Salt 101: A Pro Cook’s Complete Guide to This Essential Seasoning

Season with salt and pepper. Salt your cooking water. Season to taste. If you’ve ever encountered a written recipe, you’re probably somewhat familiar with these phrases. Salt is omnipresent in cooking, and in food at large as well. Though it’s everywhere, there’s also a ton of conflicting advice when it comes to how much salt to use, which salt is best, and how much salt you should *actually* be having daily.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suggests no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. This equates to about one teaspoon of table salt (or iodized salt). But here’s the thing: Table salt is just one of many salts Americans use on a daily basis to flavor their foods, and those salts all vary on crystal size and how “salty” they taste. For example, coarse Kosher salt has 1,920 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon. So off the bat, sodium levels per different salts are fundamentally different.

This also doesn’t take into account how much table salt (a tiny, fine-ground salt) can fit into one teaspoon versus something flakier like a sea salt. Additionally, a pinch of salt—which you would add one to two times per recipe when cooking—is less than one-eighth of a teaspoon, far less than the suggested maximum. Basically, we as a society haven’t been giving salt a fair chance, and I’m here today to defend its honor.

Salt versus sodium

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Salt and sodium are not the same. Usually when you hear about salt or sodium, the words tend to be tossed around interchangeably, which can be confusing at best, and detrimental at worst when seeking out nutritional advice.

Salt is composed of sodium chloride, and its makeup is about 40 percent sodium to 60 percent chloride. So the mineral sodium is part of the chemical makeup of salt, but it does not 100 percent comprise each grain of salt. Why is this important? When looking at how much salt you’re consuming per day, you can trick yourself into feeling like you’ve overshot your daily value, when in reality you’re far from it. There are even studies that show we could benefit from a bit more sodium in our diets, but the recommendation remains low to account for Americans that stick with a lower sodium diet due to conditions like heart disease and high blood pressure.

Importantly: the ions in sodium are the reason our tongues pick up on the “salty” flavor, and because different salts have varied amounts of sodium content, you should always be tasting when seasoning. That’s why we have that cue in recipes, it’s not just a little sneaky snack for you, but an important step in cooking to ensure that you’re not over-seasoning your foods. Kosher salt alone contains 53 percent less sodium by volume when compared to your typical table salt. Sodium content can even vary between different salt brands—due to crystal sizes and impurities—so any time you change out your salts, make sure you’re doing a little taste test.

What are different types of salt?

Generally, there are about five main salts used in cooking: Sea salt, Kosher salt, Fleur de sel (a French sea salt varietal), table (iodized) salt, and Himalayan pink salt. There are plenty more titles—including flavored, smoked, and finishing—but they’re offshoots of broader salt types.

Finer grain salts like fine sea salt, Kosher salt, and table salt are great salts for using when cooking. This is because you want the salt grains to fully combine with your food and melt in—that way you won’t get a big salty flavored-hit on each bite.

When you *do* want an intentionally salty bite, e.g. on top of a cookie, or on a leafy salad, coarser salts like Fleur de sel and Himalayan pink salt are your best bet.

What is kosher salt?

Kosher salt is widely used throughout the professional chef and recipe developer community alike. You’ve most likely seen the large red or blue boxes (depending on your affinity for either Diamond Crystal or Morton’s) at the grocery store.

But why is it called Kosher salt? Any salt *can* be kosher, if produced under the correct supervision, but Kosher salt does not get its name from the religious practice. Back before refrigeration technology was widespread, people needed ways to store meats and poultry for long-ish periods without the fear of it going bad. This salt was then used to remove blood from meat and poultry—a process called “Koshering”.

The name refers to the grain size: A larger, coarser grain that, back in the day, would cling to meat well without necessarily fully dissolving into the protein. Now, it’s a happy medium between the fine grain of iodized salt, and super flaky sea salt that many cooks prefer.

What is iodized salt?

Iodized salt, or table salt, is probably the most common salt you’ve come in contact with. In the salt shaker at your local diner, on your dinner table (hence the name), in those tiny little packets you get in your bag of takeout—table salt was the ubiquitous American salt for years.

But why iodine? A common thyroid condition—goiter—which comes from an iodine deficiency, was really prevalent in the early 1900s. Introduced to the American public in 1924, iodized salt is made by simply spraying a solution of potassium iodine onto salt and letting it dry. Yep, a simple spritz was all that was needed. In fact, only about 28 grams of the solution is needed per 1,000 pounds of salt.

Do some salts provide more health benefits than others?

Short answer: No. Though some salts like pink salt (or Himalayan sea salt) are often boasted as being nutritionally rich, the amount of salt you’d have to consume to gain any nutritional benefit would be outrageous and detrimental to your health.

And when we talk about the “processing” of salts, it’s simply a series of washing and slightly heating to remove impurities. Sometimes this is done mechanically, and sometimes manually, depending on the salt type. That’s why flakier, or coarser-ground salts have more mineral content (or impurities), because they aren’t as stringently washed as finer ground salts.

How to pick the salt that’s right for you?

Choose a salt based on your cooking needs and simply what you desire. If iodized salt works for you because it fits into your salt shaker and you’re comfortable because you know exactly how much to use based on national guidelines—that’s great. If you love pink sea salt for its color and its slight minerality thanks to the flavoring from the sea, this is also wonderful.

However, I will give you a little insider tip: Many recipe developers (both online and for cookbooks), including myself, use Kosher salt, so keep that in mind when following published recipes, as you may need more or less salt depending. Here’s a handy guideline to do any conversions you may need.