Using Salt Properly in Cooking

FOOD · GLOBAL

Using Salt Properly in Cooking

Salt types, when to season, how much, and the health picture

Salt is the single ingredient that most changes how food tastes, and most home cooking is underseasoned or seasoned at the wrong moment. Both are easy to fix.

The types behave differently

Fine table salt is dense, dissolves fast and is easy to over-apply because a pinch holds a great deal. Flaky sea salt has large irregular crystals that sit on the surface and give a distinct crunch.

Coarse and kosher-style salt is what most cooks keep by the hob, because the crystal size makes it easy to judge by eye and by feel.

A teaspoon of fine salt weighs considerably more than a teaspoon of flakes, which is why recipes specifying one and cooked with the other come out wrong.

Season as you go

Salt added early dissolves into the food and seasons it throughout. Salt added at the end sits on the surface and tastes salty rather than making the dish taste of itself.

Taste at each stage and adjust. Adding a little several times produces better results than one measured addition at the start.

Salt as a finishing ingredient

Flaky salt scattered on at the last moment — on a steak, a tomato, chocolate, bread and oil — gives texture and bursts of flavour that dissolved salt cannot.

Use it for that rather than for cooking, since it is expensive and dissolves away invisibly in a pan.

Brining and pasta water

Salting pasta water seasons the pasta itself, which nothing added later replicates. A dry brine on meat, salted and left uncovered in the fridge, seasons throughout and dries the surface for better browning.

Flavoured and smoked salts

Smoked, chilli and herb salts are finishing ingredients rather than cooking ones, since the added flavours are volatile and largely lost in a hot pan.

Use them on something already cooked — eggs, roast vegetables, fish — where they are tasted directly.

Storing it

Salt absorbs moisture from the air and clumps, particularly flakes. Keep it in a sealed container away from steam rather than in an open bowl beside the hob.

A few grains of rice in a shaker is the traditional fix and works.

Salt in baking

Salt in bread controls yeast activity and strengthens gluten as well as adding flavour, so leaving it out changes the dough rather than only the taste. Weigh it rather than measuring by spoon.

The health picture

Most dietary salt comes from processed and prepared food rather than from the cellar. Cooking from scratch and seasoning to taste generally reduces intake.

National guidance is typically around six grams of salt a day for adults, less for children.

WHERE TO BUY

Ready to shop Cornish Sea Salt? Use the link below to visit the official store.

→ Shop Cornish Sea Salt — official site

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