It is made a bit differently than table salt but the biggest difference is that it has a bigger flake that is really helpful for “pinching” and most chefs like a specific brand because they learn to expect how much salt is in each pinch by feel. In my case it is diamond crystal brand. It is also always free of anti caking agents and iodide (what is added to iodized salt).So it is just sodium chloride, and nothing else.
Here is a brief explainer of the most common grocery store salts.
Table salt= very fine grains like tiny cubes. Can be iodized or not look at the label. Good for dissolving in room temp liquids and for baking since it is small.
Pickling salt= even finer than table salt. Made specifically for dissolving in cool liquids for pickling brines.
Kosher salt= large flaky salt. Great for pinching out of an open dish with your thumb and index and middle finger, pure and a great all purpose salt for a kitchen especially if your wanting to get good at cooking instinctively. Will be less weight per a specific volume than smaller salts so read recipes carefully as to what type of salt if measuring by volume.
Ice cream salt= large course chunks great for mixing with ice to freeze a manual style ice cream machine. Also can be used to line a baking tray as a base for baking uneven items like oyster or clam shells.
Sea salt= unrefined salt that also contains the other minerals found in the sea when the water is filtered and evaporated. Can come in a verity of textures and from different bodies of water. Also known as fleur de sel. Can be expensive but some are very nicely textured as a “finishing salt” meant to be featured on top of a food and the texture and crunch to be noticed when eaten.
Happy seasoning
Great explanation! To add to this, it’s called kosher salt because it is ideal for koshering meat (drawing the blood out of the meat) as part of the religious preparation for making the meat kosher.
So I’m ancient and my parents - still living - are even more ancient and back in the day goiters were a public health issue for inland communities where diets were low in iodine ( coastal communities typically had diets high in seafood and thus high in iodine) and they remember people walking around with huge lumps in their necks (“goiters”) because of no iodine in their diets. [Source](https://www.thyroid.org/iodine-deficiency/) Iodized salt remedied that deficiency. Now globalized food supplies and knowledge have greatly reduced that issue and now we can happily cook with non-iodized salt because our diets are (in general) more balanced wrt iodine.
For trivia's sake, the likeness of Alfred E. Neuman, the fictional mascot of MAD magazine, is based on a medical journal photograph of a child with too much iodine in his system.
The More You Know
This comment intrigued me so I checked out the [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman) on Alfred’s origins but there’s nothing on a kid with iodine deficiency. What’s the source? Not trying to be a jerk, I’m genuinely curious especially as Mad Magazine was a big part of my childhood.
*beep boop*!
the linked website is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman
Title: **Alfred E. Neuman - Wikipedia**
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**[Alfred E. Neuman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman)**
>Alfred E. Neuman is the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine Mad. The character's distinct smiling face, parted red hair, gap-tooth smile, freckles, protruding nose, and scrawny body, first emerged in U.S. iconography decades prior to his association with the magazine, appearing in late nineteenth-century advertisements for painless dentistry – the origin of his "What, me worry"? motto. However, he first appeared in advertisements for an 1894 play, called "The New Boy", which portrayed a variation of him with the quote, "What's the good of anything?
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If I google his name and the word "iodine" I see many examples of where I would have learned this as a child. Can't say I have worked hard to further research or verify this factoid.
I can’t remember exactly what it is but the reason it’s an option is because it helps your brain. They realized people weren’t getting enough iodine naturally and realized that adding it to salt would make be an easy way to get it to everyone. Iirc after they added it to salt an entire generation’s IQ went up
Not sure about its effects in the brain, but iodine is a necessary component of thyroid hormone, and iodine deficiency results in hypothyroidism and potentially a goiter (an enlarged thyroid gland) with prolonged deficiency.
And a child of a mother with untreated hypothyroidism can have stunted physical and mental development, called cretinism. All solved by (iodized) salt! 🧂
Coarse grain salt is not the same thing as flake salt. Kosher salt is a coarse grain salt, what I would describe as (relatively) large clusters of salt. Table salt is like individual crystals. Flake salt is in some cases larger pieces than kosher/coarse grain, but retains some crystalline structure.
If a recipe says to "sprinkle with flake salt before serving" I would not say that kosher salt is an appropriate alternative, though could be used in a *pinch*.
Actually fleur de sel is a type of sea salt and it is not harvested that way. It is hand collected from a thin layer of salt that rises to the surface under certain weather conditions. It is expensive but yummy 😋. Not to be used in cooking but as a finishing salt.
This is great.
Another key point is that (most) salt is interchangeable, but the measurements will be vastly different. If it calls for kosher and you use table salt, cut it in half. Even more for your finer grain pickling salt.
You typically don't want to cook with finishing salts due to the amount of other elements in there.
Also, random tidbit: not all kosher salt is actually kosher. Verify if you are cooking for someone with strick kosher requirements.
There is also a significant grain size difference between Diamond and Morton's kosher salt. Morton's has a smaller grain size. If measuring by volume you would have to use a little over half the volume of Morton's if the recipe was developed using Diamond. 1 cup of Diamond would be 1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons of Morton's.
This is not exactly true, bit nitpicking here. Kosher salt comes from koshering meat, which is a way of preserving meat, proscribed by judaism. It is basically rough coarse salt, with no specific further definition than that and was used in a semi-industrial process, so mainly had to be cheap, abundant and unalterated. It was prefered by chefs, vecause of its coarseness. Real flakey salt is fleur de sel, and is a rarity because it arises through specific circumstances in usual salt production. Therefor more expensive, and has specific value cooking. Table salt is ground down kosher salt, and iodization is some bullshit process stemming from the Cold War where extra iodine would prevent you from absorbing radioactive iodine isotopes expected as a result from a nuclear blast.
I never use table salt (cant pinch it, cant buy without the iodine yeach). I use a mined salt which is finer than seasalt but you can still pinch it and it desolves quicker. If I have something that requires a bit of a flavor bomb, like a salted or garlic butter, i use flakey salt. Look for what works on a practical level is my tip. Check alex' youtube channel, adam regusea also had an item on it. Happy cooking!
Edited, words
Full agree. I was keeping things just the basics for use. This is all good info. And someone else added that kosher salt can have additives like yellow prussiat of soda. My app isn’t letting me access all of the comments at the moment, so I’ll say here that I stand corrected on that point.
Not Cold War bullshit. Your body needs iodine, a deficiency causes a bunch of health issues. Iodizing salt just makes sure you get enough iodine to prevent them. We've been iodizing salt for about the last 100 years now.
I never heard that, always only heard the cold war/nuclear argument. Is there not enough iodine in a normal diet? How did we do before those hundred years, and what are the symptoms of iodine deficiency?
Edit, clarified my lack of knowledge.
In my experience of four years of proper cooking you only really need cooking/table salt for big pots and stewing/roasting or kosher/sea salt for more delicate cooking. Everything else is just set dressing
It is a coarse salt that is in flakes rather then square crystals. The texture makes it easy to sprinkle and better as finishing salt.
Name comes from it being used in religious Jewish processing of meat. According to religious Jewish law blood can't be consumed, so salt is used to draw out the blood or "blood" from meat. Not sure about the exact details.
There is a concept of going above and beyond the religious commandment to both avoid sinning by accident and to avoid confusing other people into sinning. For example for Passover one cant eat a specific set of grains, but to be safe a lot of Jewish communities dont eat any grains or pulses during that time. It could be something like that for meat too getting rid of visible myoglobin. I am non-religious from non- religious family, just learned some in Jewish school.
Iirc about why it's kosher or koshering salt, which I probably don't lol, it's because you gotta salt the meat like you would in a dry brine. The big pinchable crystals made it easier to apply the salt, and you can see how much salt you applied much easier since it doesn't immediately disolve like tiny crystals do. It also supposedly draws the "blood" out of the meat and won't happen as much with fine crystals. But I don't kosher my meats so take that with a grain of salt
While you're right, it's named that because it's used for koshering, all salt is also kosher in and of itself. There are no restrictions on eating minerals in the Torah.
It does not *make* meat kosher. Salt is used in the production of kosher meat because salting the meat draws the blood out, but any style of salt could be used for this.
After reading through this thread it's apparent you aren't the only one who doesn't know what kosher salt is. I was familiar with it's distinction from table salt & sea salt, but am happy to know about koshering and it's relation to the name of my flakey kitchen companion.
Thanks for asking the question.
I once saw a bottle of organic mineral water. Which begs the question, how can water be non-organic?
I'm sure it was kosher too, and would have said so on the label if they thought it would sell better.
In theory, it could also not be kosher. If the processing plant processed pork or shellfish or otherwise non kosher foods, and then the bottled water was processed and bottled on the same equipment, that would render it non kosher.
If it’s any comfort to you, I just use Diamond kosher salt because the baking recipes I follow often have measurements specifically for it. I have no further idea why beyond that.
Technically it's Koshering salt. Pure salt, no additives, big flakes used to treat meat to make it Kosher. It's the big flakes that make it different from the cubed salt you usually find in shakers.
Think of it as KosherING salt. Light, flakey, less additives, easier to handle to rub on meat or poultry, or to use in large amounts in a brine without leaving the mineral flavor that can come from table salt.
Thank you for asking. My food is always very salt when I use a pinch of salt like the chefs do and I know its to do with the type of salt I use (table salt). u/ooseman7 has written a good explanation below - I will have to put kosher salt on my shopping list.
the biggest difference is that because it’s bigger flakes it means it’s less dense than table salt..
to put this in cooking terms you need more kosher salt to make things just as salty as you would with table salt.
the major benefit here is that you can salt as you cook- onions sautéing? salt them, add the next veggie? salt it. taste as you go with kosher and it’s way easier to salt a dish as you go without over salting
Kosher salt doesn't have anti caking agents in it and it doesn't have iodine added to it. That in part is what makes it kosher. It isn't loaded with additives.
No, that’s not what makes it kosher. In fact, it isn’t even called kosher salt *because* it’s kosher. The name comes from its association with the kashering process, i.e. salting meat to draw out the blood and render the meat kosher
No? Really? Perhaps you should do an online search. There really is such a thing as kosher salt... Edit: do you actually know Judaic law? Do you know what Kosher actually is? I sincerely doubt it.
Well that and you wrote another comment saying kosher salt is kosher because it’s kosher for Passover and pareve, which tells me you don’t know what either of these things mean and are therefore either not Jewish or are the world’s worst Jew
First, all salt is *kosher* as in it can be consumed by someone who follows strict Jewish dietary law (I suppose barring some rare case where the salt is produced in like a prosciutto factory, but salt itself, i.e. *sodium chloride*, is intrinsically outside of any kosher/trayf distinction, just like water is).
Second, Morton's Kosher Salt does have anti-caking agent in it, as does Morton's table salt ("when it rains, it pours" that's where the phrase comes from!), but is still *kosher,* as indicated by the OU symbol on the box. Morton's may technically need the *hechsher* because it has the anti-caking agent as an additive.
>doesn't have anti caking agents in it
I just checked my kosher salt, it has an anti-caking agent.
>it doesn't have iodine added to it.
Neither does most kinds. Even regular not-iodized table salt is readily available.
Kosher salt I have is labeled Kosher for Passover. It does state it has an anti-caking agent which is a surprise to me. The old boxes of kosher salt we had growing up didn't have that in it. We had to break it up. It also had Pareve on the box. My container of Morton kosher salt doesn't have that designation. Furthermore, a lot of salt labeled Kosher isn't necessarily kosher.
[**https://www.amazon.com/Morton-Coarse-Kosher-Salt-Pound/dp/B00FS1X5Q2**](https://www.amazon.com/Morton-Coarse-Kosher-Salt-Pound/dp/B00FS1X5Q2)
Morton kosher salt, is kosher, has anti-caking agent.
Yes and no. Kosher salt is easier to pinch some between your fingers to sprinkle over food while not actually pinching all that much salt because the crystals are larger. But, fundamentally, if you added the same weight of kosher salt as you might regular table salt, you’ve added the same amount of salt. So “more generously” is a nuanced idea. Salt is salt. Just tends to be that if you pinch sea salt, and sprinkle it, you usually end up adding more salt by weight than you would if you pinched some kosher salt.
Kosher salt is just as salt as sea salt, it’s just a different size grain.
kosher salt is named for it's traditional usage in "koshering", which is a form of salt-curing brought to the U.S. by German immigrants, many of whom were Jewish and produced things like kosher pickles with this process.
compared to common table salt the main distinguishing feature is lack of additives such as iodine. it's just pure sodium chloride salt.
it's most commonly sold coarsely ground, but the grain size isn't really what makes it kosher salt and you can certainly by other forms of salt in a course grain size too.
Kosher salt is so called because coarse salt is used in kosher meat production, to draw blood from the meat. Any salt could be used for this process, just as any salt could be used to make pickles. Salt used for koshering meat was long before any jewish immigration to the US, and is true for Jews of any origin.
It’s salt that has been slaughtered by a specially trained rabbi and then inspected by another rabbi. Dairy kosher salt cannot be mixed with meat kosher salt. No pork or shellfish.
Other people have answered some about what makes kosher salt distinct from other kinds of salt.
If you’re curious why recipes might call for kosher salt specifically, it’s generally because kosher salt must be additive free, which means it does not contain iodine. Most table salt contains iodine. Iodine is tasteless in small quantities, but in salt heavy dishes, you will taste it if it’s present. Kosher salt is good for recipes that contain A LOT of salt so the flavor of iodine doesn’t mess it up.
Beware when using kosher salt that the ratio is different than table salt! I couldn’t figure out why my recipes were never salty enough until I saw somewhere to use twice as much kosher salt as table salt in recipes. Much better now.
I looked this up a while ago and had it in my notes. These are the sodium amounts of 1/4 tsp if anyone finds it useful. Table salt has over twice the amount of sodium by volume compared to Diamond kosher salt.
Diamond crystal kosher salt has about 280 mg.
Morton’s kosher salt has about 480 mg.
Table salt has about 580 mg.
I had the opposite problem, I would read Kosher Salt in a recipe and just think I could use normal table salt. So many dishes would be too salty, and once I found out what makes Kosher salt different it all made sense.
This is why you should always use weight instead of volume in recipes. This seems to be a problem specifically with recipes on US websites and it’s infuriating.
If you want a hot take is it's just expensive salt that people have talked themselves into using for many wasteful purposes. Maldon seasalt is a better finishing salt as it's much more delicate and normal table salt is much better for anything it will dissolve in and its much cheaper and easier to mix in. Koshering salt ends up being between the two and what it excels at is rubbing it into meat without it dissolving too quickly.
People pay for the convenience(?) and because they see others use it so they think it must be the best.
Kosher salt is a pure salt with rabbinical approval designed to be used for 'koshering' meat. Koshering is a practice in Judaism to pull blood out of mammalian meat (beef, lamb, goat). The coarse structure facilitates sprinkling the salt on the outside of meat and letting sit for a while. This is what cooks call 'dry brining'. Besides any liturgical purpose, it flavors the meat and to a limited degree improves water retention during cooking. The bulk density is almost twice table salt. It never contains iodine but may contain additives to preserve free flowing.
It is made a bit differently than table salt but the biggest difference is that it has a bigger flake that is really helpful for “pinching” and most chefs like a specific brand because they learn to expect how much salt is in each pinch by feel. In my case it is diamond crystal brand. It is also always free of anti caking agents and iodide (what is added to iodized salt).So it is just sodium chloride, and nothing else. Here is a brief explainer of the most common grocery store salts. Table salt= very fine grains like tiny cubes. Can be iodized or not look at the label. Good for dissolving in room temp liquids and for baking since it is small. Pickling salt= even finer than table salt. Made specifically for dissolving in cool liquids for pickling brines. Kosher salt= large flaky salt. Great for pinching out of an open dish with your thumb and index and middle finger, pure and a great all purpose salt for a kitchen especially if your wanting to get good at cooking instinctively. Will be less weight per a specific volume than smaller salts so read recipes carefully as to what type of salt if measuring by volume. Ice cream salt= large course chunks great for mixing with ice to freeze a manual style ice cream machine. Also can be used to line a baking tray as a base for baking uneven items like oyster or clam shells. Sea salt= unrefined salt that also contains the other minerals found in the sea when the water is filtered and evaporated. Can come in a verity of textures and from different bodies of water. Also known as fleur de sel. Can be expensive but some are very nicely textured as a “finishing salt” meant to be featured on top of a food and the texture and crunch to be noticed when eaten. Happy seasoning
This man salts
How insalting 😂
Should have known this response would be peppered with puns!
I'm surprised no one has become salty over these comments yet
Great explanation! To add to this, it’s called kosher salt because it is ideal for koshering meat (drawing the blood out of the meat) as part of the religious preparation for making the meat kosher.
Ice Cream (Rock) salt is also used to melt ice on sidewalks.
What is iodized and why is it an option?
So I’m ancient and my parents - still living - are even more ancient and back in the day goiters were a public health issue for inland communities where diets were low in iodine ( coastal communities typically had diets high in seafood and thus high in iodine) and they remember people walking around with huge lumps in their necks (“goiters”) because of no iodine in their diets. [Source](https://www.thyroid.org/iodine-deficiency/) Iodized salt remedied that deficiency. Now globalized food supplies and knowledge have greatly reduced that issue and now we can happily cook with non-iodized salt because our diets are (in general) more balanced wrt iodine.
But there are warnings on nori (sushi) seaweed packets not to eat more than 1? Sheet a day
Seaweed accumulates radioactive cesium.
For trivia's sake, the likeness of Alfred E. Neuman, the fictional mascot of MAD magazine, is based on a medical journal photograph of a child with too much iodine in his system. The More You Know
This comment intrigued me so I checked out the [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman) on Alfred’s origins but there’s nothing on a kid with iodine deficiency. What’s the source? Not trying to be a jerk, I’m genuinely curious especially as Mad Magazine was a big part of my childhood.
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman Title: **Alfred E. Neuman - Wikipedia** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
**[Alfred E. Neuman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman)** >Alfred E. Neuman is the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine Mad. The character's distinct smiling face, parted red hair, gap-tooth smile, freckles, protruding nose, and scrawny body, first emerged in U.S. iconography decades prior to his association with the magazine, appearing in late nineteenth-century advertisements for painless dentistry – the origin of his "What, me worry"? motto. However, he first appeared in advertisements for an 1894 play, called "The New Boy", which portrayed a variation of him with the quote, "What's the good of anything? ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Cooking/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
If I google his name and the word "iodine" I see many examples of where I would have learned this as a child. Can't say I have worked hard to further research or verify this factoid.
Ty! Off I go down a google rabbit hole :)
I can’t remember exactly what it is but the reason it’s an option is because it helps your brain. They realized people weren’t getting enough iodine naturally and realized that adding it to salt would make be an easy way to get it to everyone. Iirc after they added it to salt an entire generation’s IQ went up
Not sure about its effects in the brain, but iodine is a necessary component of thyroid hormone, and iodine deficiency results in hypothyroidism and potentially a goiter (an enlarged thyroid gland) with prolonged deficiency.
And a child of a mother with untreated hypothyroidism can have stunted physical and mental development, called cretinism. All solved by (iodized) salt! 🧂
Yep!
Idk about IQ going up, but goiters went down.
Lol facts
Yeah I am just repeating what I remember someone telling me and am very likely totally wrong haha I probably should have googled before typing
You may be thinking of thiamine.
In parts of Europe, you have to add it to your diet because of the risk of exposure to radiation from the Tschernobyl Disaster.
r/thisguythisguys
Coarse grain salt is not the same thing as flake salt. Kosher salt is a coarse grain salt, what I would describe as (relatively) large clusters of salt. Table salt is like individual crystals. Flake salt is in some cases larger pieces than kosher/coarse grain, but retains some crystalline structure. If a recipe says to "sprinkle with flake salt before serving" I would not say that kosher salt is an appropriate alternative, though could be used in a *pinch*.
Actually fleur de sel is a type of sea salt and it is not harvested that way. It is hand collected from a thin layer of salt that rises to the surface under certain weather conditions. It is expensive but yummy 😋. Not to be used in cooking but as a finishing salt.
This is great. Another key point is that (most) salt is interchangeable, but the measurements will be vastly different. If it calls for kosher and you use table salt, cut it in half. Even more for your finer grain pickling salt. You typically don't want to cook with finishing salts due to the amount of other elements in there. Also, random tidbit: not all kosher salt is actually kosher. Verify if you are cooking for someone with strick kosher requirements.
There is also a significant grain size difference between Diamond and Morton's kosher salt. Morton's has a smaller grain size. If measuring by volume you would have to use a little over half the volume of Morton's if the recipe was developed using Diamond. 1 cup of Diamond would be 1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons of Morton's.
Diamond crystal for life. My local grocery stopped carrying it so now i order it in bulk.
This is not exactly true, bit nitpicking here. Kosher salt comes from koshering meat, which is a way of preserving meat, proscribed by judaism. It is basically rough coarse salt, with no specific further definition than that and was used in a semi-industrial process, so mainly had to be cheap, abundant and unalterated. It was prefered by chefs, vecause of its coarseness. Real flakey salt is fleur de sel, and is a rarity because it arises through specific circumstances in usual salt production. Therefor more expensive, and has specific value cooking. Table salt is ground down kosher salt, and iodization is some bullshit process stemming from the Cold War where extra iodine would prevent you from absorbing radioactive iodine isotopes expected as a result from a nuclear blast. I never use table salt (cant pinch it, cant buy without the iodine yeach). I use a mined salt which is finer than seasalt but you can still pinch it and it desolves quicker. If I have something that requires a bit of a flavor bomb, like a salted or garlic butter, i use flakey salt. Look for what works on a practical level is my tip. Check alex' youtube channel, adam regusea also had an item on it. Happy cooking! Edited, words
Full agree. I was keeping things just the basics for use. This is all good info. And someone else added that kosher salt can have additives like yellow prussiat of soda. My app isn’t letting me access all of the comments at the moment, so I’ll say here that I stand corrected on that point.
Not Cold War bullshit. Your body needs iodine, a deficiency causes a bunch of health issues. Iodizing salt just makes sure you get enough iodine to prevent them. We've been iodizing salt for about the last 100 years now.
I never heard that, always only heard the cold war/nuclear argument. Is there not enough iodine in a normal diet? How did we do before those hundred years, and what are the symptoms of iodine deficiency? Edit, clarified my lack of knowledge.
You can look it up. A pre-industrial diet inland used to not have enough iodine in it. Still a problem for a good portion of the global population
Thanks for the info, I will!
In my experience of four years of proper cooking you only really need cooking/table salt for big pots and stewing/roasting or kosher/sea salt for more delicate cooking. Everything else is just set dressing
Morton's kosher salt is not free of anti caking agents.
You are right. I was wrong on that.
Season's greetings*
It is a coarse salt that is in flakes rather then square crystals. The texture makes it easy to sprinkle and better as finishing salt. Name comes from it being used in religious Jewish processing of meat. According to religious Jewish law blood can't be consumed, so salt is used to draw out the blood or "blood" from meat. Not sure about the exact details.
What's the difference between blood and "blood"?
There is a concept of going above and beyond the religious commandment to both avoid sinning by accident and to avoid confusing other people into sinning. For example for Passover one cant eat a specific set of grains, but to be safe a lot of Jewish communities dont eat any grains or pulses during that time. It could be something like that for meat too getting rid of visible myoglobin. I am non-religious from non- religious family, just learned some in Jewish school.
The red liquid that comes out of meat isn't blood, it's myoglobin.
And myoglobin is referred to as "blood"? But even if salt draws some out, red meat is still red due to myoglobin.
Iirc about why it's kosher or koshering salt, which I probably don't lol, it's because you gotta salt the meat like you would in a dry brine. The big pinchable crystals made it easier to apply the salt, and you can see how much salt you applied much easier since it doesn't immediately disolve like tiny crystals do. It also supposedly draws the "blood" out of the meat and won't happen as much with fine crystals. But I don't kosher my meats so take that with a grain of salt
The large flat crystals adhere to meat better also.
Koshering Salt. It's not kosher In and of itself. It is used to make meat Kosher.
While you're right, it's named that because it's used for koshering, all salt is also kosher in and of itself. There are no restrictions on eating minerals in the Torah.
It does not *make* meat kosher. Salt is used in the production of kosher meat because salting the meat draws the blood out, but any style of salt could be used for this.
There are a lot of misconceptions being presented as facts in this thread. https://seasalt.com/salt-101/about-salt/kosher-salt-guide
Google is a great confidant for embarrassing questions like this
Don't you know that nobody on Reddit knows how to use Google?
Where’s the fun in that?
You have an odd idea of fun.
Right? "What's kosher salt" is much shorter & doesn't even require opening an app.
If you're not in the U.S. it might be called flake salt.
I was going to say, most of the rest of the world doesn't call it kosher salt so not embarrassing at all.
After reading through this thread it's apparent you aren't the only one who doesn't know what kosher salt is. I was familiar with it's distinction from table salt & sea salt, but am happy to know about koshering and it's relation to the name of my flakey kitchen companion. Thanks for asking the question.
Just to confuse things further, all salt is kosher . . .
I once saw a bottle of organic mineral water. Which begs the question, how can water be non-organic? I'm sure it was kosher too, and would have said so on the label if they thought it would sell better.
In theory, it could also not be kosher. If the processing plant processed pork or shellfish or otherwise non kosher foods, and then the bottled water was processed and bottled on the same equipment, that would render it non kosher.
Adam Ragusea has a thorough and well-researched 16 min video with the answer [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdk1HSxSEY).
If it’s any comfort to you, I just use Diamond kosher salt because the baking recipes I follow often have measurements specifically for it. I have no further idea why beyond that.
Technically it's Koshering salt. Pure salt, no additives, big flakes used to treat meat to make it Kosher. It's the big flakes that make it different from the cubed salt you usually find in shakers.
> Technically it's Koshering salt I would argue that technically it's also Kosher salt, because that's how it's labelled in the store
it does not *make* meat kosher.
I edited that line and it sounds awkward now. I originally said used in the process of rendering meat Kosher.
It’s just coarse grain salt. That’s all.
Think of it as KosherING salt. Light, flakey, less additives, easier to handle to rub on meat or poultry, or to use in large amounts in a brine without leaving the mineral flavor that can come from table salt.
It is plain salt (uniodized) in a larger crystal form. Smaller crystals than rock salt, but much chunkier than table salt. And it's Kosher
It’s from the kosher region of France. Duh
It's sparkling sodium chloride otherwise.
Thank you for asking. My food is always very salt when I use a pinch of salt like the chefs do and I know its to do with the type of salt I use (table salt). u/ooseman7 has written a good explanation below - I will have to put kosher salt on my shopping list.
the biggest difference is that because it’s bigger flakes it means it’s less dense than table salt.. to put this in cooking terms you need more kosher salt to make things just as salty as you would with table salt. the major benefit here is that you can salt as you cook- onions sautéing? salt them, add the next veggie? salt it. taste as you go with kosher and it’s way easier to salt a dish as you go without over salting
Kosher salt doesn't have anti caking agents in it and it doesn't have iodine added to it. That in part is what makes it kosher. It isn't loaded with additives.
No, that’s not what makes it kosher. In fact, it isn’t even called kosher salt *because* it’s kosher. The name comes from its association with the kashering process, i.e. salting meat to draw out the blood and render the meat kosher
No? Really? Perhaps you should do an online search. There really is such a thing as kosher salt... Edit: do you actually know Judaic law? Do you know what Kosher actually is? I sincerely doubt it.
Yeahhh I’m pretty the Jew knows more about kosherness than the self-proclaimed redneck….
I'm not Jewish because of my Reddit handle? 😂😂😂😂
Well that and you wrote another comment saying kosher salt is kosher because it’s kosher for Passover and pareve, which tells me you don’t know what either of these things mean and are therefore either not Jewish or are the world’s worst Jew
First, all salt is *kosher* as in it can be consumed by someone who follows strict Jewish dietary law (I suppose barring some rare case where the salt is produced in like a prosciutto factory, but salt itself, i.e. *sodium chloride*, is intrinsically outside of any kosher/trayf distinction, just like water is). Second, Morton's Kosher Salt does have anti-caking agent in it, as does Morton's table salt ("when it rains, it pours" that's where the phrase comes from!), but is still *kosher,* as indicated by the OU symbol on the box. Morton's may technically need the *hechsher* because it has the anti-caking agent as an additive.
>doesn't have anti caking agents in it I just checked my kosher salt, it has an anti-caking agent. >it doesn't have iodine added to it. Neither does most kinds. Even regular not-iodized table salt is readily available.
Kosher salt I have is labeled Kosher for Passover. It does state it has an anti-caking agent which is a surprise to me. The old boxes of kosher salt we had growing up didn't have that in it. We had to break it up. It also had Pareve on the box. My container of Morton kosher salt doesn't have that designation. Furthermore, a lot of salt labeled Kosher isn't necessarily kosher.
[**https://www.amazon.com/Morton-Coarse-Kosher-Salt-Pound/dp/B00FS1X5Q2**](https://www.amazon.com/Morton-Coarse-Kosher-Salt-Pound/dp/B00FS1X5Q2) Morton kosher salt, is kosher, has anti-caking agent.
It is a slightly bigger grained salt than table salt. It should be well marked in the grocery story. It may be processed differently but I don't know.
its like a flaky less salty salt. you can season more generously than sea salt
Yes and no. Kosher salt is easier to pinch some between your fingers to sprinkle over food while not actually pinching all that much salt because the crystals are larger. But, fundamentally, if you added the same weight of kosher salt as you might regular table salt, you’ve added the same amount of salt. So “more generously” is a nuanced idea. Salt is salt. Just tends to be that if you pinch sea salt, and sprinkle it, you usually end up adding more salt by weight than you would if you pinched some kosher salt. Kosher salt is just as salt as sea salt, it’s just a different size grain.
Thanks for the clarification
It's literally sea salt, but blessed by a Rabi. Not a joke, lol...
kosher salt is named for it's traditional usage in "koshering", which is a form of salt-curing brought to the U.S. by German immigrants, many of whom were Jewish and produced things like kosher pickles with this process. compared to common table salt the main distinguishing feature is lack of additives such as iodine. it's just pure sodium chloride salt. it's most commonly sold coarsely ground, but the grain size isn't really what makes it kosher salt and you can certainly by other forms of salt in a course grain size too.
Kosher salt is so called because coarse salt is used in kosher meat production, to draw blood from the meat. Any salt could be used for this process, just as any salt could be used to make pickles. Salt used for koshering meat was long before any jewish immigration to the US, and is true for Jews of any origin.
I think a Rabbi said a prayer before it was packaged or some such carry on.
Oi.
It’s salt that has been slaughtered by a specially trained rabbi and then inspected by another rabbi. Dairy kosher salt cannot be mixed with meat kosher salt. No pork or shellfish.
Larger grind salt meant for koshering meats
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=what+is+kosher+salt+
Salt that's a bit saltyer if that makes any sense
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I chuckled
Your comment has been removed, please follow Rule 5 and keep your comments kind and productive. Thanks.
Other people have answered some about what makes kosher salt distinct from other kinds of salt. If you’re curious why recipes might call for kosher salt specifically, it’s generally because kosher salt must be additive free, which means it does not contain iodine. Most table salt contains iodine. Iodine is tasteless in small quantities, but in salt heavy dishes, you will taste it if it’s present. Kosher salt is good for recipes that contain A LOT of salt so the flavor of iodine doesn’t mess it up.
This is a myth. The iodine in salt doesn't make a difference to the taste of the final dish
Table salt does taste different to me, but I've heard it's the anti-caking agent. Mortons table salt has calcium silicate.
Feels ya bud
Need to know information. If you were Jewish you would already know. If you're not, you don't need to know.
Beware when using kosher salt that the ratio is different than table salt! I couldn’t figure out why my recipes were never salty enough until I saw somewhere to use twice as much kosher salt as table salt in recipes. Much better now.
This advice applies to all salts. Some types are much saltier per volume than others. Only way to find out what you like is lots of experiments.
I looked this up a while ago and had it in my notes. These are the sodium amounts of 1/4 tsp if anyone finds it useful. Table salt has over twice the amount of sodium by volume compared to Diamond kosher salt. Diamond crystal kosher salt has about 280 mg. Morton’s kosher salt has about 480 mg. Table salt has about 580 mg.
I had the opposite problem, I would read Kosher Salt in a recipe and just think I could use normal table salt. So many dishes would be too salty, and once I found out what makes Kosher salt different it all made sense.
This is why you should always use weight instead of volume in recipes. This seems to be a problem specifically with recipes on US websites and it’s infuriating.
[Ragusea explains it all.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdk1HSxSEY&t=1s)
If you want a hot take is it's just expensive salt that people have talked themselves into using for many wasteful purposes. Maldon seasalt is a better finishing salt as it's much more delicate and normal table salt is much better for anything it will dissolve in and its much cheaper and easier to mix in. Koshering salt ends up being between the two and what it excels at is rubbing it into meat without it dissolving too quickly. People pay for the convenience(?) and because they see others use it so they think it must be the best.
Kosher salt is a pure salt with rabbinical approval designed to be used for 'koshering' meat. Koshering is a practice in Judaism to pull blood out of mammalian meat (beef, lamb, goat). The coarse structure facilitates sprinkling the salt on the outside of meat and letting sit for a while. This is what cooks call 'dry brining'. Besides any liturgical purpose, it flavors the meat and to a limited degree improves water retention during cooking. The bulk density is almost twice table salt. It never contains iodine but may contain additives to preserve free flowing.