If you’ve been cooking for a long time, you’ve probably experienced food burning or overcooking. Most cooks would just throw it away, but that’s a waste – there are plenty of quick fixes you can try to save your plate! It depends on the type of dish you’re cooking, but if you want to learn some helpful kitchen hacks to fix burnt food, keep reading!

Meat

If you burn steak or any meat on a grill or in the pan due to high flames, the interior is probably not cooked through. What you can do is sear the meat in a pan (preferably oven proof) and then move it to the oven (300F) until cooked through.

If you are cooking meat to put in a stew or soup and it starts to burn, stop cooking. Wash the pan before recooking the meat, or cook the meat in a completely different pan.

vegetables

If you steam or boil produce for too long, drain and immerse in ice water in a container. This stops the cooking process. After a few minutes, drain again.

If the vegetables are overcooked, you can still use them for other dishes! Overcooked vegetables can be pureed, grilled with butter or cheese, or frozen for later use as a soup or sauce.

Rice, pasta or potatoes

Carbohydrates like rice, pasta, and potatoes cook quickly, so it’s easy to overcook them, even if you leave them alone for a couple of minutes. If you overcook the rice, place it in a strainer, rinse and drain well to remove stickiness. If this doesn’t work, you can make it into fried rice.

For the soaked pasta and potatoes, let them dry and then fry them in the pan with a little butter, olive oil, and lots of seasonings. You can also reuse the pasta by baking it in stews and as for the potatoes, they are good for frittatas or omelettes.

soups and sauces

Once you realize the soup or sauce is burning, turn off the heat immediately. Liquids will usually only burn the bottom, so don’t scrape the bottom of the pan and simply transfer the soup or sauce to a different pan or pot to continue cooking.

Throwing away burnt or overcooked food should be your last resort. Reclaim what you can and simply reuse the food on another plate! Follow these 4 awesome kitchen hacks to prepare burnt food.