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Top 10 Best Salts to Buy Online 2020
No spice rack is complete without salt. But there are so many kinds: processed salt, sea salt, table salt, himalayan salt, and so on. How are you supposed to figure which’ll suit your palate?
Well, it’s important to know what features to consider when purchasing salt. Find out where it’s from, how it tastes, what it costs, what’s inside, and what people have said about it. Then flip through your recipe book, and figure out just how you use salt.
Well, it’s important to know what features to consider when purchasing salt. Find out where it’s from, how it tastes, what it costs, what’s inside, and what people have said about it. Then flip through your recipe book, and figure out just how you use salt.
- Last updated: 10-24-2019
- 6,992 views
Table of Contents
Types of Salt
A good salt is more than just salty. It can be bitter, sour, or even sweet. So first, ask your taste buds what they like.
Differences in the Base Ingredients
Salt is divided into two categories: sea salt and rock salt. Surprisingly, one is actually saltier than the other.
Sea Salt Has More Minerals Than Rock Salt
Sea salt comes from seawater; oftentimes, it’s dried in the sun, and then boiled down to make salt. Salt that’s produced this way has more minerals in it than rock salt. Coastal states like California and New York abound in sea salt, as the ocean is a stone’s throw away.
Rock Salt is Saltier Than Sea Salt
A long time ago, inland seas meandered through the world. The sun beat down on these inland seas during dry spells in our geological history; the water evaporated; and the salt crystallized, forming salt deposits. Now, we mine these salt crystals, heat them up, and extract rock salt.
Rock salt contains more sodium than sea salt, so it’s often described as saltier. The color and taste changes depending on where it was mined. In iron-rich areas, the salt has a light blush.
Differences in the Way It’s Made
The production method also determines the kind of salt you get. There are three general categories: sun-dried, processed salt, and table salt. The biggest difference? Nutrients.
The Most Nutritious: Sun-Dried Salt
To make sun-dried salt, you pump water from the sea and dry it under the heat of the sun or by the force of the wind. Since there’s no extra heat added to it, you don’t lose any minerals like sodium chloride, calcium, or magnesium. So, out of the three, this one will have the most nutrients.
Nutrients Added After It’s Been Baked: Processed Salt
Processed salt is made by pumping seawater into the factory and heating it there. This makes it lose a lot of vitamins and leaves it a bit bitter. The bitterness is then offset by adding nutrients back into it.
On a basic level, manufacturers make processed salt because it looks whiter. And to a consumer, whiter means purer. But there’s another, more altruistic reason: if if the salt was harvested from a polluted area, they need to bake the toxins out of the salt–and the minerals are taken as collateral. So refined salt doesn’t just look cleaner; it actually is cleaner.
The Most Common: Table Salt
Table salt is the kind that lines supermarket aisles. After washing the sun-dried salt with brine, it’s refined. Unlike with processed salt, the manufacturers don’t add in the nutrients that were baked out back in. The packaging will say that Sodium Chloride is 99% of the salt. This one has the lowest nutritional value of the three.
How to Choose a Salt – Buying Guide
Depending on what you’ve got jotted down in your recipe book, you’re going to want either sea salt or rock salt. Below are several kinds of home-made dishes and the recommended salt to go with it.
How to Use Sea Salt
Here are some uncommon, multi-cultural ways to use sea salt.
Salt Can Make Fruit Sweeter
In Japan, you might see people sprinkling salt over watermelon. It adds sweetness and a new dimension of flavor–before you turn up your nose, think: we basically do the same thing when we throw a pinch of salt into the cookie batter. Sea salt can also enhance fruit mix powders.
Salt for Drying Vegetables
If you’ve got to suck water out of a vegetable, use sea salt. It’ll absorb water, without leaving your cucumbers tasting like pickles.
Salt Can Be Used to Prevent Discoloration
You wander over to the fridge to get out that bowl of guacamole, that plate of apples. You pull open the door–and find yourself face to face with brown mush. Here’s a trick: next time, sprinkle sea salt over food before serving. Not only will it enhance flavor, but also it’ll keep the colors fresh as spring.
Salting Fish
Sea salt will keep heat from scorching the fish–and make sure it doesn’t just crumble in the pan. As you’re drying out your latest catch, sprinkle some on to draw out natural flavor. It’ll also get rid of that nauseating fish smell.
Rock Salt for Big Flavor
Rock salt is saltier, so it’s often mixed with black pepper or rosemary, then used to season chicken or beef. Add some to pork, and it’ll get rid of gaminess and harsh meat tones. If you are making focaccia for Italian dinner night, adding some rock salt with olive oil can make the dish sing.
Natural Salt for Beauty Spa Treatments
You want to pamper yourself? Use natural salt–none of that refined stuff. Add some in your bath to promote blood flow, increase metabolism, and relax your muscles. It’ll also soften keratin and remove dirt. Soak yourself in some salty hot water; massage any rough patches; come out with soft, glowing skin.
A word of warning though: salt can be rough, so go for finer grains. Don’t scrub yourself with it, and keep these treatments to once a week.
Top 10 Best Salts to Buy Online
Here are the top 10 salt products we recommend. As you scroll through–think about where you need a little salt in your life.
10. La Baleine Sea Salt
$8.99
9. Selezione Truffle Salt
$24.22
8. Fleur de Sel de Guerande Sea Salt
$15.85
7. Morton Table Salt
$7.48
6. The Spice Lab Pink Himalayan Salt
$6.99
5. McCormick Sea Salt with Grinder
$5.94
4. Maldon Sea Salt Flakes
$5.84
3. Celtic Sea Salt
$7.41
2. San Francisco Salt Company’s Fleur de Sel
$14.99
1. San Francisco Salt Co’s Sherpa Pink Himalayan Salt
$9.49
Summary
For the aspiring chef, the sore athlete, the grill master at family barbecues–we’ve introduced a bunch of different salts for a bunch of different people. When you pick one, think again about what you want the salt for.
A final word of advice: if you are using a kind of salt for the first time, go for one that has a customer satisfaction guarantee. That way you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain (in the world of salt).
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