r/Cooking • u/Lion-Resident • 1d ago

How to decrease the taste of tomatoes

I made a dish. I put a small bit of tomato paste. My partner doesn't love tomato and says the taste is quite overpowering. How can I decrease the taste of tomato? I want my partner to enjoy the dish.

The dish is beef, lentil, barley and spinach stew.

Thanks.

0 Upvotes

28% Upvoted

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6

u/R1T-wino 1d ago

You can certainly use sugar for balance, but for a stew, I would use butter. It’ll round those sharp edges from the tomato’s acidity and give a velvety mouthfeel.

5

u/Successful-Falcon603 1d ago

I always add a pinch of baking soda to help balance the acid. Be very careful not to overdo it, though.

4

u/OpportunityReal2767 23h ago

Sour cream? Maybe even heavy cream? Put a little bowl of stew in a dish on the side and try it and see if it works before putting it all in. I add sour cream fairly often to stews at serving:

2

u/OlonanVictor 22h ago

Not sure if you can decrease the taste of tomatoes for one who is picky about tomatoes without greatly affecting the dish overall. All these suggestions (dilution, added fat, acid neutralizing) help balance tomatoes, but I disagree that it "decreases" it (except dilution).

Unless you want to make a 2nd batch with zero tomato and mix the two for the ultimate dilution, you'll be SOL depending on how much your partner doesn't like tomato.

Next time instead of tomato paste, check out Turkish pepper paste, or some eastern European veggie paste (I think it's called Agvar?). Those should work well with your stew, it'll add body and some thickening like tomato paste but without the flavour of tomato.

1

u/Lion-Resident 11h ago

Thanks. I will try to get some of those sauces you suggested.

2

u/MouseAndLadybug 1d ago

Add a little sugar for balance

2

u/Ok_Traffic_3129 23h ago

Baking powder

1

u/emmafilet 23h ago

try the brand mutti next time. i’m sensitive to the acidity of canned tomatoes and these are the real deal, super sweet.

i also would advise you to caramelize the paste on the side before adding it into your soup. look up some videos on youtube, it should turn into a deep almost brown

1

u/Iskander789 23h ago

Not put tomato paste in it.

2

u/SundaePrimary352 1d ago

If it’s the acidity you can had some sugar. If it’s bitter add vinegar.

1

u/utahphil 23h ago

Cut it with stock and reseason.

0

u/PositiveCoyote100 23h ago

Tell your partner they can cook their own meal