Alaea Salt: Hawaiian Red Salt, How It’s Made, and What You’re Buying

The alaea salt made the traditional way, at the Hanapēpē salt ponds on Kauaʻi, is the one version you can’t buy: it can be given or traded, but not sold.¹ What you find in stores is a commercial product, sea salt mixed with ʻalaea, a red clay that gets its color from iron oxide, and at least one well-known brand names only its clay, not its salt, as Hawaiian.² In Hawaiian tradition alaea is a ceremonial salt as well as a seasoning, used to cleanse, purify and bless. In the kitchen, its best-known job is seasoning kalua pig.

At a glance

What alaea salt is

Hawaiian sea salt is called paʻakai, which the University of Hawaiʻi glosses as “to solidify the sea.”¹ Some of the white salt gets mixed with red ʻalaea clay. The University of Hawaiʻi says the clay is collected from the mountains of Waimea, and a 2008 Hawaii State Legislature resolution describes it as red dirt from Kōkeʻe.¹³ The red comes from iron oxide in the clay.

How the traditional salt is made

People still make salt the traditional way at Hanapēpē, on Kauaʻi. Underground seawater is drawn from deep wells into holding pools, where it concentrates as it evaporates, and then moved into shallow ponds. The white salt on top is raked, rinsed and dried. The resolution describes salt pans shaped with clay from the area. Honolulu Civil Beat reported in 2018 that the basins are glazed with sticky black clay, that 21 families connected by bloodline still work the flats, and that the work runs through a summer salt-making season.⁴ Nobody harvests salt in the rainy winter months.

The site is fragile. Civil Beat described helicopters blowing sand and dust onto the basins, beach traffic wearing down the sand barrier that keeps waves out, and broken glass in the flats.⁴ The 2008 resolution asked the state’s land agency to draw up a resource management plan for the ponds, citing pollution from nearby land uses and the community’s traditional rights.³

Why you can’t buy it

Hanapēpē salt is made by traditional methods, but it doesn’t meet US government “food grade” requirements, so it can be given as a gift or traded but not sold commercially, according to the University of Hawaiʻi.¹ Civil Beat says the same: the salt can only be given away or traded.⁴ You’ll often read that the ʻalaea clay itself is what fails the food-grade test. The sources we read tie the restriction to the Hanapēpē salt, not specifically to the clay.

Commercial alaea salt

Since the traditional salt can’t be sold, store-bought alaea salt comes from companies that mix sea salt with clay. Read those labels closely. SaltWorks, for example, sells an “Alaea Red Hawaiian-style Sea Salt” made from solar-evaporated sea salt from the Pacific Ocean and alaea clay harvested from the Hawaiian islands, with its ingredients listed as sea salt and red alaea clay.² Only the clay is named as coming from the Hawaiian islands. “Hawaiian-style” on a label describes a style, not where the salt was harvested. You’ll also see claims that most alaea salt is imported from particular countries. We found no source that documents them.

Flavor

Alaea salt is sea salt, and America’s Test Kitchen found that sea salts vary in color but only slightly in flavor, and taste no different from table salt once mixed into food.⁷ We didn’t find a taste test of alaea salt specifically. Opinions differ: food writer Sue Lau, in the Christian Science Monitor, called it complex in flavor and not quite as salty as other salts, and cut back the salt when substituting.⁸ That’s her view, not a measured result.

History

Salt was central to Hawaiian food and ritual. The University of Hawaiʻi notes that preserving fish (iʻa) and octopus (heʻe) was essential both for storage on land and for food on ocean voyages, and that ʻalaea salt is used in traditional ceremonies, for ritual blessing and purifying, and for healing.¹ The state legislature’s resolution calls Hanapēpē’s ponds ancient and authentic Hawaiian salt ponds. There are also stories that Hawaiian salt was among the islands’ first exports and was used to cure salmon in the Pacific Northwest. We couldn’t trace them to a source we could open, so we’ve left them out.

How alaea salt is used

Kalua pig. Its best-known job is seasoning kalua pig, Hawaiian pulled pork traditionally cooked in a pit; Sue Lau describes the pork as simply seasoned with alaea salt. SaltWorks also says its salt is traditionally used on kalua pig at Hawaiian lūʻau.

Finishing. That brick-red color makes it a good-looking finishing salt on grilled meat, fish and vegetables.

As ordinary salt. Use it anywhere a sea salt of the same crystal size would go. Coarse crystals and fine grains measure differently by volume, so salt to taste.

Buying and quality

Check three things on the label: where the salt was harvested, where the clay came from, and an ingredient list of just salt and clay. A country of origin of “USA” or a “Hawaiian-style” name doesn’t by itself mean the salt is from Hawaiʻi.²

Storage

We didn’t find a shelf-life figure for alaea salt from a regulator or standards body. Keep it closed and dry.

Safety and health

Sodium. Alaea isn’t a lower-sodium salt. Most sea salts are about 40% sodium, and minerals like magnesium, potassium and calcium show up in sea salt only at trace levels.⁵ The FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day,⁹ and the WHO recommends adults stay below 2,000 mg a day, naming raised blood pressure as the main health effect of eating too much.¹⁰

Iodine. Specialty sea salts usually aren’t iodized.⁶ If you count on salt for iodine, use iodized salt as well; see iodized vs. non-iodized salt.

Substitutes and comparisons

• Alaea salt substitutes
• Alaea salt vs. Himalayan salt
• Hawaiian sea salt and Hawaiian sea salt substitutes
• Black lava salt
• Sea salt, Himalayan salt, fleur de sel