Why Does Salt Make Everything Taste So Much Better?

You love salt, but do you really know salt?

October 26, 2021

It’s hard to overstate the importance of salt. And we’re not just talking about the oft-repeated cooking mantra “salt as you go.” Salt is an essential nutrient for the human body (put simply, we can't live without it), but that’s not all. Salt has also built empires, words (salad, salsa, salary!), and, of course, gazillions of foods. Kimchi, lox, umeboshi, prosciutto, we’re talking about you.

But even if you understand that salt makes food taste good, how does salt work, exactly? Where does salt come from, what does salt do, and why does (nearly) every recipe call for at least a pinch?

Here’s all that—plus how to shop for salt, how to use it well, and how to dial it back when you’ve gone too far.

Photo by James Mollison
1/11
Where the heck does salt come from?
Humans have been making (and using!) salt for millennia (as far back as 6000 B.C. in China!), which means that the methods and sources are vast and varied. In the simplest terms, though, all salt comes from the sea, be those present-day bodies of water or ancient oceans buried eons ago. Some types of salt are directly mined, but most of what we eat is evaporated from saltwater solutions. That solution might be seawater (that makes sea salt), or it might be water that’s been pumped underground by machines in order to dissolve salt reserves. How the water in the solution evaporates also affects the crystal quality, shape, and minerality of the salt that’s left behind. Uniform granules come from rapid evaporation in closed containers called vacuum evaporators, whereas light, hollow flakes are produced through solar (or fire!) evaporation in open containers. The more you know!
Photo by James Mollison
2/11
Get to know these six types.
Table salt: Cubic, granular, and fine enough to slip through your fingers, this is typical salt shaker stuff. In the U.S., it’s often enhanced with iodine (a.k.a. iodized salt), a vestige of a widespread deficiency in early 20th century diets. Many people think iodized salt has a metallic aftertaste, but even when table salt is not iodized, we don’t recommend it—it’s so fine that it’s easy to oversalt.
Kosher salt: BA’s workhorse, it’s not necessarily kosher itself—it got its name from its use in the koshering process. Widely available, relatively inexpensive, and easy to grip and pinch, it makes a good all-purpose cooking salt. Diamond Crystal and Morton, the two most common brands in the U.S., are heavily processed—water is injected into underground deposits to dissolve the salt, then that brine is refined for purity and the water is evaporated. Companies like Jacobsen, SaltWorks, and La Baleine make less-refined (and, some say, more flavorful) kosher sea salts.
Fine sea salt: Whether coarse or fine, refined or unrefined, industrially made or artisan-crafted, sea salt is what’s left behind when seawater evaporates (it’s not harvested from ancient deposits). As you’d expect, fine sea salt has been crushed to a sandy texture. It’s easy to find in cylinders at grocery stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and, unlike flaky sea salt, it’s often mass-produced, making it a little less expensive.
Flaky sea salt: Labor-intensive to produce and pricey to buy, examples include fleur de sel, sel gris, Maldon, and Jacobsen, all of which are made using slightly different methods. (To confuse matters more, there are also flaky salts that come from salt deposits, not directly from the sea.) In all cases, you’re paying for texture and flavor, so use them where they can be appreciated—not in brine or pasta water. Sprinkle over grilled steak or chocolate chip cookies before they hit the oven.
Black salt (a.k.a. kala namak): This salt has FLAVOR. Also called bit noon, among other names, its color (which is actually more red than black) and eggy, sulfuric aroma comes from iron-sulfide. Black salt enhances sweet, sour, and tangy flavors and is an essential ingredient in the spice mix chaat masala and the citrusy refreshment nimbu pani.
Himalayan pink salt: Most of this blush salt comes from the Khewra Salt mine in Pakistan. No scientific evidence supports the marketing claims that it’s healthier or cleaner, but it sure is pretty! (Andean pink salt, while similar in color, is collected from underground saltwater springs in Peru.)

3/11
Then pick two to call your own.
You could fill up a whole cabinet with salts from different parts of the world. It’s a good goal! But at the end of the day, you really only need two types: a cooking salt that dissolves easily and is relatively inexpensive, like kosher salt or fine sea salt, and a pricier finishing salt for adding texture and flavor pops as a final element.
At BA, our cooking salt of choice is kosher salt (Diamond Crystal, specifically): Its light and hollow flakes are easy to grip and crush, readily adhere to protein, and dissolve quickly. It’s also less salty by volume, meaning that it’s harder to oversalt. For finishing salt, we reach for Maldon, which comes in huge pyramidal flakes, or Jacobsen, which is made in coastal Oregon.
Photo by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Micah Morton
4/11
Some salt is, well, saltier.
Variation in size and shape changes how densely salt crystals pack into a teaspoon. The denser they pack, the saltier each teaspoon will taste. So pay attention to what the recipe calls for because ¼ tsp. fine sea salt will have a bigger impact on your dish than the same amount of Diamond Crystal.
In general, Morton kosher, table salt, and fine sea salt are more or less interchangeable. Diamond Crystal, however, is a less-salty outlier. If a recipe calls for Diamond, use half the volume of Morton kosher, table, or fine sea salt. Taste and go from there. The more accurate way to swap is to substitute by weight (look it up online!) rather than volume. And remember: The more salt a recipe calls for, the more important converting becomes.
Read more about swapping kosher salt and fine sea salt here.

Photograph by Isa Zapata, Prop Styling by Emma Ringness
5/11
Throw out your salt shaker!
“Using a salt shaker is a mistake,” says cookbook author Cal Peternell. Amen to that. It’s hard to gauge how much you’re using and impossible to get a tactical feel for what properly seasoning shrimp, greens, or a couple scrambled eggs means to you. Instead, get a salt cellar or salt box (it can even be a plastic half-pint container) that you can reach all five fingers into for a big pinch. Keep it next to your stove: With your salt readily accessible, you’re more likely to use it as you cook.
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Photo by Alex Lau, food styling by Rebecca Jurkevich, prop styling by Kalen Kaminski
6/11
Give your veg a salt ’n’ squeeze.
For crunchy (but not sharp) raw vegetable sides that are seasoned through and through (take Chinese smashed cucumbers as an example), add a little salt, then wait for it to do its thing. The salt draws out water, yielding a juicier, more refreshing texture and making room for other liquid ingredients, like vinegar, without risk of sog or dilution. Follow this method for a simple slaw:
Thinly slice or shave any combo of crunchy veg: Napa cabbage, red cabbage, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, cabbage, fennel, a bit of onion.
Season generously with salt and let sit until they start to release water, 8–10 minutes.
Begin to massage, gently at first so they don’t break, then harder as they begin to expel liquid. Keep going until they’re shiny and slackened.
Pour off all excess water, then season with olive oil and vinegar. Taste for salt.
Add accessories like chopped herbs, crushed toasted spices, roughly chopped nuts, crumbled cheese.

Photo by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Micah Morton
7/11
When in doubt, remember 1:1.
You’re staring down a raw chicken (it happens), a couple pork chops, or a few fish fillets and you don’t know how much salt to use. A good rule of thumb: Start with 1 tsp. Diamond Crystal kosher salt for every 1 lb. protein. Keep in mind, though, that a piece of skinless, boneless lean protein will require less salt than a fatty, bone-in cut.
Photo by Marcus Nilsson
8/11
Timing is everything.
It’s not just about how much salt you use—it’s also about when you use it. This is probably most important when it comes to big, dense, bone-in meats: As Samin Nosrat writes in Salt Fat Acid Heat, “a small amount of salt applied in advance will make a much bigger difference than a larger amount applied just before serving” because the salt needs time to travel to the interior and work its magic.
If you’re making a turkey, rib roast, leg of lamb, pork shoulder, you’ll want to salt a couple of days in advance. For thick steaks and whole chickens, a day will do—and if you forget, try for at least a couple of hours. (But if you only have 10–30 minutes, skip the dry brine and season immediately before cooking.) In most cases, season seafood right before cooking lest you risk dry, rubbery results.

Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Molly Baz, Prop Styling by Emily Eisen
9/11
A little pinch goes a loooong way.
A pinch of salt–even where you’d least expect it—enhances flavor, cuts through richness, and tempers sweetness. (As for how much “1 pinch” equals? Pinches are personal, but generally between ⅛–¼ tsp.) Start here:
Your morning smoothie
A scoop of chocolate ice cream
Buttered bread
Pancakes with maple syrup
S’mores
Sliced melon, pineapple, or mango
Orange and grapefruit wedges
Hot chocolate
Apple cider
Lemonade
Cocktails, like Negronis, daiquiris, and, duh, margaritas
Any heirloom baking recipe that doesn’t call for it!
The tops of galettes, pies, and loaf cakes, with a judicious hand (“It’s a flavor,” says baking legend Dorie Greenspan, “not a decoration.”)
Photo by Romulo Yanes
10/11
Every dessert needs it.
Salt is the yin to sugar’s yang, the insurance that the cookies you spent all afternoon baking are balanced and not cloyingly sweet. It also makes citrus fresher, warm spices more fragrant, and chocolate richer and bolder.
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Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Pearl Jones
11/11
The best fix for oversalting is prevention.
Sadly, there are no quick fixes for oversalted food—you can dilute brothy dishes or double up by adding more unseasoned ingredients, but neither will give you the results you were expecting. Instead, it’s best to stop yourself from oversalting in the first place. Go ahead and salt throughout the cooking process, but keep these tips in mind:
Use restraint—an under-seasoned dish is easier to solve for than an overseasoned one
Taste often!!!
Think about whether the dish is going to reduce and concentrate (like with a braise or stew)—in that case, it will only get saltier
Check the ingredients list for other sources of salinity, like miso, soy, shrimp paste, parm, or anchovies—hold back accordingly

Sarah Jampel is a writer, editor, recipe developer, and food stylist based in Vermont. She was a senior staff writer and stylist at Food52 before joining Bon Appétit as senior cooking editor in 2019, which entailed heading up the Basically vertical, editing and developing recipes, and writing about everything from her [favorite... Read more

Where the heck does salt come from?

Get to know these six types.

Then pick two to call your own.

Some salt is, well, saltier.

Throw out your salt shaker!

Give your veg a salt ’n’ squeeze.

When in doubt, remember 1:1.

Timing is everything.

A little pinch goes a loooong way.

Every dessert needs it.

The best fix for oversalting is prevention.