy for them to overcook, even if you leave them for just a couple of minutes. If you overcook the rice, place it in a colander, rinse and drain well to remove the stickiness. If this doesn’t work, you can make it into fried rice.

For the soaked pasta and potatoes, let them dry and then fry them in the pan with a little butter, olive oil and lots of seasonings. You can also reuse the pasta by baking it in casseroles and as for the potatoes, they are good for frittatas or omelettes.

soups and sauces

Once you notice that the soup or sauce is burning, turn off the heat immediately. Liquids will usually just burn the bottom, so don’t scrape the bottom of the pan and just transfer the soup or sauce to a different pan or pot to continue cooking.

Throwing out burnt or overcooked food should be your last resort. Salvage what you can and just reuse the food on another plate! Follow these 4 amazing kitchen hacks to cook burnt food.