If you like to cook and to discover new recipes to make your family and / or friends happy, you have probably noticed that most recipes call for kosher salt, not other types of salt such as iodized salt and knowing the difference between these two types of salt can never be a good thing. Salt, itself, is basically sodium chloride, whether it is sea salt or kosher salt, it is sodium chloride. The main difference between types of salt is the texture, which plays a crucial role in the “power” the salt has to season your food.
Salt Differences and Advantages
Kosher salt is a type of salt that is free from any additives at all. As such, it is considered the purest salt there is. The name kosher salt came because this type of salt was mainly used to cure kosher meats. More often than not, kosher salt is the preferred type of salt for professional chefs because of its mild flavor.
Iodized salt, on the other hand, is fortified with iodine. That is the big difference it has from other types of salt. In terms of texture, shape and size, iodized salt is just like regular salt. The main advantage any individual can have by using iodized salt is that they can easily stop themselves from having iodine deficiencies without having to change a lot of things about their diet. A deficiency in iodine can lead to goiters, development delays and other types of problems regarding general health.
Kosher salt, however, gets an advantage over other types of salt (and this is why chefs prefer it) because it has better adherence to skin, both for fish and meat. This adherence not only makes the seasoning process a lot easier and straightforward, but also allows the food handler to easily place the right amount of salt in food as desire. Other types of salt that don’t adhere so well can easily slip from the hand of the handler, over salting the food, or under salting.
Component Differences
When it comes to taste, both types of salt have similar results, both before and after cooking, with very small differences in the results. Nevertheless, iodized salt is a little thinner than kosher salt as such, it is better to be used as table salt, for baking or to season foods such as salads and soups.
For every other type of use you might have, kosher salt is better, simply because it allows you to season your food to the exact point you want it to be at with ease. Iodized salt should be used mostly as a way to treat an iodine deficiency, as it has a disadvantage towards kosher salt in any other type of usage except to serve a thin salt.