How To Fix Tomato Sauce That's Too Sweet

The ideal tomato sauce is something to behold. It is the perfect balance of flavors, melding the robust flavors of aromatics such as garlic and onion, with the acidity of tomatoes and a touch of sweetness that rounds the whole thing out. Pour over a bowl of pasta and enjoy. However, for something so simple, there are many ways for your pasta sauce to go awry. Perhaps one of the worst mistakes a home cook can make is to add too much sweetness into your sauce. Whether you added too much sugar to your recipe or mistook a dish of sugar for salt, upsetting the balance of sweetness in your sauce can bring even the most well-seasoned cooks to the brink. But just because your sauce is too sweet doesn't mean that it is completely irredeemable. 

In fact, there are a few tricks you can use to put your sauce back on the right — and not saccharine sweet — path. For starters, you can adjust the flavor profile of your sauce by adding in ingredients such as peppers or lemon juice. Additionally, you can work on distorting the proportions of your recipe in order to bring back the balance of flavors in your dish. Then again, there might be some occasions in which you might have to put your spoon away, and start your recipe from scratch. It just shouldn't be your first resort.

So you over-sweetened your sauce. It happens to the best of us. Maybe you misread the recipe, grabbed a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon, or perhaps your bag of sugar went topsy turvy into your tomatoes. Things happen, as they say. But cooking is full of surprises, and one must roll with the punches. So, how can one ameliorate this situation? Well, there are a few tracks you might take. But first, there is one thing you should not do: add in more salt. While mixing in a bit of salt may seem like a natural solution to your sweet woes, adding in salt might actually amplify your sauce's sweetness instead of counteracting it. You also don't want to run the risk of over-salting your dish in addition to over-sweeting it.

Instead, reach for a lemon, some vinegar, or another sour ingredient. Sourness can help to balance out your food's sweetness and add an additional layer of taste. If sour isn't your thing, try adding in some crushed red peppers or another spicy ingredient, as it can also help push your sauce's sweetness to the background. Alternatively, you might want to go for bitter and reach for the chocolate. That's right, adding cocoa powder, in very small amounts, can help reduce sweetness by adding in a bitter flavor that balances the sweet. Cocoa powder also makes a great addition to chili, in small amounts, of course. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, add in a splash of beer into your sauce. It might just be the perfect fix for your sauce woes.

Okay, but what if you don't want to risk adding in a new flavor to your sauce? Going in a spicy, sour, or bitter direction can be tricky, and you might end up over correcting. Luckily, there is another track you can take when fixing your sugared sauce. By altering the proportions of your recipe, you can reduce its sweetness. There are several ways to do this. For starters, you can simply add more liquid to your recipe. You can do so by adding more canned tomatoes. Or, you can add another liquid, such as chicken broth, which can add complexity that will help cover the sugar, beer, or even water to simply dilute the recipe. Now, for this trick, you will most likely have to adjust your other ingredients, such as onions, garlic, or any spices used. Just make sure to not add any more sugar. 

Alternatively, you can skim off half of your sauce and then add in more tomatoes. If you're worried about losing other flavors, such as the aromatic ingredients that are often used as the base of your sauce, you can prepare the added tomato sauce in a separate pan. This will allow you to saute additional onions and garlic to which you can add and prepare your additional sauce. However, if all else fails, you might have to face the inevitable and toss your sauce.

So you've squeezed your last lemon, and diluted your sauce to its last end, and your sauce is still too sweet. In this case, you might want to face the inevitable and start from scratch. If this is the case, you'll want to avoid making the same mistake that took you back to square one. 

There are a few ways to go about this. For starters, you can re-read the recipe from which you were working. An over-sweetened sauce could be the result of a mistake. It might be useful to reassess the recipe. You can also try adding in your sugar gradually, stirring in about a half a teaspoon at a time and tasting as you go. This way, you can stop when the sauce has reached your desired sweetness. Alternatively, you can skip the sugar entirely. After all, sugar isn't always called for in sauce, and tomatoes will naturally develop in sweetness as they cook down. There is also nothing wrong with admitting that a sweet tomato sauce simply isn't your thing and ditching the sweetness entirely. If you want a more savory sauce, you can counter the sweetness of the tomatoes by adding in cheese or bacon. This will give the sauce a more savory edge that just might be exactly what you wanted in the first place.