Salt content: Ready meals V recipe books

[BroccoliSpears]

I did a delia recipe last night. Pasta bake.

1. Cube the aubergine and courgette and layer with a sprinking of salt, leave for an hour.
2. Get all the veggies together, season with salt and pepper before roasting.
3. Make the cheese sauce with loads of parmesaan and then season with salt and pepper.
4. Par-boil the pasta in salted water.

By the time I'd finished I wondered about the salt content of the meal v a ready meal pasta bake.

Actually, dd is not yet 2 and I'm very careful with salt and didn't add it at any of the stages above. It tasted fine.

It's what your taste buds are used to, I think. I do salt certain foods but can live without it on other things.

Thats the thing just don't add the salt. The only thing That I ever put salt on (for myself not the kids) are chips and a tiny bit in a dippy egg.

The difference is you can do exactly as you have done and leave it out of a home cooked meal. YOu have choice and control.

You don't have choice and control with a ready meal (other than not buying it of course)

I stopped adding salt to everything except a small amount in my home baked bread when DS started solids & it took a while to get used to...but now if I eat out or at a friend/relatives house I really notice how salty they have their food.

I think salting aubergine is a bit of a judgement call - some chefs say to do it & some done't. Why not make the dish in two halves next time, one salted & the other without, & see which tastes better?

I don't add salt if I am cooking for DD, and definitely don't cook in salted walter, etc. If cooking a big meal for other visitors I add a little bit of salt, but again very limited amounts.

I never bother with salting aubergine. Delia's obsessed!

Do you think if I'd made the recipe according to St Delia it would have had a similar amount of salt to a ready meal? I know that ready meals have high salt content, but what is high?

6g is the max for an adult per day so I guess 2g per portion is pretty high.

oh delia is mad - you haven't had to salt aubergines since about 1952. They've bred all the bitterness out of them.

I never add salt now to any cooking or food as there is so much in pre-processed foods anyway, bread, cereals, cakes, baked beans, everything. It doesn't need to be in most of the stuff and certainly not in the quantities used. Unfortunately, my mum has developed taste for salty foods (too much processed crap and old habits) and always asks for salt to add to her food when she eats here. I lie and say we don't have any (we do, I have a pack of salt over 10 years old that is at the back of the larder and still nearly full). Wish she would cut back but her taste buds are now so attuned to salt she can't taste things without it. She doesn't read the packets of things she uses either. I told her off for using stock granules in a casserole as they are v salty, to then find she'd 'sprinkled' bouillon powder over the chicken instead. Only 46% salt, WTF!!!!!

Salted water for pasta totally unnecessary. Can't work out why you'd salt vegetables before roasting (hate aubergine so am not qualified to comment). Parmesan sharp and salty, so needs no extra salt. What a bonkers recipe! And I speak as quite a fan of the white stuff.

The salt content of ready meals is high, right. But I am always astonished at how much salt celebrity schefs use. Particulalry
Barefoot contessa
Two fat ladies
Jamie
Delia
I only very occassionaly use salt, since we had ds. And before I only useda bit.
Not handfiuls like them !

I have never salted aurgerines either.