How To Thicken Grits? The Best Method To Make Your Grits Denser!

All cooks want to make the perfect dishes for the eaters; however, making food can be disturbing once the final result is below your expectations. For example, a dish of alfredo turns out to be too runny in the end, and you have to restart to thicken alfredo. Should it be a bad experiment ever, right?

Similarly, if you have been making grits before, you must notice that nailing the perfect density is one of the biggest challenges while making the dish. How to measure the correct thickening and, more importantly, how to thicken grits so as it won’t be too loosely?

We will give you the answers to these wonders right in this article!

What Are Grits?

You may ask, What are grits made of? Grits are a kind of porridge made with starchy, unsweet corn. Nowadays, we can use many kinds of corn to create grits, but dent corn is the most used one.

After harvesting, these dent corn will experience a handling process that absorbs the dried grain in the end. After a few days, the hard body of the corn itself is eliminated.

This subsequent new grain is known as hominy, which can be seen when you purchase stone-ground grits from dairy stores or manually make it. Appeared as a white/yellow assortment, hominy is completely edible, so don’t worry if it is a sign of rotten grits.

How To Cook Grits?

Grits are extremely straightforward to make. You don’t have to be an expert in cooking to cook grits perfectly. Check out our quick grits recipe below, and you will know why. With just two simple steps, you can cook a delicious grits recipe:

• Step 1: Prepare the vital ingredients, including grits, milk, water, salt, and a pot of hot water.
• Step 2: Pour everything in hot water, except for the grits. The grits will be added at the last stage. Add cornmeal gradually and often whisk to prevent stickiness.
• Step 3: Cook the substance in low-medium heat and often stir until the grits form its shape. If you want to make this cooking process faster, learning how to cook grits in the microwave is a nice option as well.
• Step 4: Once you find that the grits have formed, remove the final product and place it on a dish. Sprinkle some pepper or salt on top, and there you go, a nice, butter grits!

If you have mastered the technique of making grits, you can bring in your culinary skill by adding some variety into the original dish to create a stunning flavor combination. You can also add some cream to make creamy grits easily.

What Are The Reasons For Loosening Grits?

Loosen grits is composed due to these above reasons:

Wrong Ratio

There is not enough butter or cream texture in your recipe compared to water. The suggested ratio for any grits with acceptable density is 1:6 grits to water ratio, so if you have accidentally created grits with a lower ratio, your grits likely happen to loosen than expected.

Too Much Fat

Too much fat added too quickly can also result in runny, loosen grits. Despite the fact that grits get solidified very fast, under the cooking process, we should fill the ingredients in slowly rather than fastly so that the milky substance can absorb them all.

Once you put the ingredients altogether so soon, the grits can turn out to be quite runny and loosen in the end.

Broken Cheese

Cheese hates heat and should always be added off heat. If you constantly put it into hot substances, it will break eventually. Broken gritty pieces flowing might not be detected, but you see the runny texture later on.

Moreover, you should check the quality of the cheese you put into the dish. If the cheese or the buttermilk smell sour, it is not qualified enough to be cooked together with grits.

How To Thicken Grits?

Step 1: Examine The Current Result.

If you think that your grits are too runny, take a moment to look at the final product you have made and consider this element. Is the work too watery that you can only pick it up with a spoon but not a fork?

If the answer is yes, then you should restart the process as the texture has been too loose to thicken up again. Putting in more condenser at this point is of no use as the product has settled down to the fact that it cannot be modified.

If the answer is no, then we still have high hopes. If you can pick up the substance with a fork, then the grits you have made have had a consistency already. Thanks to that, we can move on to step 2 to make the grits thicken as desired.

Step 2: Go Through The Steps Again.

Take a moment and think about the ratio and the ingredients you have utilized to make the grits. 

As we have stated in the previous part, the recommended ratio for the perfect grit is 6:1 liquid to grits. If you have messed up this part by adding more liquid than usual, then you can recognize that this is the main reason why your grits are not dense enough.

About the ingredients, in case you have utilized the right ratio, but the grits still turn out to be loosened, you should notice whether the combination between the liquid part (water) and grits part is compatible or not.

Some grits are only preferable to milk, that’s why even though you have utilized the right ratio, the grits are still not built.

Step 3: Add More Ingredients

Hence, due to what reasons that mess your grits up, you can still fix everything by adding more dense ingredients. Here is the list of factor you can use on how to thicken watery grits, and how to make grits taste good:

Cheese

As we have mentioned in the previous part, cheese can be added in the last stage of making grit. Not only will it increase the flavor of the grits, but it will also improve the grits’ texture, making your grit thicken as desired.

You can utilize any cheese you want, from cheddar cheese to goat cheese, as long as the flavor matches your dish.

Baking Soda

As we all know, to thicken grits, baking soda is one of the most used agents in the food category.

When you use baking soda to thicken grits, you must calculate the amount well, so the thickening agent does not ruin the grits’ texture. Gradually whisk the blend into the grits until it gets murky and velvety.

Conclusion

And that’s how to thicken grits. We have given the reasons and the solutions for this grits-making mistake, and we hope it can help you master how to make grits thicker.

If you have any questions, feel free to share and we will help you to have the best culinary experience. Thank you for reading our article, and we will catch up with you soon!