Cooking With Kosher Salt: Know Your Brand, Then Salt Meat, Brine and Bake

A teaspoon of Morton kosher salt weighs 4.8 grams and a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal 2.8, by America’s Test Kitchen’s scale.¹ So before you cook with kosher salt, check which box you’ve got, because the same spoonful puts very different amounts of salt in your food. It’s the salt a lot of American recipes are written for, and it’s at its best salting meat ahead and seasoning by hand. The common rule of using twice as much as table salt? With Morton, it will oversalt.

Quick guide

First, know your brand

The two big US brands are made differently, so they pack differently. ATK describes Diamond Crystal as hollow, pyramid-shaped crystals formed in open pans, and Morton as brine evaporated under vacuum and pressed into thin flakes. That’s why a teaspoon of Morton weighs nearly twice what a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal does.¹ ATK’s 2022 article rounds the figures to about 5 grams and 3 grams.²

Grams per teaspoon

Swapping by volume: the published rules disagree

ATK’s two rules agree with each other, and Morton’s chart agrees with ATK’s own weights, but the two pairs don’t agree with each other. The same gap shows up between brands. ATK says to cut the volume by 25% when you use Morton in a recipe written for Diamond Crystal, and its chicken guide’s equivalence implies the same cut, but its weights (2.8 g against 4.8 g) point to a cut of about 40%.¹³ We’re showing you the disagreement instead of picking a side. In practice: weigh when a recipe gives grams, use the named brand when it gives one, and when it just says “kosher salt,” start low and taste.

You’ll often hear that you should use twice as much kosher salt as table salt. That works for Diamond Crystal under ATK’s rule, but for Morton every source above says 1¼ to 1½ times, so doubling Morton will oversalt.

Salting meat ahead (dry brining)

This is kosher salt’s best job. ATK explains that salt on raw meat draws juices to the surface and dissolves in them to form a brine, which the meat eventually reabsorbs; it says salting helps proteins hold onto their own juices. ATK’s salt of choice here is kosher, and its measurements are based on Diamond Crystal. It recommends salting over brining for meats that are already juicy or well marbled, and notes that salting won’t get in the way of crisp poultry skin or a well-browned crust on steaks, chops and roasts.⁷

ATK’s amounts for chicken, written for Diamond Crystal:³

Ratio (Computed): The Morton column is our math, from ATK’s own stated equivalence (3 teaspoons Diamond Crystal = 2¼ teaspoons Morton).³ ATK’s gram weights would put it lower still, so with Morton, lean toward the smaller amount.¹ ATK rests the salted chicken on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet in the fridge. Cook all poultry to 165°F, and beef, pork, veal and lamb steaks, chops and roasts to 145°F with a 3-minute rest.⁸

Brining

For wet brines, ATK uses table salt, not kosher, because the tiny grains dissolve quickly in water. Its chicken brines run from 3 tablespoons of table salt in 1½ quarts of water for boneless breasts to ½ cup in 2 quarts for a whole bird or bone-in pieces, for ½ to 1 hour, and it warns that brining longer than recommended makes food too salty.³ Morton suggests its kosher salt for brining poultry.⁴ If you brine with kosher salt, convert by weight, not by cup. The volume rules above disagree, and in a brine the error gets multiplied.

Seasoning by hand

ATK picks kosher salt for salting meat because the larger grains are easier to spread evenly.³ Coarse grains are also easy to pinch and easy to see on the food, so you can judge how much has gone on. Learn the feel of one brand and stick with it: a pinch of Morton carries more salt than the same pinch of Diamond Crystal.¹

Baking

Kosher salt is much coarser than table salt, and coarse grains dissolve more slowly than the tiny grains ATK uses when it needs salt to dissolve fast. In a dough with plenty of mixing time that rarely matters. In a quick batter or cookie dough, many bakers prefer fine salt, or dissolve kosher salt in the recipe’s liquid first. Either way, weighing gets rid of the brand problem.²

Finishing and rims

Sprinkled over food, kosher salt adds texture. In ATK’s tasting, sampled plain and on buttered bread, tasters preferred Diamond Crystal’s “delicate and fleeting crunch” and found Morton’s grains harder.¹ Bartenders often use kosher salt to rim a margarita glass because the grains cling without clumping, though we haven’t found a source that tests that. For a showier finish, flaky salts do the job better (see Maldon salt vs. kosher salt and fleur de sel vs. kosher salt).

Flavor, iodine and additives

You’ll often read that kosher salt tastes cleaner because it has no iodine. Kosher salt isn’t iodized, but ATK’s tasters couldn’t taste a difference between iodized and noniodized salt.⁹⁵ Weight for weight, ATK found broths seasoned with Morton and Diamond Crystal tasted exactly the same.¹ Check the box for additives: Morton lists yellow prussiate of soda as an anticaking agent, while ATK reports Diamond Crystal has none.⁴¹ The name is about use, not certification. Kosher salt was originally used for koshering meat, and Morton states that its kosher salt is itself kosher certified.⁴

Sodium and iodine

Kosher salt isn’t a lower-sodium salt. Table salt, kosher salt and most sea salts are about 40% sodium; a teaspoon of kosher salt holds less sodium only because fewer of its bigger crystals fit in the spoon.¹⁰ The FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day.¹¹ Kosher salt usually isn’t iodized, so if you count on salt for iodine, keep iodized salt on hand too.¹² See iodized vs. non-iodized salt.

What isn’t known

• Diamond Crystal’s own grams-per-teaspoon figure; the only figure here is ATK’s.
• Why ATK’s volume rules and ATK’s gram weights disagree; no source explains it.
• No published test compares kosher and fine salt in baking results.
• No source we found shows kosher salt is better for curing meat; curing needs a nitrite cure, covered at curing salt.

Related

• Kosher salt, the full profile, and kosher salt substitutes
• Kosher salt vs. table salt, kosher salt vs. sea salt and pickling salt vs. kosher salt
• The best salt for cooking and table salt
• Too much salt? How to rescue a dish