12 Effective Ways to Make Spicy Sauce and Food Less Spicy or Hot

Coming from a warm climate, my family love spicy foods. Eating spicy foods help people keep cool. Many spices also help prevent food from spoiling fast. The hotter a climate, the more spices used in local foods.

But, what do you do if you put too much spices in your sauce or food? How do you make hot or spicy sauce and food less spicy or hot?

Here are 12 Effective Ways to make hot and spicy sauce and food less spicy or hot:

To make curries or other Indian dish less spicy, try adding some plain yogurt. Yogurt works to lessen spice because it is a dairy product. Dairy products are effective at decreasing spice, whereas water is not.

For Mexican food recipes, try adding sour cream. Sour cream is also a dairy product which is effective in making your sauce or food less spicy or hot.

For curries and Thai foods, try adding some coconut milk. Coconut milk will make your dish creamier and less spicy.

If you don't mind adding a little sweetness to your sauce, add a teaspoon of sugar. Stir thoroughly and then taste. Add more sugar a teaspoon at a time and stir until the excess spicy flavor has been masked.

If you don't want to add sweetness to your sauce or food, use honey instead. Add a tablespoon or two of honey to your sauce or dish. Honey makes spicy sauce and food less spicy without the sweetness.

You can also stir in pieces of sweet or semi sweet chocolate to contradict or mask the spice. Take it easy adding chocolate to your sauce. You don't want a chocolate tasting sauce now, do you?

For soups and other foods of liquid type, you can add some cream or shredded cheese to make it less spicy. Again, cream and cheese are dairy products, and dairy products are effective in making food less spicy.

For sauces and dishes using hot pepper, try adding some olive oil or a good quantity of butter to your recipe. Fat is good for reducing the capsaicin/capsicum heat in hot peppers.

If your recipe uses spicy ingredients that are large and visible such as whole chili peppers or chunks of hot pepper, like in fresh salsa, or large pepper flakes you can try actually picking these out with a fork.

• If you are making chili, you can also add a few pieces of lemon, peel and all. This will help to neutralize some of the spiciness. Remove the lemon before you serve it.
• You can also try Penzeys Spices' heat free chili powder. Using this alone makes heat free chili or you could mix with the chili you already use to make a milder version.
• Put the chili in the refrigerator and serve it the next day... it will be less spicy.

If you are hesitating to alter the dish itself, consider serving the spicy food with a dairy-based dip or sauce, such as sour cream, yogurt, or other dairy product.

Mango chutney is also useful for helping make food less spicy.

Also, consider serving milk to drink with the spicy food. Water does nothing to lessen the spiciness of food.

If you have time, you can try diluting Mexican food recipes or Indian food recipes with more of the same. For instance, if you have made a rice dish that is too spicy, make a new batch without the spice, and then add the original a little at a time to the new batch, until the spiciness is just right to you.

And lastly, the only real way to do it is to add additional other ingredients... more beans, meat, sweet peppers, tomato products, etc.... this will essentially dilute the spiciness.

Other than that, you're stuck... once it's integrated, there's little to do that will isolate the spiciness and allow you to remove it.

Dr. Oz's Spicy Chili recipe, source People

Did you know?  by Rosie2010

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