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At Bon Appétit, we develop all of our recipes using Diamond Crystal kosher salt. The reason for this comes down largely to the consistency of the product and its wide-reaching availability. But is kosher salt really the best salt for you and your home kitchen? Maybe—maybe not. Is iodized table salt automatically bad because it’s more highly processed? Not necessarily. Today, we’re demystifying salt. All types of salt: kosher salt, regular table salt, unrefined salt, Himalayan pink salt, coarse-grained salt, fine salt, sea salt, you name it.
There’s so much nuance to the world’s most ubiquitous seasoning agent and, in turn, so much misunderstanding. So we spoke to selmelier—yes, a salt sommelier—and author of Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, Mark Bitterman. His book is a taxonomy for salt. In it, he breaks down the different types of salt, how they can be applied, versatility, environmental impact, and why it all matters. For many people, “there’s never been any effort or economic rationale for breaking it down or looking at what’s under the hood when you buy a box of salt,” says Bitterman. “Prior to 15 years ago, it was just a box of salt.” No more! Let’s dig in.
What even is kosher salt?
Technically, kosher salt is a type of sea salt, as is nearly all of the salt used in home kitchens. It's also the seasoning agent chefs and many home cooks swear by, which makes sense—it’s cost-effective, available, and reliable. “Kosher salt is a standardized product that’s the same everywhere in America by brand. So you can buy any brand of kosher salt, like Diamond Crystal or Morton kosher salt, and it’ll always be the same,” says Bitterman. (Though, once you find your preferred brand of kosher salt, you should stick to it, because not all brands are equal when it comes to salinity by volume. More on that later.) “It has a larger flake [than table salt] that’s popular because it’s easy to manipulate with your fingers.” Read: easy to control, hard to oversalt.
The name kosher salt is not necessarily a reference to Jewish culinary standards. There’s no rabbi blessing large industrial bins of salt in a warehouse somewhere. It doesn’t come from religiously significant salt mines, nor is it a Jewish mineral (although it is nice in matzo ball soup). Kosher salt got its name because, historically, it was used for its effectiveness in koshering meat, the Jewish process of preparing meat for consumption. The larger grains draw out moisture from meat faster, which is part of the koshering process.
Kosher salt rarely contains additives, but does that mean it’s necessarily the best? “It’s refined sodium chloride, which is effective in imparting saltiness to food, but it’s not a particularly natural way to do so,” says Bitterman. The goal for an industrialized salt-making process is “purity,” meaning the absence of naturally occurring minerals present in unrefined salt. For Bitterman, “those minerals contribute to the flavor.” (Again, more on that later.)
Okay, so what is table salt?
“Regular table salt (a.k.a. iodized salt) is an industrially manufactured, highly refined sodium chloride product with a variety of additives—but also a couple of benefits,” says Bitterman. It’s free-flowing, so it can work in a salt shaker better than any other salt. (If your number one goal in life is to use salt from a shaker, this is the one.) It also targets iodine deficiency, which is a global health issue. Iodized table salt is an effective tool to introduce iodine into food systems in parts of the world where iodine-rich foods are unavailable.
It’s processed the same as kosher salt, save for two differences: “They use a different crystallization technique to create a more granular and cubic crystal for iodized table salt, and there are additives,” says Bitterman. The additives get the iodine to adhere to the salt and the anticaking agent prevents it from clumping so it comes out of a shaker evenly and easily. As a result, some people are able to detect a bitter aftertaste in food seasoned with iodized salt; others dislike it because those additives can cause discoloration in pickling. Because of its small grain size, there’s more salt by volume in a pinch of table salt than in a pinch of kosher salt, so it’s easier to oversalt your food when using table salt.)
Are there other options?
Both kosher salt and table salt are highly processed. These are “industrially manufactured and artificially refined, processed to optimize production,” says Bitterman. Basically, Big Salt is solving for profit, not quality. Other culinary industries, however, are fraught with quality delineation. Take chicken: Do you want free-range, organic free-range, or local organic free-range? See what we mean? Salt is often treated like an afterthought, but it shouldn’t be. If you’re putting so much thought into what bird you’re going to buy, isn’t it worth taking a minute to consider which salt you’ll use to flavor it? That’s why Bitterman’s go-to seasoning agent is unrefined salt (sometimes called natural salt).
“Natural salt is made sustainably with solar energy and skilled hand labor,” says Bitterman. “Using it directly impacts the preservation of sensitive coastal ecologies.” Kosher salt and iodized table salt cannot make those claims.” Plus, he says, it tastes better. Those minerals that Big Salt removes? Those add a richness of textures and flavors to food “ranging from buttery and round to oyster-minerally and crisp” that can’t be achieved with refined salts.
Most often, Bitterman reaches for French grey sea salt (a.k.a. sel gris). “It’s commonly available, there’s no sticker shock. It’s coarse-grained salt so you have to grind it down, unless you’re dissolving it into pasta water or soup. If you’re salting a steak before grilling, it’s the best.” He also likes Himalayan pink salt because it is unrefined, commonly available, and visibly identifiable. (Just don’t confuse it for pink curing salt, a preservative used in making charcuterie and other cured meats.) “It’s technically a rock salt, meaning it’s derived from the earth, not the sea. It’s soft enough that you can crunch it with your teeth, but hard enough that your teeth are like: Whoa that’s a crunch.”
Whether using Himalayan pink salt or French grey sea salt or any other unrefined salt, you can deploy it when cooking pretty much anything. If a recipe calls for kosher salt, use about three-quarters the amount of unrefined salt. Again, not all brands are alike, so you may experience some trial and error until you figure out the right adjustment based on what brand you use. (More on salt conversion here.)
The cheat sheet? If what matters to you is salt shaker effectiveness, shake on with table salt. If it’s consistency and ease of use, go for kosher. If environmental impact is your number one, buy unrefined sea salt. Or keep some of each around, depending on your mood.