How do I season food properly?

Most home cooking that tastes 'fine but not great' is under-seasoned rather than badly cooked. Seasoning is four levers — salt, acid, fat and sweetness — and knowing which one a dish is missing is the single most useful skill in a kitchen.

Step by step

1. Salt in layers as you go, not all at the end.Salt added early penetrates the food; salt added at the end sits on the surface. The same total amount tastes very different.
2. Taste at every stage, and taste again after each adjustment.Not tasting is the actual mistake. Adjusting without tasting is guessing.
3. If it tastes flat but salty enough, add acid: lemon juice, vinegar, or something pickled.Start with half a teaspoon in a pan of food. It should make the flavour brighter, not sour.
4. If it tastes harsh or thin, add fat: butter, oil, cream or cheese.Fat carries aroma and rounds off sharp edges. A knob of butter stirred into a sauce at the end does a lot.
5. If it tastes aggressive or too acidic, a small amount of sweetness balances it.A pinch of sugar, a little honey, or a sweet vegetable. Small amounts — you shouldn't taste sweetness.
6. If you've over-salted, add bulk or acid rather than water.More unsalted vegetables, stock, rice or potato dilutes it. Water dilutes everything else too.
7. Season the surface of meat and vegetables before cooking, not after.Salt on the surface draws out moisture, which then dissolves it and carries it back in. That takes time.

Tips

• Use flaky salt for finishing and fine salt for cooking. The same weight of different salts fills a spoon very differently, so measuring by volume is unreliable across types.
• Keep an acid within reach while you cook — a lemon or a bottle of vinegar next to the hob makes you much likelier to use it.
• Season pasta water, rice water and vegetable cooking water. It's the only chance to season the ingredient itself.
• Taste with a clean spoon each time. Repeatedly tasting from the cooking spoon is unhygienic and dulls your palate anyway.

Common mistakes

• Only salting at the end — The salt sits on the surface, so the dish tastes salty on the tongue but bland underneath.
• Reaching for more herbs when a dish tastes flat — Flatness is nearly always salt or acid. Herbs add a different flavour rather than fixing the missing one.
• Not tasting — The only way to know is to taste. Everything else is guesswork.
• Adding water to fix over-salting — It dilutes the salt and everything else, leaving a weak dish.

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