Kosher Salt vs. Himalayan Salt: Crystal, Weight and Minerals Compared

A teaspoon of kosher salt and a teaspoon of Himalayan salt don’t hold the same amount of salt. A teaspoon of Morton kosher salt weighs 4.8 grams and a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal 2.8 grams,¹ while Morton’s coarse Himalayan salt label works out to about 6 grams.² Swap them spoon for spoon and you change the seasoning. Otherwise they have a lot in common: both are coarse, mostly sodium chloride, and usually iodine-free.³ Where they part ways is how they reach you: the big US kosher brands evaporate theirs from brine, while Himalayan salt is rock salt mined in Pakistan and tinted pink by traces of iron oxide.⁴

Side by side

Where each comes from

Kosher salt. The name describes a use, not a source. Kosher salt was originally used for koshering meat. Its coarse grains draw blood out of meat, as Jewish dietary law requires. In the US it mostly means two brands, and they’re made differently. Diamond Crystal comes from the Alberger process: brine is heated and stirred in open containers so hollow, pyramid-shaped crystals form on the surface. Morton’s brine goes through vacuum evaporators, and the salt gets pressed through rollers into thin flakes.¹

Himalayan salt. Harriet Hall of Science-Based Medicine says the salt beds were laid down by ancient oceans about 250 million years ago.⁶ Commercial pink salt comes from Pakistan, where the state-owned Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation runs the Khewra mine. You’ll often read that the pink comes from minerals, bacteria and algae left over from an ancient sea. The published analysis we found credits traces of iron oxide.⁴

What’s in them

We didn’t find a lab study that measured kosher salt and Himalayan salt side by side, so the figures below come from different sources. Don’t compare them decimal for decimal.

• Sodium. Table salt, kosher salt and most sea salts are about 40% sodium, the American Heart Association says.⁷ A Swiss government survey found four Himalaya salts at 37.7% to 38.2%.⁸ By our math, Morton’s labels work out to 400 mg of sodium per gram for its kosher salt and 380 mg per gram for its coarse Himalayan salt.⁵²
• Minerals. In a 2020 analysis of 31 pink salts bought in Australia, pink salt had more calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese and potassium than a white table salt, but a 5 g teaspoon made no clinically significant contribution to nutrient intake except sodium. You’d need more than 30 g a day for the minerals to matter, and the sodium would cancel out any benefit.⁴
• Contaminants. The Swiss survey found 21,864 to 44,654 µg/kg of aluminum in its four Himalaya samples. It found specialty salts generally higher in contaminants than standard salts, with most contaminants below 1% of tolerable intake, and put the high levels in Himalaya salt down to natural contamination.⁸ It didn’t test any kosher salt.
• “84 minerals.” Hall traces the claim that pink salt has 84 trace minerals to marketing.⁶

Flavor and handling

Weight for weight, salt tastes like salt. In ATK’s test, broths seasoned with equal weights of Morton and Diamond Crystal tasted exactly the same.¹ We found no taste test of Himalayan salt against kosher salt, so claims that pink salt has “mineral notes” or that kosher salt is “cleaner” are untested.

Where they differ is handling:

• Kosher salt is ATK’s testers’ first choice for seasoning meat, because the large grains spread easily and cling.⁹ ATK’s tasters preferred Diamond Crystal’s “delicate and fleeting crunch” to Morton’s harder grains.¹ Kosher salt is also much coarser than table salt and dissolves more slowly.
• Coarse Himalayan salt is harder and denser. It goes in grinders, or on top of food where the pink shows: steak, fish, eggs, salads.

You’ll hear that kosher salt helps meat hold its moisture. We found no test of that. For salt blocks, see cooking with Himalayan salt.

Pickling. Neither is the best choice. The National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends canning or pickling salt, and says flake salt isn’t recommended because its density varies.¹⁰ Kosher salt isn’t automatically additive-free, either: Morton’s lists an anticaking agent.⁵ See pickling salt vs. kosher salt.

Can one stand in for the other?

Yes, but measure carefully. These follow our kosher salt substitute page.

How we worked these out. By weight: the Codex standard requires food-grade salt, whether from rock deposits, the sea or brine, to be at least 97% sodium chloride on a dry basis.¹¹ By volume: Morton’s labels give 1.2 g per ¼ teaspoon for its kosher salt and 1.5 g for its coarse Himalayan salt,⁵² so ⅘ teaspoon of the pink salt carries the salt of a teaspoon of Morton kosher. Morton’s chart, which applies only between Morton products, treats a teaspoon of its Himalayan salt as equal to a teaspoon of table salt and to 1¼ teaspoons of its kosher salt, and lands on the same answer.¹² Diamond Crystal’s 2.8 g per teaspoon is ATK’s measurement,¹ set against Morton’s Himalayan label, so those rows mix two sources, and we round toward less salt. ATK recommends weighing salt instead of measuring it by volume.¹³ We didn’t find published weights for other brands’ grinds.

Health notes

• Sodium. A teaspoon of a lighter salt holds less sodium only because fewer crystals fit, and total sodium intake is what matters for heart health.⁷ Gram for gram, neither salt is lower in sodium.
• Iodine. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements lists both kosher and Himalayan salt among specialty salts that usually aren’t iodized.³ If you cook only with these, see iodized vs. non-iodized salt.
• Health claims. Hall reviews claims that Himalayan salt detoxifies, lowers blood pressure or strengthens bones and finds them unsupported.⁶ We’re not claiming either salt treats or prevents any condition.

What isn’t known

• We found no lab analysis of US kosher salt brands for minerals or contaminants.
• We found no taste test comparing kosher salt with Himalayan salt.
• We couldn’t get Diamond Crystal’s own grams-per-teaspoon figure from its maker, and found no independent weight for coarse pink salt outside Morton’s label.
• We found no test of kosher salt’s effect on meat moisture, and no dated price data.

Related

• Kosher salt and Himalayan salt, the full profiles
• Kosher salt substitutes and cooking with kosher salt
• Himalayan salt vs. table salt, Himalayan salt vs. sea salt and fleur de sel vs. Himalayan salt
• Kosher salt vs. table salt, kosher salt vs. sea salt and Maldon salt vs. kosher salt