Sometimes I carry powdered soup mix (Knorr/Maggi) when I travel but they are way too salty. Is there an efficient and simple chemical process to lower the salt content?
I know sodium is super soluble and is hard to remove by precipitation, but is there a work around to perhaps only dissolving the salt and take them out? Thanks!
Peel and thickly slice several potatoes and cook these in your soup. Remove them when they have softened. They will absorb the salt while cooking.
You can use this method if you accidently add too much salt to stews or sauces (normally this becomes apparent when reducing.)
The removed potatoes can be discarded or used in another meal, maybe mashed.
I think that using chemistry is the hard way to solve this problem. In my country, all foods have nutrition information which includes sodium levels. So either select low sodium dried mixes or take dried food to make your own soup.
Is there an easy way? Yes. But it will make the soup toxic, so I will not explain the details. I'm sure there are some ion exchange columns which have been manufactured so that they are suitable for pharmaceutical or food use. So, what you'd have to do is first filter the soup to remove particulates and colloids (such as oil globules) and then pass the clear liquid through the ion exchange bed(s). I'd estimate it would cost less than 100 $ per bowl of soup. As far as potatoes, they do have a water content. Perhaps cooking them with your soup would eventually decrease the salt in the soup and increase it in the potato, that sounds reasonable. I'd suggest you try low-sodium powdered mashed potato mix (if you can find it) and you could also try rice or pasta to absorb some of the salt water and improve the taste. Just some wild guesses. You really don't want to stray from various cooking or food additive processes when it comes to stuff you eat (or drink).
