Hawaiian Sea Salt: Red Alaea, Black and White Salts, and What’s Actually in Them

The most traditional Hawaiian salt is one you can’t buy. Salt from the Hanapēpē ponds on Kauaʻi is still made the old way, but it doesn’t meet US food-grade rules, so it can only be given or traded. What’s in stores is a commercial product, sold as paʻakai or Hawaiian sea salt in three forms: plain white, red salt mixed with ʻalaea clay, and black salt colored with activated charcoal. A “Hawaiian” label may refer to the style or to one ingredient, not to where the salt was harvested.¹

At a glance

The three types

White. Hawaiian salt is white, raked from the top of shallow ponds, rinsed and dried. Use it like any other sea salt; see sea salt.

Red (ʻalaea). Some of the white salt gets mixed with red ʻalaea clay, whose color comes from iron oxide. The color comes in with the clay, not from the salt itself. Commercial versions vary. SaltWorks, for example, sells an “Alaea Red Hawaiian-style Sea Salt” of Pacific sea salt and clay from the Hawaiian islands.¹ There’s much more on the alaea salt page.

Black. Black “lava” salt gets its color from activated charcoal. In the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office’s 2016 analysis of 25 salts, the one black Hawaiian salt listed its ingredients as salt, active coal and taro.² See black lava salt.

How the traditional salt is made

At Hanapēpē, underground seawater is drawn from deep wells into holding pools, then moved to shallow ponds. The white salt that forms on top is raked, rinsed and dried. The University of Hawaiʻi describes Hawaiians harvesting salt on a larger scale in man-made shallow clay ponds,³ and a 2008 state legislative resolution describes salt pans shaped with clay from the area and calls Hanapēpē’s ponds ancient, authentic Hawaiian salt ponds.⁷ Salt isn’t harvested in the rainy winter months. Honolulu Civil Beat reported in 2018 that 21 families connected by bloodline still work the flats.⁴

Traditional methods or not, Hanapēpē salt doesn’t meet US government food-grade requirements. So it can be given as a gift or traded, but not sold commercially.³⁴

History

Salt was central to Hawaiian food and ritual. Preserving fish and octopus was essential both for storage on land and for ocean voyages, and ʻalaea salt is used in ceremonies, for ritual blessing and purifying, and for healing. Salting raw fish was both seasoning and preservation.

Salt also turned up in 19th-century Pacific trade. A National Park Service history of Fort Vancouver records that by 1834 the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade with Hawaiʻi had grown enough to open an office in Honolulu, and that its shippers got coffee, sugar, molasses, rice and salt in return for their cargoes.⁸ It doesn’t say the salt was used to cure salmon. You’ll also hear that Hawaiʻi was the Pacific Northwest’s main salt supplier, that salt was among the first goods traded with European visitors, or that it was sold to whaling ships. We couldn’t trace any of those stories to a source we could open.

Flavor

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.⁹ We didn’t find a sensory test of red or black Hawaiian salt. Opinions differ. Food writer Sue Lau called ʻalaea salt complex in flavor and not quite as salty as other salts.¹⁰ That’s her take, not a measured result. The same goes for claims that red salt tastes nutty, or that black salt’s charcoal gives it a strong earthy flavor.

How Hawaiian salt is used

Kalua pig. Sue Lau describes kalua pig, traditionally cooked in a pit, as seasoned simply with ʻalaea salt, and SaltWorks says its alaea salt is traditionally used on kalua pig.¹

Poke. Martha Cheng writes that traditional poke was raw fish seasoned with sea salt dried in the sun, limu (seaweed) and ʻinamona (roasted, crushed kukui nut). Later Japanese, Chinese and Korean influences swapped the salt and ʻinamona for shoyu and sesame oil.¹¹

Finishing. The red and black salts are mostly about color. Scatter them over a dish just before serving. America’s Test Kitchen recommends sea salts as finishing salts.

Buying and quality

Check the label for where the salt was harvested, where the clay or other coloring came from, and the full ingredient list. “Hawaiian” or “Hawaiian-style” in a product name doesn’t tell you where the salt was made. You’ll see claims that most Hawaiian-style salt is imported, or made with clay from particular countries. We didn’t find a source documenting them, or the claim that the best red salt comes from Molokaʻi.

Storage

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

Health and safety

Sodium. Hawaiian salt isn’t meaningfully lower in sodium. The black Hawaiian salt in the Swiss analysis was 36.7% sodium, and most sea salts are about 40%, the same as table salt.²⁵ The FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day,¹² and the World Health Organization recommends adults stay below 2,000 mg, naming raised blood pressure as the main health effect of eating too much.¹³

Minerals. In the same Swiss sample, potassium, calcium and iron were below the limit of detection. The report concluded that specialty salts don’t have nutritional properties that would justify recommending them as a standard choice.² The American Heart Association says the minerals in sea salt are there only at trace levels.⁵ We found no evidence that Hawaiian salt helps prevent osteoporosis or treat iron-deficiency anemia.

Activated charcoal. New York City’s health department tells food businesses that activated charcoal is approved only for filtering food, not as a food colorant or additive, and that it may reduce the absorption of certain nutrients or medication.¹⁴

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

Substitutes and comparisons

• Hawaiian sea salt substitutes
• Alaea salt, alaea salt substitutes and alaea salt vs. Himalayan salt
• Black lava salt and black lava salt uses
• Sea salt, fleur de sel and Himalayan salt
• Black salt (kala namak), a different product with a sulfurous smell