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Salt (ingredient)

Spices & seasonings · Salt

Salt

The basic seasoning: sodium chloride crystals that sharpen flavour, preserve food and control fermentation.

Also called: table salt, sea salt, kosher salt, namak, tuz, sal

1713 recipes with it

Photo: Lexlex, via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

What it is

Salt is crystalline sodium chloride, mined from deposits or evaporated from seawater. Table salt is fine and dense (often iodised), kosher salt has larger, lighter flakes, and sea salt ranges from fine grains to crunchy flakes for finishing. Because crystal size differs, a spoon of fine salt is noticeably saltier than a spoon of flaky salt.

How it’s used

  • Seasoning almost every savoury dish
  • Salting pasta and vegetable cooking water
  • Brining and curing meat and fish
  • Controlling yeast in bread dough
  • Finishing with flaky salt
  • Drawing water from vegetables before cooking

Characteristics

Taste
Salty; in small amounts it rounds and brightens other flavours.
Sold as
flakes, ground
Cooking uses
Mainly a seasoning
Common in
International

Varieties

  • Table (iodised) salt
  • Kosher salt
  • Sea salt
  • Flaky salt
  • Rock salt (sendha namak)
  • Black salt (kala namak)

Kinds in our pantry

Storage

Pantry-stable. Keeps indefinitely in a dry, closed container; it clumps in humidity (a few grains of rice in the shaker help).

Diet, allergens and safety

No major allergens in typical versions.

  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Dairy-free
  • Egg-free
  • Gluten-free
  • Nut-free
  • Soy-free
  • Caffeine-free

Nutrition per 100 g

Energy
0 kcal
Protein
0 g
Carbohydrate
0 g
Fat
0 g
Fibre
0 g
Sugars
0 g

USDA FoodData Central: Salt, table.

Substitutes

Optional — what works if you don’t have it, and how it changes the dish.

  • Kosher or flaky salt — Use roughly half as much again by volume as fine table salt; weigh for baking.

Related ingredients

Recipes with salt

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