Black Salt (Kala Namak) Substitutes, and Why None of Them Smells of Eggs

Out of black salt? Here’s the catch: nothing on the shelf brings its eggy sulfur smell, and that smell is the whole point. Swiss and German food-safety authorities put its hydrogen sulfide content at about 200 mg per kilogram, and the Swiss report credits that gas with its characteristic sulfuric taste.¹² Still, you can cover parts of its job: plain salt by weight handles the seasoning, chaat masala gets closest in chaat and drinks (it usually has black salt in it), and Himalayan pink salt matches the look.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• Attributed: a named source publishes this ratio. We quote it as theirs.
• Disputed: named sources give different answers to the same swap. You get each one, side by side.
• Method: our starting point, based on how the two compare. Taste and adjust.

If black salt is just salting the dish

Under the smell, black salt is mostly sodium chloride. One sample in the Swiss government’s 2016 analysis was 38.7 percent sodium and 57.9 percent chloride.¹ Table salt is about 40 percent sodium.³

Ratio (Computed): By weight, swap 1:1. The sodium difference in that sample is about 3 percent, too small to taste. Whatever its reputation, black salt isn’t a lower-sodium salt.

By volume: No source gives the weight of a teaspoon of ground black salt. If yours is finely ground, start with the same volume of table salt and taste. Using a coarse kosher salt? Brands differ a lot by the spoonful. America’s Test Kitchen weighed a teaspoon of table salt at about 6 grams, Morton kosher at 4.8 grams and Diamond Crystal at 2.8 grams.⁴ With Diamond Crystal, you may need close to twice the volume.

Any of these salts will season. Salt is sodium chloride wherever it comes from,⁵ but none of them has black salt’s sulfur.

If black salt is seasoning chaat, fruit or drinks

Chaat masala

This is the closest match, because chaat masala usually has black salt in it. Both published recipes we compared include it, along with dried mango powder (amchur) and cumin.⁶⁷ Tarla Dalal credits black salt with the blend’s characteristic chatpata aroma and amchur with its tang.⁷

Ratio (Computed, from one recipe): In Gulf News’s recipe, black salt is 1 tablespoon in a blend of about 3 1/2 tablespoons (1 tablespoon each of amchur, black salt and roasted cumin, plus small amounts of pepper, chili and pink salt).⁶ By our math, that’s about 30 percent black salt by volume, so a teaspoon of the blend carries roughly a third of a teaspoon of black salt. Commercial blends will differ.

Ratio (Method): Use the same amount of chaat masala as the black salt called for, and taste. You’d need about three times as much to get the same amount of black salt, and that also means three times the tang and cumin. Go higher only where those fit, like on fruit, chaat or yogurt. In a drink like salted lassi or jaljeera, where Food Republic says black salt lifts the flavor,⁸ the extra sourness may or may not be welcome.

If black salt is giving an eggy flavor

Plant-based cooks add black salt to tofu scrambles and other egg-free dishes because its sulfur smell reads as egg.⁸ Nothing else common does that.

1. Plain salt, and accept the difference

Ratio (Computed): Salt 1:1 by weight, as above. The dish will be seasoned, but it won’t taste like egg.

2. A pinch of asafoetida, for a different sulfur note

Asafoetida is rich in sulfur compounds, and raw, it smells remotely like not altogether fresh garlic. That’s a sulfur note, just not an eggy one. The resin needs a quick fry in hot oil, while the powder can go in without frying at the cost of some aroma. Powdered asafoetida may be cut with other things: such powders can be more than half rice flour and gum arabic.⁹

Ratio (Method): We found no source that tests asafoetida as a black salt substitute. Start with a small pinch per dish, fried briefly in the cooking fat, and salt the dish separately. Think of it as an experiment, not an equivalent.

If black salt is a finishing salt

Food Republic describes black salt as a finishing salt, a pinch or two added just before serving.⁸ Once ground, it isn’t black. The BfR described a reddish-gray to pink powder, and World Spice Merchants describes colors from gray through pink to purple.²¹⁰

1. Fine Himalayan pink salt, for the look

On the plate, Himalayan pink salt looks a lot like ground black salt and seasons the same, but there’s no sulfur. You’ll often read that black salt is mined alongside Himalayan salt or made from it. The sources we read describe it as a fired product of common salt, made mostly in northern India; the manufacturer in a 1970 Indian court case made it from Sambhar salt and charcoal.¹¹

Ratio (Method): Sprinkle to taste.

2. Black lava salt: dark, but not a match

Black “lava” salts are sea salts colored with activated charcoal. The Swiss analysis tested one listing salt, active coal and taro as ingredients, and The Meadow’s Black Diamond flakes list sea salt and activated charcoal.¹¹² Despite the name, the products we checked get their color from charcoal, not lava. No source we read reports hydrogen sulfide in them; The Meadow describes an earthy, carbon taste instead. You get a dark, dramatic look but none of black salt’s flavor. New York City’s health department notes that activated charcoal is approved only to filter food, not as a colorant or additive, and that it may reduce how well you absorb some nutrients or medicines.¹³

Ratio (Method): Sprinkle to taste, for looks only.

Other salts

• Alaea salt is Hawaiian sea salt mixed with red clay and colored by iron oxide. Like Himalayan salt, it seasons and adds color but has no sulfur.
• Kosher salt has no sulfur either, and brands vary widely in weight per spoonful.⁴

What isn’t known

• The composition figures come from single samples: one Swiss sample for sodium, and a hydrogen sulfide figure confirmed by German and Swiss authorities.²¹ Black salt from other producers may differ.
• No source gives the weight of a teaspoon of ground black salt, so volume swaps are starting points.
• Nothing we could find tests whether any spice reproduces black salt’s eggy note.

Related

• Black salt
• Chaat masala, chaat masala substitutes and chaat masala vs. garam masala
• Mango powder and mango powder substitutes
• Asafoetida
• Himalayan salt, black lava salt, black lava salt uses, alaea salt
• Kosher salt, table salt and kosher salt vs. sea salt

Footnotes

1. Esther Infanger and Max Haldimann, Report on the composition of prevalent salt varieties, Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (Switzerland), 2016. warwick.ac.uk · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Vorkommen von Schwefelwasserstoff in “Schwarzsalz,” BfR opinion of 25 August 2003. bfr.bund.de · Regulator ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Sodium Sources: Where Does All That Sodium Come From?, American Heart Association, 2025. heart.org · Reference work ↩

4. Kate Shannon Levine, The Best Kosher Salt, America’s Test Kitchen, 2019. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

5. Salt Types and Measurements, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

6. Anupa Kurian, Homemade Indian chaat masala, Gulf News, 2022. gulfnews.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

7. Tarla Dalal, Chaat Masala, TarlaDalal.com. cdn.tarladalal.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

8. Sean Pagnotti, The Secret To Giving Scrambled Tofu An Eggy Flavor, Food Republic, 2025. foodrepublic.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. Gernot Katzer, Asafetida, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩

10. Black Salt, product page, World Spice Merchants. worldspice.com · Merchant ↩

11. Commissioner, Sales Tax v. Balwant Singh Jag Roshan Lal, Allahabad High Court, 1970, quoting Satya Prakash, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. indiankanoon.org · Reference work ↩

12. Black Diamond Flake Sea Salt, product page, The Meadow. themeadow.com · Merchant ↩

13. Adulterated Food: What Food Service Operators Need To Know, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. nyc.gov · Regulator ↩

Also drawn on

• Traditional Ways of Knowing: Salt Harvesting (Exploring Our Fluid Earth, 2011), Curriculum Research & Development Group, College of Education, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. manoa.hawaii.edu