When to Use Kosher Salt vs. Sea Salt in Your Cooking

Salt is one of the best ways to boost the taste of countless creations (unless, of course, the cook has a heavy hand). A pinch here, a shake there—and presto!—your dish, whether a beef stew, roast chicken, vegetarian chili, or even a salty-sweet dessert, is instantly more flavorful.

But salt is more than a utilitarian seasoning; if you've strolled down the spice aisle at the grocery store lately, you've probably noticed that today's selection is an overwhelming thicket, including kosher salt, and sea salt products, with some options flavored, smoked, or blended with herbs. To better understand the profusion of choice—and the merits of kosher salt vs. sea salt—we asked a sustainable flake salt producer and a cooking educator to share their extensive knowledge.

Common Uses for Salt

Salt is essential in cooking, bringing the subtleties of each ingredient to life, says Björn Steinar Jónsson, founder of Saltverk, a sustainable producer that uses 100 percent geothermal energy and pristine seawater to hand harvest sea salt in Iceland's remote Westfjords. "Salt is also an excellent tenderizer for proteins, helping to create a more pleasant experience for the diner," he says. "But it doesn't stop there! For thousands of years, people have been using salt to preserve lemons, cure prosciutto, ferment cabbage into sauerkraut, and so much more."

Albert Nguyen, chef-instructor of culinary arts at the Institute of Culinary Education adds that salt can draw the moisture out of vegetables, leaving them malleable, flexible, and sometimes, more crunchy. "It also balances sweetness and suppresses bitterness," he says. Salt can accentuate the natural flavor of food, too. "When we sprinkle some on a slice of tomato, it makes the tomato taste more like a tomato to us. It really highlights the sweetness, acidity, and umami in a tomato, as well as the tomato flavor," says Nguyen.

What Is Kosher Salt?

Kosher salt is a purified rock salt made from sodium chloride. Contrary to its name, it's not always kosher.

How it's made: The salt comes from salt mines where it is produced by pumping water into rock-salt deposits. Once the water evaporates from the brine, it's ready for processing. Many kosher salts are industrially produced, and depending on the brand, can be super dense or lighter and flakier, says Jónsson.

Kosher designation: Kosher salt made under Jewish guidelines contains no additives, iodine, or anti-clumping or anti-caking agents. The name comes from the koshering process, an ancient method of using large grains of salt to expel blood from meat before preparation. Some kosher salts are not kosher, instead referring to the course-grained style of salt.

Common uses: Kosher salt is a go-to for seasoning meat and vegetables. It's also used for brining, pickling, curing, or smoking foods. "Kosher salt's finer texture makes it suitable for general cooking overall, especially seasoning pieces of protein where you want an even layer of salt without it being overwhelmingly salty," says Nguyen.

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages: Different brands grind kosher salt to specific crystal sizes, which makes it consistent in flavor and volume, says Nguyen. "That's why restaurants use it for recipes," he explains. The large grains can be easily pinched and sprinkled over dishes. 

Limitations: Since kosher salts are mined or chemically refined, they lack the trace flavors and mineral content of many sea salts, says Nguyen.

What Is Sea Salt?

"Sea salt, simply put, is any salt that comes from evaporated seawater," says Jónsson. "Unfortunately, that's where the definition ends, and where nuance starts."

How it's made: First, seawater enters shallow areas or man-made pools called salt works, and after the ocean water evaporates, the sea crystals are collected, washed, and dried. Unless a producer uses only the sun and the wind to evaporate the seawater—or in Saltverk's case, geothermal energy, a clean renewable source produced in the Earth's core—removing the fresh water from the seawater requires enormous amounts of energy.

Characteristics: Sea salt can be all over the map in terms of its singularity and flavors, depending on the mineral components, the purity of the seawater, the evaporation process, and harvesting techniques. "You can have wet, dense sea salts, light flaky sea salts, sea salts with no flavor, and sea salts with incredible depth and complexity," explains Jónsson. "There is no one real defining characteristic."

Common uses: Sea salt, Jónsson adds, can be applied in infinite ways, much like any other salt. "It can be used for cooking, for brining, for baking, for curing, for finishing, and everything in between," he says. (Like rimming cocktail glasses, one of the many ways Nguyen implements the salt.)

Advantages and Limitations

Advantages: The surface area of flaky sea salt is larger than regular table salt, making it dissolve more quickly, and triggering a faster flavor release and increased saltiness perception. "You get more flavor with less salt used," says Jónsson. Another upside: the minerality of the clean ocean waters translates to the salt's flavor.

Limitations: For all of sea salt's 1001 uses, sometimes slight adjustments may need to be made, like breaking up the texture with your thumb and finger to create smaller flakes to evenly coat a piece of fish, says Jónsson. "Alternatively, you might want to reduce the quantity of salt in a certain recipe to take into account the richer flavor (and thus your tongue's higher perception of saltiness) that you'll get from a high-mineral sea salt," he says.

Differences Between Kosher Salt and Sea Salt

In selecting kosher salt vs. sea salt, consider the grain size, texture, and flavor.

Size and texture: Most kosher salts are large and coarse-grained, while sea salts have variability within their range, says Jónsson. "For instance, our sea salts fall somewhere between a flake salt and a fleur de sel, both of which are types of sea salt," he says.

Flavor profiles: "Kosher salt enhances existing flavor (unless you add too much and then it tastes salty) but sea salt enhances flavor and adds flavor as well," says Nguyen. "Sea salts have expressions of terroir, just like wine, coffee, olive oil, and many other crops," says Jónsson.

When to Use Kosher Salt vs. Sea Salt

Using one over the other largely boils down to texture preferences and how the salt integrates with specific recipes, says Nguyen. Sea salt is also more expensive, so consider uses that allow for savoring its minerality. "Sea salt can be great for finishing dishes if you want that crunch and hit of salt when you bite into it," he says. "Kosher salt blends in a lot more easily when added to foods."