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Several of Delia Smith’s latest recipes have very high salt levels – some containing more than a whole day’s limit, according to a new report.

In Delia’s new ‘How to Cheat at Cooking’ television series and recipe book she encourages people to mix together ready-made foods rather than cook from scratch with fresh ingredients if they are short of time. But unfortunately, many of these ready-made products are already high in salt and many of the “Cheat” ingredients that she adds contain large amounts of salt. On top of this, in many recipes she advises adding extra salt.

Research suggests that reducing the average adult’s salt intake to 6g a day could prevent 19,000 deaths from stroke and heart attacks every year in the UK.

“Delia Smith is very respected by the public and has great influence over what we cook,” said Professor Graham MacGregor, Chairman of the Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), the health watchdog responsible for the report. “She has been trusted by millions of people for years to provide easy, everyday recipes. It is a real pity that she seems to be unaware of the dangers of eating too much salt, and furthermore it seems as if these latest recipes have not been checked for their salt content.”

For instance, the ingredients for “very nutritious and very cheap” Thick pea and bacon soup add up to approximately 12g of salt, even without the unspecified amount of extra salt that the recipe says should also be added during the cooking process. This recipe serves two, so each person would be eating almost their 6g a day salt limit in one meal. Even divided between four people as a starter, this recipe provides half the daily salt limit.

Carbonara real quick is made with ready-cooked crispy bacon and “lots” of Pecorino Romano cheese, which is one of the saltiest cheeses available. This recipe for two people contains over 14g of salt, again not including the salt added to the pasta when cooking and the extra salt added to the sauce during preparation. Again, this one meal contains more than a whole day’s salt (6g) per portion.

Grilled polenta with sage, ham & melted Gruyere is intended to serve two ‘as a snack’ or four as a starter. It contains almost 9g salt, so that is over 4g of salt per person for the snack option or over 2g for the starter.

And Puttanesca presto – a pasta dish made with olives, anchovies, capers and a jar of ready-made sauce – contains almost 15g salt, not including the salt that is added to the pasta when cooking, or any parmesan added later. This is a recipe for four, so that's at least 3.5g of salt each.

“The majority of our food industry is making huge efforts to reduce the amount of salt they add to food and the public is becoming much more aware that eating too much salt has severe health implications,” said MacGregor. “Unfortunately, this hard work is undermined when chefs and cookery writers appear on television using high salt ingredients and adding large amounts of unnecessary salt to their recipes.”

Carrie Bolt, CASH Nutritionist, said that nutritionists would always advise people to cook meals from scratch, using fresh ingredients and adding as little salt as possible.

“It really doesn’t take long to make a simple tomato sauce from a can of tomatoes, some onion, garlic and herbs,” she said. “Avoiding ready-made versions like tinned mince and jars of sauce would cut the salt content of some of these recipes dramatically.”

She added that not all of Delia’s Cheat recipes are high in salt, so people wanting to cook her recipes should try the ones that do not feature high salt ingredients such as anchovies, olives, capers, stock, Parma ham, ready-cooked bacon, Thai fish sauce, soy sauce, blue cheese, and Pecorino Romano cheese.