Cooking With MSG: How Much to Use, When to Add It, and Cutting Salt

In one taste study, a little MSG let researchers cut the sodium in two spicy soups by 32.5% without losing acceptability.¹ Use MSG alongside salt, not instead of it: a small amount with a little less salt adds savory depth and cuts sodium. Its job in a dish is the savory taste called umami. Chef Daniel Holzman keeps it simple, with 10 parts kosher salt to 1 part MSG, used wherever he’d salt.

Quick guide

What MSG does in a dish

Umami is one of the five basic tastes, savory or meaty, and it comes from three substances: glutamate, guanylate and inosinate. MSG supplies the glutamate. FDA notes that the free glutamate in foods like tomatoes and cheese is chemically the same as the glutamate in MSG.³ MSG is an important ingredient in the cuisines of China and Japan.

So MSG helps most where savory is the point: soups and broths, stir-fry sauces, fried rice, marinades, dressings, eggs, vegetables and snack seasonings. That list comes from how cooks use it, not from a source. In sweet dishes, a savory taste is rarely what you’re after; we found no source on MSG in desserts either way.

How much to use

No regulator publishes a kitchen dose, and recipe amounts vary. Here’s what we could trace:

You’ll often see a rule of thumb of ½ teaspoon of MSG per pound of meat or per four to six servings. It comes from the manufacturer: Accent’s product description says to add half a teaspoon per pound of meat, or for each four to six servings of soups and vegetables.⁷ That’s the maker’s own guidance, not a tested amount, and other cooks use much less. See too much MSG for the range.

Ratio (Computed): By our math, Holzman’s ratio means that where a recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt, about ⅛ teaspoon of MSG goes in alongside it. Taste, then adjust. Holzman warns that going past his 10-to-1 ratio overwhelms the palate and leaves a lingering mouthfeel.²

When to add it

Holzman seasons with his salt-and-MSG mix throughout cooking, the way he would with salt alone. For salads he puts pure MSG straight into the dressing, and for some dishes he adds it at the very end so it’s the first thing your tongue meets, including as a finishing seasoning for roasted meats. He also singles out dry and fried foods like fries, popcorn and onion rings, and says it works well in marinades and dry rubs for meat and fish.²

You’ll read that MSG has to go in early, during cooking, because it absorbs better. We found no test of that, and Holzman’s practice shows late additions work too.

Pair it for a bigger effect

America’s Test Kitchen explains that when glutamate meets the nucleotides inosinate and guanylate in equal amounts, umami can be as much as 20 to 30 times greater than with glutamate alone, and it suggests combining them. Kombu, tomatoes and mushrooms are naturally high in glutamate, according to ATK.⁴ In practice, that suggests a pinch of MSG will go further in a dish that already has some anchovy, dried mushroom, meat or fish, though we found no measurement of it in a home kitchen.

Cutting salt with MSG

MSG is still a sodium salt, just a lighter one: about 12% sodium against 39% in table salt, in a peer-reviewed analysis by Wallace and colleagues.⁵ The AHA puts table salt at about 40% sodium.⁸ Three studies have tested the swap:

The Wallace study is a model, not a feeding trial, and it was funded by an unrestricted educational grant from Ajinomoto, which makes MSG.⁵ None of the three replaced all the salt. For the full comparison, see MSG vs. salt.

Ratio (Method): Cut the salt in a savory dish by about a quarter, the low end of the range Wallace modeled, add a small pinch of MSG, and taste.⁵

Safety

FDA considers adding MSG to food generally recognized as safe.³ It notes that some sensitive people who eat 3 grams or more of MSG without food may get short-term, generally mild symptoms like headache, numbness or flushing; that eating more than 3 grams without food at one time is unlikely; and that FDA was never able to confirm that MSG caused the reactions reported to it.³ Britannica traces the idea of “Chinese restaurant syndrome” to reports first made in 1968, and says later research found no conclusive link between the symptoms and normal levels of MSG.⁹ Calling it “debunked” goes further than FDA does, though. Its own account leaves room for mild, short-lived symptoms in some sensitive people at large doses without food.

In the EU, EFSA set a group acceptable daily intake of 30 mg per kg of body weight a day for glutamic acid and its salts in 2017. By our math, that’s about 2.1 g a day for a 70 kg adult. EFSA also found that people whose diets are high in foods with these additives may go over it.¹⁰ FDA’s typical serving of food with added MSG, under 0.5 g, is less than a sixth of that 3-gram figure.³

Labels. FDA requires added MSG to be listed by name, not tucked under “spices and flavoring.”³

What isn’t known

• No regulator or tested source gives a kitchen dose per pound or per serving; the common ½ teaspoon per pound rule is Accent’s own guidance.
• No test shows that adding MSG early works better than adding it late.

Related

• Monosodium glutamate (MSG), the full profile
• MSG vs. salt and MSG substitutes
• Soy sauce powder and mushroom spices
• Kosher salt and too much salt?