Warm up from the inside out with homemade soups. Following "FASS," you'll be guaranteed depth of flavor and satisfaction in every bowl. - McCormick Test Kitchens
There’s a lot to appreciate in a heaping bowl of your favorite soup. All great soups are concocted from a laborious process of tasting, strengthening or correcting the soup’s flavor throughout the cooking process, and properly utilizing fat, acid, salty, and sweet (FASS) components to contribute to a fantastic soup.
Remember this FASS acronym to help you build complex flavors in your soup. It goes down like this:
Fat: Fat distributes flavor across the palate and makes you feel satiated.
Acid: Acid, such as lemon, lime, vinegar, or salsas, draws out and brightens flavor as well as balances soup that’s too sweet or salty.
Salt: Salt brings out the flavor of food and moves flavor to the front of the tongue where taste is best perceived. If flavor is hanging back, then you know you need a pinch or two of salt to move it to the front.
Sweet: My favorite sweet is Grade A Dark (formerly Grade B) maple syrup, so rich you only need a little to harmonize and round out flavor.
In other words, don’t just wait until the last minute to add salt. Keep tasting as you go and have patience. Good soup is always worth it.
Image by Muffet.
This article was written by Stephanie Lee from Lifehacker and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
