Why Baking Soda is the Most Useful Ingredient in Your Kitchen | What's Eating Dan?

Unassuming as it may be, baking soda is nothing short of a powerhouse in the kitchen. It can improve browning, tenderize proteins, and speed the cooking of greens, grains, and beans. Follow along as Dan breaks down the science of sodium bicarbonate and shows you how to utilize it in your daily cooking.

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[lukedotto]

Favourite application is in a pot of boiling potatoes to break down the cell structures just on the outside layer, cook them only half way, drain, toss in a sieve or collander to rough up the edges, then into the oven to roast. The baking soda breaking down the surface of the potatoes will create a more craggle-y texture to facilitate that amazing exterior crispiness we all love in the best roast potatoes.

[niccrovaix]

I've watched 5000 cooking videos over the last 10 years. NOBODY has ever mentioned this. Thank you, thank you, thank you again!

[kaemincha]

This might be the most life-changing episode of Whats Eating Dan yet!

[charlenebrooker]

I have Gerd and I was told by doctor to avoid citrus, vinegar, tomatoes, and other acid foods. I make my own tomato sauce by adding carrots, and a pinch of soda to up alkalinity. I ordered on Amazon a acid/alkaline test. Soda has literally saved my cooking and health.

[coderspy]

I use 1/2 tsp for making pea soup. It helps to both reduce cooking time, and it gets rid of the gas issues that legumes cause.

A trick from Modernist Cuisine is that baking soda allows for all sorts of caramelized soups - carrots, pumpkin, bananas, onions ... - in a pressure cooker. Maillard reaction starts at a low enough temperature for that to work then.
Total game changer.

[davidhalldurham]

We know it's gonna be a good day when we get another episode of What's Eating Dan. All of these more "specialized" ATK videos have been great!

[fpm]

I have recently cooked a steak and sprinkled a pinch of baking soda on both sides of the meat. I was stunned of how much that improved browning.

[jelanibyrd]

I fell in love today. Hat a pot of beans boiling for 2 hours and still hard. I added 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the pot and a little water and immediately saw a reaction. 10 minutes later and the beans are so much softer! This should be mandatory knowledge for any cook. THANKS A MILLION!

[tessat]

In "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ma Ingalls is making baked beans and pops a spoonful of baking soda into the water in which she is boiling the beans first. Once she can "blow the skins off the beans, " ie, cooked until fairly tender, she drains the beans, seasons them and makes baked beans.

[mdbbox]

That spoon of baking soda at the end made me think of my experience as a kid who reached into the back of the refrigerator for a bowl of powdered sugar, licked his finger, dunked it, and took a big pull. Not all lessons are learned from a book.

[tomwilson]

"I want to give a big shout out Nicolas Leblanc for first isolating baking soda in the late 1700's. I'm dying to know when you first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate" Let's see if he answers. On a more serious note, I love this series! Educational and extremely entertaining.

[evilganome]

I use it for food, but I fell in love with it when I found out it can also be used to treat indigestion when you have perhaps eaten too much. Seriously, it has conquered bad heartburn as well as made delicious chocolate cakes.

I first fell in love with sodium bicarbonate when I used it in a recipe for roast potatoes. Adding it (along with salt) to the pot of boiling water to precook the potatoes before roasting them was a game-changer - they browned so much more than I expected!

[lowellmorton]

As a baker, I also found that baking soda will cause cookies to spread in the oven. You have to be aware that that too much will cause your cookies to spread paper thin. But when developing my keto chocolate chip cookies, I added baking power for lift, and baking soda for a nice spread, since most recipes by keto bakers only use baking powder and then smash them to get them to spread a little. Min bake up perfectly and they taste and look like regular chocolate chip cookies, but with only 3 net grams of carbs per cookie, they are a real treat.

[supergeek]

Hint:
If you (for some reason) end up trying to cook dried beans in an acidic environment, and find that they simply *WON'T* get tender, *FREEZE* them!

The freezing creates thousands of tiny ice crystals which pierce and break down the beans' skins and cell walls creating tender beans once thawed, and reheated.

[..]

I'm glad you didn't stop making these videos. You know a lot, but also present it in such a compelling and didactic manner.

[sallymary]

I add baking soda to my coffee grounds - three shakes from a salt shaker with larger holes. Coffee is less acidic

[kathiyu]

I use baking soda, aluminum foil and HOT water to get tarnish off my silver. Simply put a bit of aluminum foil in a tub, pour in nearly boiling water, add baking soda and then your silver. AMAZING!

[wastrelway]

I have another use. Sometimes you use something from a can: corn, peas, artichoke hearts, etc. ... and canned food has a "canned" flavor. Soaking the canned food in a baking soda solution for a while and then rinsing it off will remove that "canned" taste. I suspect there is some acidity from the can or the canning process that it removes. Just be sure to rinse before adding the corn or whatever to your chicken soup, or it will foam up. I forgot last week. I joked to my GF that the soup came with a built-in antacid. (It tasted fine.)

One another note, I thought for for a second that Dan said "human beef" -- I can't say it as well as Chinese people, but I know that it's "hoo-nan" not "hyu-nan."