Sea salt

What is sea salt? About the ingredient sea salt. Including 467 recipes with sea salt, nutrition data, and where to find it.

Contents

1. About
2. Nutrition facts
3. Where found
4. Food group
5. Weights & measures
6. Recipes464
7. References
8. Related

About

Sea salt is obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics.

Historically called bay salt or solar salt, its mineral content gives it a different taste from table salt, which is pure sodium chloride, usually refined from mined rock salt (halite) or from sea salt.

Generally more expensive than table salt, it is commonly used in gourmet cooking and specialty potato chips, particularly the kettle cooked variety (known as hand-cooked in the UK/Europe).

Taste and Health

Gourmets often believe sea salt to be better than ordinary table salt in taste and texture , though one cannot always taste the difference when dissolved. In applications where sea salt's coarser texture is retained, it can provide different mouth feel and changes in flavor due to its different rate of dissolution.

The mineral content also affects the taste. It may be difficult to distinguish sea salt from other untreated salts, such as pink Himalayan salt, or grey colored rock salt. Sea salt is purified less than the high mineral pink salt.

Varieties

Flaky sea salt

Coarse sea salt

Smoked flaky sea salt

Fine sea salt

Iodized

Because sea salt generally lacks high concentrations of iodine, an element essential for human health, it is not necessarily a healthful substitute for regular iodized table salt, which is usually supplemented with the element, unless another source of dietary iodine is available (such as dairy products or regular processed foods).

Iodized forms of sea salt are now marketed to address this concern.

Recipes using sea salt

There are 464 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 464 recipes

Created: October 9, 1999 Last updated: over 6 years ago