Pickling Salt: Why Canning Guides Call for It, and What It Replaces

Pickling salt isn’t about taste. It’s about what isn’t in the box: the anticaking agents added to many table salts can cloud a brine or leave a white sediment in the jar.¹ Home-canning guidance from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, adapted from the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning, recommends canning and pickling salt for pickles.² Iodized salt won’t make a pickle unsafe, though it can darken one. And for sauerkraut or fermented pickles, never use less salt than the recipe calls for: there, it’s vital to safety and texture, not just flavor.

At a glance

What pickling salt is

Pickling salt is salt sold for brines, and canning guidance contrasts it with salts that carry noncaking materials. Table salt usually contains anticaking agents to help it pour smoothly. Morton describes its canning and pickling salt as one that blends easily with liquid to make a clear brine. Its product page doesn’t list ingredients, so check the label of whatever brand you buy. What you want is a salt with nothing added.

The word “pickle” comes from Middle English pykyl or pekill, meaning a sauce or gravy, from or related to Middle Dutch peeckel, brine. Merriam-Webster dates its first known use in English to the 15th century.

Why canning guides call for it

The NCHFP guidance makes three separate points, and it helps to keep them apart:

1. Anticaking agents can cloud the brine. The center recommends canning or pickling salt and notes that noncaking materials added to other salts may make the brine cloudy.³ Its troubleshooting table lists white sediment in the jar as a result of salt with an anticaking agent or other additives.¹
2. Iodine is a color question, not a safety one. You can safely make fermented and non-fermented pickles with either iodized or noniodized table salt.² The same troubleshooting table, though, lists iodized salt as a cause of dark or discolored pickles, with canning or pickling salt as the prevention.¹
3. Flake salt isn’t recommended. Its density varies, so a measured volume won’t hold a predictable amount of salt.²³

You’ll often read that iodized salt makes brine bitter. ATK’s tasters couldn’t taste a difference between iodized and noniodized salt, so the case for pickling salt rests on clarity and color, not flavor.⁶

What salt does in a pickle

In fermented foods like sauerkraut and brined pickles, salt favors the growth of desirable bacteria while holding others back. NCHFP calls the salt in those recipes vital to safety and texture, not just flavor, and warns against making sauerkraut or fermented pickles with less salt than the recipe requires. Fresh-pack (quick) pickles are different. They’re acidified quickly with vinegar and can be made safely with reduced salt or none, though their quality may be noticeably lower.³

Strength matters in the other direction too. NCHFP lists shriveled pickles as a result of a brine, syrup or vinegar that’s too strong, and the fix is to use the amounts of salt and sugar a reliable recipe calls for.¹

How pickling salt is used

Pickles and sauerkraut. That’s what it’s sold for: Morton lists pickles, vegetables and sauerkraut. Use a tested recipe and measure or weigh carefully, as NCHFP advises.³

Everyday cooking. Morton also lists cooking, baking, marinating and brining among its uses. Morton treats it as equal to table salt by volume, so it can stand in for table salt in a shaker or a recipe. With no anticaking agent, it can clump in humid weather. A few grains of rice in the shaker is a common household trick, though we found no test of it.

Measuring and swapping

By volume, Morton’s chart treats its canning and pickling salt as equal to its table salt, teaspoon for teaspoon and cup for cup. Morton says the chart applies when swapping one Morton product for another.⁴ We found no published grams-per-teaspoon figure for pickling salt, so if a canning recipe gives a weight, weigh it.

Coarser salts are another story. A teaspoon of kosher salt holds less salt than a teaspoon of fine salt, and the published conversions disagree with each other. See pickling salt vs. kosher salt and the kosher salt page for both sets of numbers. For a tested canning recipe, NCHFP’s own advice is to use canning or pickling salt instead of converting.²

Reduced-sodium salts

Reduced-sodium salts like “Lite Salt” may be used in quick pickle recipes that call for them, though the pickles may taste a little different. NCHFP doesn’t recommend them for fermented pickles.²

Buying and quality

Look for a package labeled canning and pickling salt with an ingredient list that says only salt. Skip flake salt for canning. Kosher salt isn’t automatically additive-free either. Morton’s kosher salt lists yellow prussiate of soda as an anticaking agent,⁷ so “kosher” alone doesn’t mean nothing’s added. See kosher salt.

Storage

We found no shelf-life figure for pickling salt from a regulator or standards body. Keep it dry and closed so it stays free-flowing.

Health

Iodine. US salt makers have added iodine to table salt since the 1920s, and iodization is still voluntary.⁸ If a noniodized salt like pickling salt replaces iodized salt at your table, that source of iodine goes with it. See iodized vs. non-iodized salt.

Sodium. Pickling salt isn’t a lower-sodium salt. Table salt, kosher salt and most sea salts are about 40% sodium.⁵ The FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day.⁹ The WHO recommends adults stay below 2,000 mg a day and names raised blood pressure as the main health effect of high intake.¹⁰

Substitutes and comparisons

• Pickling salt substitutes
• Pickling salt vs. kosher salt
• Pickling salt vs. sea salt
• Table salt and sea salt
• Pickling spice, for the aromatics in the jar