- You may know that we Americans overdo it on salt but you might be surprised where most of it comes from.

It's hidden in some of our favorite foods.

Today I'll show you where most of that salt is stashed and how to get the bold taste you crave while keeping salt in check.

On the menu, tri-color salad pizza, three ingredient coriander crusted turkey breast with sweet and spicy roasted root vegetables, family favorite minestrone soup.

- I'm so excited.

- You totally can make it and we're gonna make it together today.

We've got some big flavors coming up right now on Ellie's Real Good Food.

(guitar music) - [Announcer] Funding for this series has been provided by.

And by (slow music) - [Female] Grapes from California, grown by families for families.

- [Announcer] And by Regal Springs Tilapia.

Ellie's Kitchen is provided by Clarke, New England's Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.

- Hi, I'm Ellie Krieger, welcome to Ellie's Real Good Food.

Now most of us eat a lot more salt than we should but here's the kicker, most of it's not the salt we add ourselves.

61% of it is stashed in store made and processed foods as well as restaurant meals.

And the top five culprits, wait for it, bread, pizza, sandwiches, cold cuts and soup.

That means it's key to take control of things in your own kitchen.

So I'm gonna take you beyond salt to some other great sources of flavor.

Let's start with one of America's favorite foods, pizza.

It's my favorite too and when you make it at home, you can make it healthy and delicious.

I'm gonna show you how.

This is one of my favorite pizza recipes.

It's a tri-color salad pizza and I'm gonna divide this three quarters of a pound of dough here into four pieces.

It doesn't have to be exactly even but even-ish, how's that?

And you can use a regular non whole grain dough if you prefer but it's always good to get whole grains whenever you can and pizza dough's a good place to do it.

I just buy mine in the store.

They sell it in the freezer section and then you just thaw it ahead.

I'm just gonna spray my pans here with some oil spray 'cause I'm making individual pizzas here and what I like to do is also put a little bit of corn meal on my counter, makes it kind of easier to roll it out and I love the texture.

So I'm gonna stretch this out into four individual pizzas.

Now bread, like pizza dough, for example, really does generally have a lot of sodium in it.

And it's funny because it's one of those things that doesn't taste salty.

So the idea here is really to just not use too much, right, and then you're not overdoing it with a big heavy crust.

And this is really fun to do.

I love pizza night.

I have pizza night at least once a week in my house.

There we go.

I'm using three cheeses here but really it's a modest amount altogether.

So you get that luxurious cheesy pizza that you want but you're really not overdoing the sodium.

In the end, it's about half the sodium of a gooey, overcheesy slice of pizza that you'd get if you bought it in the store.

So that's about a third cup there.

I'm gonna cut some mozzarella cheese.

And here again, just really a modest amount.

You get a nice meltiness without overdoing it.

So about two ounces altogether, just thinly sliced and then I have some ricotta cheese here as well.

So spread a little ricotta on each one.

It's about a cup altogether so each one gets a quarter cup.

So you're really getting good nutrition here as well because ricotta has a lot of calcium.

I love to do like a sweet pizza with ricotta cheese, figs, and a little honey and balsamic vinegar.

Mmm, you gotta try that sometime.

Okay, so the ricotta's giving us a beautiful creaminess.

Now we'll get all that meltability with some mozzarella.

And then that big punch of flavor with the parmesan.

Okay, then just some fresh cracked pepper and then these just go in a nice hot oven, 475.

Definitely want to make sure that oven's hot and it just takes about 10 minutes.

The cheese is melted and they'll be beautiful and fragrant and ready for the salad that goes with the salad pizza.

Oh my goodness, they're so beautiful and bubbly and brown and they smell delicious I'm gonna make this gorgeous tri-color salad to put on top.

And tri-color salad is basically arugula radicchio and endive.

And so you get this nice kind of beautiful pepperiness to go on top of the rich cheesy pizza.

I love these multicolor grape tomatoes, they're so pretty.

I'll use about half of this maybe.

Okay.

Just toss that a bit.

Extra virgin olive oil.

A little bit of balsamic vinegar which has a lovely sweetness to it.

And a lot of salad on top.

The tomatoes, gorgeous.

Now this is what I'm calling pizza.

Might just pick it up with my hands.

Look at that.

Mmm, tri-color salad pizza.

It's so good and look at all the salt we didn't use.

(guitar music) One of the big offenders when it comes to sodium is soup, especially canned or store made.

My guest Blu loves minestrone but her challenge with soup and food in general is how to maximize flavor without oversalting, whether it's her own food or take out.

- The problem is that when I eat packaged or prepared foods or if I go out to a restaurant, I can't control how much salt they put in.

So now I'm trying to learn how to cook more for myself with less salt.

What I want to know is how do you make up for the loss of flavor?

- So today I'm gonna show Blu how to make her own minestrone powered by some potent flavors that relegate salt to a walk on role.

So this is my family favorite minestrone and I'm so excited to share it with you.

I seriously make this just about every week throughout the winter 'cause my 14 year old daughter will not do without it and I know your 14 year old daughter also loves minestrone.

- Loves minestrone soup.

- And you've never made homeade?

- No, I can't make that, no.

- Well, you're tot-- - I'm so excited.

- You totally can make it and we're gonna make it together today.

So I was hoping maybe you could start off by just need to chop some celery and I'll get started with these onions.

So you say you really want to learn how to season food but you don't feel like you have a good grasp on it?

- I have no idea.

I tend to just buy something in a store because I just don't know how.

- I think very often we automatically put a lot of salt in something because yes, salt brings flavor, absolutely.

But there are other ways to get flavor also and that's what we're kind of exploring today but the thing is, I think a lot of people are very all or nothing with salt.

You have to get the all or nothing mentality away because if you didn't put any salt in soup, it just wouldn't taste good.

But I'm just gonna dice this up so we have some onion and pepper.

Red pepper I like to use because it actually has lots of vitamin C and also more flavor.

- If I can make this for her then I know she'd be impressed.

- Well we want to impress our 14 year old daughters for sure.

But one of the things is when she tastes it and likes it, then you can teach her how to make it and then you're teaching her a really valuable skill.

Okay, so that's great, we got everything chopped up here.

I'm just gonna add two tablespoons of olive oil.

In goes all this.

Great.

A lot of times, manufacturers add a lot of salt to things because they're not using good ingredients and so they need more salt to kind of bring any flavor to the dish.

So when you're cooking immediately from really good ingredients, you kind of already need a little bit less salt.

So actually I can do this, so I put the zucchini in after because I don't want it to get too soft.

Here, you can do that half, actually.

So after this kind of softens a bit like this which is pretty much there, I'm gonna add some garlic.

Of course, garlic brings a ton of flavor too.

Right, so now we have a lot of flavor from the onion and the garlic.

Put this vegetable in.

Zucchini, maybe you can just give me a teaspoon of oregano.

The thing is with this, it doesn't even have to be exact but that's good, yeah.

Just sprinkle it in there, maybe give it a stir.

Switch places with you for a second.

- [Blu] I don't know if you should trust me with the soup.

- Yes, I'm trusting you.

This is the thing.

This is how easy it is.

Why don't you do the basil too?

- Okay, so it's basil and oregano, is that what you said?

- Yeah and the thing is dried spices are really potently flavorful.

Excellent.

See, that's all there is to it so far.

Okay, so this just goes a little bit and then we put in a can of crushed tomatoes.

You can pour that in if you want.

Beautiful.

And whenever I buy canned stuff, I do no salt added tomatoes or low sodium broth.

And this is a low sodium vegetable broth or you can use a chicken broth, if you want, either one works.

So that's six cups of broth.

And so yeah, it's a canned ingredient but you're using the low sodium variety.

We're gonna put salt in but the idea is is that you have control over how much goes in.

So now this is gonna come to a boil but I want to put some salt in.

So this, I also keep a quarter teaspoon in my thing.

I'm gonna use four of those which'll make a teaspoon of salt.

But this soup is gonna have about half the sodium of a typical canned soup.

So I'm gonna bring this to a boil and let that simmer for about 15 minutes.

Okay, so now after it's been simmering, just gonna add some beans and I'm using kidney beans here.

That's good.

And then a half a cup of pasta.

- So do you put the pasta directly in there or do you cook it while you're cooking the soup?

- So you could do either way.

Anyway, so that now simmers for 15 minutes until the pasta's done and that is pretty much it.

We just have to garnish it.

(upbeat music) Oh boy, this is so lovely.

There's one.

And you can, if you want to, this is what you do, so this is a microplane and you just like that.

That's beautiful confetti, cheese confetti.

And it's okay if it misses a little, too.

And if you want to do some on this one.

So a little bit of each herb, you can do your own if you want, basil and some parsley.

And would you like some fresh pepper?

- Yes.

- Alright, and how 'bout some toast?

- Yes.

- I love it.

Okay, we have spoons here.

Alright, so this is my family favorite minestrone and I really hope it becomes your family favorite minestrone too.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you for cooking with me.

Mmm.

- That's so good.

- Lovely.

(upbeat music) I am making my three ingredient coriander crusted turkey breast with sweet and spicy roasted root vegetables.

Big delicious flavor coming right to you really easily.

I'm starting with the vegetables here because they both cook in the oven at the same time, the turkey and the vegetables.

The vegetables take a little longer so I'll get those started and then do the turkey.

I'm just peeling some sweet potato.

So there's a nice mix here of carrots, parsnips and sweet potatoes.

I love to use these colorful carrots.

And you know, the different colors means that there's different nutrients in there so the purple carrots are higher in a plant compound called anthocyanin and the orange are high in beta carotene.

So it's just kind of cool 'cause you get like the full spectrum of nutrients when you get different colors.

So I'm just gonna cut these all into chunks.

So when you're trying to cut back on salt using fresh herbs, dried herbs, citrus, flavored vinegars, all of those are great options and also dried spices.

And you'll see how much flavor the dried spices bring.

And I like to cut these a little differently just to keep 'em kind of long.

Having the carrots lengthwise and the parsnip lengthwise, put one more slice into it.

Now I'm just gonna make the spice mixture.

So I have a half teaspoon of cumin which kind of gives a real earthy taste, half teaspoon of ground coriander which I think has a lovely depth but also a citrusy note to it, ginger which is of course quite zingy, ground ginger and then a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper for some heat.

Just warmth throughout, not making this too spicy.

And then a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon which also provides warmth and a little sweetness.

And I'm gonna enhance that sweetness with two tablespoons of honey.

So this will be sweet and spicy.

Three tablespoons of olive oil.

And this spice mixture is really kind of like a Moroccan sort of combination of spices.

And now some salt.

Just a half a teaspoon of salt.

And so salt brings all these flavors together but overall, there's not a lot of salt in the dish as a whole.

So I'm just gonna whisk this altogether.

And then just put all these veggies in and stir to coat them all.

Just get 'em all evenly coated.

And then I'm gonna just put them onto a baking tray.

Kind of spread 'em out in an even layer.

And these just get baked for about an hour at 375.

And while this is getting started, I will get my three ingredient coriander crusted turkey breast going.

(guitar music) I'm in spice heaven right now, I have to tell you.

There's so many wonderful spices here and I've been tasting and exploring and I love that you have this chili bar because there are so many kinds of chili.

It kind of can be overwhelming sometimes.

- [Nisha] Right, we have about 20, 25, maybe even more different type of chilies.

- So and chilies have so many health benefits and add so much flavor and not always heat, which I think people don't realize, many chilies are not hot at all, right?

- No, no, it's just a flavoring.

- Let's explore some more here, there's sumac and-- - I call sumac our secret ingredient 'cause you mix it with olive oil and you put it on a salad and everybody wants to know what did you put in there?

- Sumac is a secret ingredient, I like that.

So you can put that on hummus.

- Hummus and also no roast chicken and rice.

- And so it has, so sumac has also this wonderful color to it, like this burnt red color to it.

- It's kind of like celery.

- Let's taste.

- Like a tamarind, right?

Doesn't it have like a tamarind?

- Yeah, it's like a slight tartness, slight.

- But it adds so much flavoring to any type of food.

What else do we have?

So you were talking about turmeric.

- Yes, I love turmeric.

- And that's super popular now, right, so you have some ground here and your dress matches the turmeric.

So tell me, you're getting a lot of requests for it, yeah?

- Yeah, yeah a lot of people love it because it's so good for you and they add it in rice, they add it with their food.

And you just have to kind of try it with pinch or a dash and then keep on going if you need more flavor.

And so you can add this with anything.

Some people just drink it with hot water every morning.

- Oh yeah?

- Yeah, it has a lot of health benefits.

- The thing that makes turmeric yellow is curcumin, a very active compound in terms of antioxidant power.

And here's the whole coriander seed.

So there's cumin.

- Yeah this is cumin, the seed and the ground.

- I have to say I use cumin and coriander all the time for middle eastern dishes.

- Or Spanish, Mexican, Indian.

- Also Indian, right, it like spans the globe.

- Also like Thai dishes, Malaysian dishes.

- And so the curry blends actually have many of these ingredients and there are so many kinds of curries.

What's in a plain curry?

- Turmeric, it's got cumin, it's coriander, it's got cloves, it's got cinnamon.

- Ginger, usually, garlic.

- Ginger, garlic.

So when you just buy the curry, it's already, everything is mixed in there and this is just a base.

- A classic curry, kind of.

- A classic curry, yes.

- A classic yellow curry, you might say.

- [Nisha] Yeah, yes.

- So if you're gonna buy one curry to have that's gonna span most recipes.

- Buy the classic one.

- Buy your classic yellow curry.

- And then you can add on.

- Generally I think, I like to buy the individual spices because really they're sort of like the alphabet.

You can make any number of words and sentences and write poems with them, so to speak.

But here you have a poem already written, right, sometimes you just need that.

So it's nice to have the blends.

Well thank you so much for this wonderful tour, spice tour.

- Thank you for coming.

- Essentially a world tour.

- Thank you so much.

(guitar music) - Three ingredient coriander crusted turkey breast.

You're not gonna believe how flavorful this is and how easy.

So my three ingredients are coriander seeds, mustard, and turkey and I get salt and pepper free in my three ingredient recipes.

So starting off with a tablespoon of the coriander seeds.

This is one of my favorite ingredients to use as a rub and two teaspoons of black peppercorns right in there.

Now if you have a spice grinder, you can kind of just coarsely grind those in there but you can also just put 'em in a bag like I'm doing and give 'em a little hammer till they're cracked.

(hammer pounding) Kind of fun to do.

Alright, so just about two teaspoons of dijon mustard.

And I'm gonna rub that in to the turkey.

Nice three pound, boneless, skinless turkey breast and usually it comes with the skin on so you just peel it off, it's easy.

But I like to take the skin off mainly because I like all these flavors to be right close to the meat.

Okay, so the mustard's gonna make it stick and I'm just gonna pour this on and press it in.

And it's gonna make a beautiful spice crust.

Nice little hit of fire from the pepper and that citrusy texture from the coriander seed, it's fantastic.

Now just a little bit of salt, half a teaspoon.

So not much salt at all.

And this just goes into the oven, 375 for 40 minutes but the most important thing is that the thermometer should read 160 degrees.

Oh, those smell so good, those sweet and spicy vegetables.

And this turkey, I took it out at 160, it's been sitting for 10 minutes and in that time it comes to 165 and all the juices kind of redistribute throughout the meat.

So now I'm just gonna carve up the turkey, thinly slice it and you can see the crust has formed from the peppercorns and the coriander and the mustard has kept the moisture in.

Alright, beautiful and juicy, serve some of that up here on this platter for dinner.

The rest will look beautiful there but I'm gonna save it for sandwiches.

Makes a good sandwich.

And the sweet and spicy roasted root vegetables, got the tender sweet potatoes, the gorgeous colorful carrots, parsnips, super sweet parsnips, all coated in that honey spice mixture.

And these are delicious hot like this but they're also really good room temperature.

Three ingredient coriander crusted turkey breast and sweet and spicy roasted root vegetables.

It's dishes like this that prove you don't need to lean on salt to hit the sweet spot where delicious and healthy meet.

Mmm.

(upbeat music) So this now takes awhile, eight minutes.

- [Male] Of course it does.

- Everything takes eight minutes and I mean everything.

No I'm sorry.

Hi, I'm Ellie, I'm Ellie Grieger, really?

And this is where the peanut butter comes in.

I mean really anything with peanut butter makes me happy.

Oops.

Even doing that over makes me happy.

Okay.

- [Announcer] For these recipes and much more, go to elliesrealgoodfood.com.

Also, connect with Ellie on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Funding for this series has been provided by (upbeat music) and by - [Female] Grapes from California grown by families for families.

- [Announcer] And by Regal Springs Tilapia.

Ellie's kitchen is provided by Clarke, New England's Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.