Salt

Salt isn’t the villain

Your body genuinely needs sodium — it runs your nerves, your muscles, and your fluid balance. The issue was never a pinch of good salt on a home-cooked meal. It’s that the vast majority of the sodium most of us get is hidden inside ultra-processed food: breads, sauces, deli meats, snacks, restaurant meals. When you cook real food at home, you’re already ahead.

The kinds worth knowing

Table salt is heavily refined, usually iodized, and often carries anti-caking agents. Sea salt is evaporated seawater and keeps its trace minerals. Kosher salt has a light, flaky grain that’s easy to pinch and perfect for everyday cooking. Flaky finishing salt, like Maldon, is all about the final crunch and sparkle on top of a dish. I keep it simple: one salt to cook with, one to finish with.

A quiet word on iodine

Iodized table salt exists for a reason — it was added generations ago to prevent iodine deficiency. If you’ve switched mostly to sea salt, as many of us have, just make sure iodine comes in elsewhere: seafood, eggs, dairy, and a little seaweed all carry it.

How I actually use it

Salt in layers as you cook, tasting as you go, rather than dumping it all in at the end — the flavor builds so much better. Then a pinch of flaky salt right before serving wakes the whole plate up. Good salt doesn’t make food taste salty; it makes food taste more like itself.