4 Must-Have Cooking Salts for your Kitchen
Video and photography provided by Heinen’s partner, Chef Billy Parisi.
Have you ever cooked a dish at home, or ordered a dish in a restaurant that looked delicious but tasted bland? Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s because the food was improperly seasoned with salt.
Salt has the ability to transform virtually any food from boring and basic to mouthwatering and worthy of five-stars!
If you cook for yourself in any way, you likely have salt in your spice cabinet, but what kind of salt do you have? And are you using it in the right way?
There are many kinds of salt on the market, and each has its own unique flavor and purpose. The options in Heinen’s spice aisle are extensive and can be intimidating to the average home cook, but that should never stand in the way of creating perfectly seasoned food.
Check out the list below for the four best salts to keep in your kitchen for everyday cooking, and how to make the most of their flavor!
Celtic Salt (aka Gray Salt)
- Found on the lower floor of salt tidal pools around France.
- High in mineral content with an extra clean, briny-acid finish and wet texture.
- Great for brightening the flavor of sauces or finishing beef, pork, fish, chicken, vegetables and melon because of its large, soft crystals.
Himalayan Salt
- Mined in the Himalayan mountains of Pakistan.
- Has up to 84 other minerals in it.
- Pink in color but tastes almost identical to kosher salt (see below) with a cleaner finish and no bitter aftertaste.
- Can be used in place of traditional table salt.
- Use it to flavor sauces and marinades, or to finish meat or veggies for added color and crunch.
Redmond Salt
- An unrefined sea salt harvested in underground salt deposits of Redmond, Utah from an ancient inland sea known as the Sundance Sea.
- A very dry salt loaded with over 60 trace minerals.
- Can be white, pink or red in color with fine or coarse texture.
- Slightly sweet to taste, making it perfect for everyday cooking.
- Best served over fresh tomato slices or watermelon.
Kosher Salt
- Identical to table salt with larger crystals and no added iodine.
- Most inexpensive and versatile salt on this list.
- Most popular salt for chefs and professional cooks across the world.
- Can be used for baking, grilling, braising or finishing any kind of food just before serving.
