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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50 Comments

  1. 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!

  2. I never knew the cooking benefits of sodium bicarb until I started watching the top-drawer ATK videos & digging in to the websites. Bicarb has been the only anti-acid that has been beneficial to me for decades. Your (and Lam Lan's) promoting Bicarb have been an eye-opener. Many thanks.

  3. Ruins the taste! Baking soda can ruin the flavor of steak. Video of cook using 1) plain steak with salt (control), 2) steak with just baking soda, 3) steak with baking soda and salt. Two guys tasted all three, and the baking soda steaks were always much more tender,But the flavor was ruined for them. And result, both with preferred to have a chewier but more flavorful steak versus a more tender but ruined flavor steak.

    Moral of any lesson: 1. Always have a control food item. 2. Always have taste tests, with blind tests being the most preferable.

    See for yourself. Search for this video on YouTube —
    I tried BAKING SODA on $1 Steak and this happened!

  4. 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.

  5. The same trick used for velveting in Chinese cooking is used in the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, etc.) for čevapčići (skinless sausages with numerous versions depending on local custom). Typically with soda water, though I’m unsure how critical that is scientifically

  6. I know how much I need for all my pots. If I'm making a tomato based dish like chili or a pasta sauce instead of using table salt I'll throw in a bit of baking soda. It gives a bit of the salt flavor and reduces the acidity level. It is one of those ingredients that has a certain "screw you" level when you over do it and a half a pinch over will ruin a whole pot of sauce.

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