If you measure a teaspoon of salt, the measurement is affected by both the amount of air within, and the amount of air between the salt particles. Measuring salt by weight is a much more accurate method of determining how much salt you really have. Armed with my digital kitchen scale which measures to the gram, and 4 containers of salt, I started my experiment.
The contestants
The four salts that I selected:
- Morton table salt: Without any data to back it up, I believe that this is the single most common salt in peoples’ kitchens.
- Morton coarse kosher salt: The most common kosher salt on grocery store shelves.
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt: My personal favorite. It’s in the Goldilocks’ zone for pinchability – not too fine and not too coarse.
- Whole Foods 356 kosher sea salt: Selected rather randomly just to have a 4th contestant.
I used a quarter cup measure for the test. I used the baker’s standard measurement method of overfilling and then using a flat utensil to swipe off the excess.
The Results
- Morton table salt: 80 grams
- Morton kosher salt: 71 grams
- WF 365 kosher sea salt: 71 grams
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt: 37 grams
There are no typos above. There was more than a 10% measurement difference between Morton table salt and the first two kosher salts. Much more striking, there was literally twice as much salt in the ¼ cup measure of Morton table salt as there was in the ¼ cup measure of Diamond Crystal Kosher salt! Now, as I stated, this experiment was informal. Maybe if I sampled multiple boxes of Diamond Crystal, from multiple production runs, I’d find variance between them, and the 37 gram mark may be a low outlier. But it’s clear, measuring salt by the teaspoon will lead to significant variances in salt content depending on the salt you use. You don’t even need a scale, just compare the boxes in the photo. Both the Diamond Crystal and the Morton kosher salts are 3 pound boxes, but the Diamond Crystal box is significantly larger. Diamond Crystal has a larger volume per pound.
Why does it matter?
If a recipe is designed using Diamond Crystal kosher salt and you use Morton table salt, you are literally using twice as much salt as the recipe author intended. How do you know what type of salt the author intended? Usually, you don’t. Occasionally you might find something like this in the forward section of a cookbook:
“Aside from flaky finishing salts that add texture to a completed dish, the only salt I use is Diamond Crystal kosher salt.” Vivian Howard, Deep Run Roots.
But, most cookbooks don’t have such statements. And for those that do, I expect the overwhelming majority of readers won’t notice the statement or understand its significance.
Salt to Taste
I think the most important lesson to take from this is that you shouldn’t blindly trust a recipe’s specification for salt. Use your intuition and experience. Salting earlier in the cooking process is generally better than salting later, but only if you get it right. You can’t remove salt once it’s added. Taste along the way and adjust seasoning. Definitely taste before plating and serving. That’s your last chance to adjust.
Pinchability
I mentioned that I prefer Diamond Crystal because it is in the Goldilocks’ zone for pinchability. Vivian Howard agrees as she wrote “Diamond Crystal’s particle isn’t so big it flakes off meat before it hits the pan, and not so miniscule and heavy that it packs a saltier punch per teaspoon.” For me, I found that to be the case the first time I tried Diamond Crystal. I have a salt box on the counter. It’s so easy, with one hand, to flip the lid and grab a 3-fingered pinch. Not only does Diamond Crystal pinch really well, it also sprinkles evenly from that pinch. And that sprinkle integrates very well. I do a lot of simple roasting and grilling where I toss vegetables with salt, pepper and olive oil. Diamond Crystal disappears into the olive oil gloss. Morton kosher salt remains in big chucks, and much can end up left in the bottom of the tossing bowl.
I’ve measured my pinch of Diamond Crystal. I get ½ teaspoon with every pinch. Since I had all of the salts open in front of me, I gave them all the pinchability test. Here’s what happened:
Diamond Crystal: As I had found before, with 3 pinches, each was pretty much ½ teaspoon. Each weighed 2 grams. I’d be curious to run the experiment with a more precise scale to see this to a tenth of a gram, but my scale is fine for everything I really need it to do.
Morton Kosher Salt: This is definitely coarser than Diamond Crystal. I expected significantly different results, but they were surprisingly similar. The weight of the pinches were 2, 2 and 3 grams, and they all came in at ½ teaspoon. What I didn’t like, though, is how it’s hard to sprinkle. As you release the pinch, it’s more like a dump than a sprinkle.
Whole Foods 365 kosher sea salt: This is noticeably coarser than even the Morton coarse kosher salt, and it did behave differently. The three pinches weighed 3, 3 and 4 grams and they measured almost a full teaspoon each. I’m going to use this to salt pasta water where it will obviously dissolve. It’s just too coarse for general seasoning.
Morton Table Salt: This is the finest grind. It was really hard to even get a pinch. The salt just slipped through the cracks like sand spilling down an hour glass. Each of the 3 pinches measured at 1 gram in weight and less than ¼ teaspoon.
Conclusion:
Baking recipes, where the exact ratio of ingredients is critical, often provide the measurements by weight. It’s simply more accurate. When using a recipe that measures salt by volume, know that you don’t really know how much salt the author intended. Use your own judgement, experience, and most importantly, taste. In your own kitchen, be aware of the different types of salt you have and how they behave differently. If you want to do the kitchen geek thing, like I’ve done, run your own pinchability tests. Measure your pinches once, and you can be confident in measuring by hand in the future.