6 Ways to Enhance Your Dishes with Finishing Salts

In the kitchen, salt is a universal truth. It’s the savior of bland. When salt is deployed in the right way in a dish, whether it’s sweet or savory, the flavor within is enhanced and emboldened. When I was in culinary school and learning how to prepare classic French dishes for the first time, the French instructors told the class that if we forgot to put salt in our dishes, we should not even bother serving them. Oui, chef.

If standard table salt, like Diamond Crystal or Morton’s, is your regular mealtime flatware, consider finishing salt your fine china. Finishing salt is generally more delicate in flavor, scent, and texture compared to all-purpose cooking salt. It’s meant to enhance a dish prior to serving, bringing all the flavors of the dish out. And when it comes to the types of finishing salts available, the options feel limitless. Maldon, fleur de sel, Celtic sea salt, and Himalayan pink salt are just some of the finishing salts available, and depending on the flavors you’re cooking, you’re certain to find one that will make you feel like the Goldilocks of your kitchen — it’ll fit just right.

Whether you’re a finishing salt novice or you’re simply unsure of how to use the finishing salt you have at home, we’ve got tips to guide you through it. With the insight of two experts — chef Lior Lev Sercarz of La Bôite and chef Sue Zemanick of Zasu — you’re sure to have a better understanding of this fascinating, flavorful ingredient.

Finishing salt is specifically meant for adding onto a dish at the end to enhance the flavor and texture, but it’s a wide category with quite a number of options. And because there are so many finishing salts available, it’s important to get to know them all before deciding which ones to use.

While all finishing salts are flaky and delicate, they have some notable differences, too. A finishing salt like Maldon or Himalayan pink salt has a milder flavor and coarse, chunky flakes, which can be useful for adding significant crunch to a steak or whole grilled fish. A salt like fleur de sel or Celtic sea salt has a more mineral-forward flavor, meaning it can lend a more oceanic and intensely salty flavor to a finished dish.

Not sure which salt you should be using? Try them on their own. Get a variety of salts and try a few flakes, doing your best to identify the characteristics of each one. If one has smoky characteristics, perhaps it’s best used on a dish that was cooked over an open flame. Alternatively, a salt with coarse flakes can add a crunchy texture to something that is typically soft, like fish or steamed vegetables. Once you’ve identified the characteristics of the different salts, you can then take them out for a walk and experiment with how they impact a complete dish.

“There are no rules around absolution, but my personal favorite dishes to use finishing salts with are steaks, raw fish, and salads,” said chef Lior Lev Sercarz. Knowing that there really are no limits to how and when you can use finishing salts (being careful not to overuse them, but we’ll get to that) means there are really no parameters to follow when using them. Savory recipes abound and can benefit from a sprinkle of finishing salt magic, so now that you’ve gotten to know your salts, you can start to introduce them to different dishes.

Perhaps you’re opening your meal with a raw vegetable salad. An herbaceous, citrusy finishing salt, like the Black Lime and Chili Salt from Burlap & Barrel, can help to add some additional depth and spice. A grilled tomahawk ribeye steak topped with an herbaceous compound butter can get an additional hit of flavor and crunch by being finished with a delicate sprinkling of Maldon salt. Creamy garlic mashed potatoes, which are already deeply flavored with butter, garlic, and herbs, can have a stronger, more intense flavor with the scant addition of salt with a finer flake and extra salty flavor, like fleur de sel. While not every single dish needs a finishing salt, experimenting with different recipes and trying them with and without a complementary finishing salt may help you figure out when and where to best use them.

The purpose of a finishing salt is in the name — the salt is meant as a finishing, supporting element. A sprinkle, a dash, a soupçon if you’re Frenchy, but it is in no way meant to be part of the initial seasoning process. If you’re grilling a steak or a piece of fish, finishing salt shouldn’t be put on before the protein hits the flame. That said, this is still meant to be a seasoning element, so if you do plan on using it, consider it ahead of time and plan accordingly.

Chef Sue Zemanick and chef Lior Lev Sercarz both agree: Finishing salt is meant to add additional flavor and texture to a dish, not to season it to the point of no return. “…just be mindful that the dish already has salt, so we’re just adding a little extra touch here,” said chef Lev Sercarz. His tip? Take a small bite of the finished dish to even determine if it needs a finishing salt. If you heavily seasoned ahead of time, adding another strongly-flavored finishing salt may be too much. If you have determined that your dish can benefit from the use of a finishing salt, use your index finger and thumb to pick up a small amount of salt, and sprinkle it over the dish from a high angle to ensure you’re evenly seasoning everything. Taste again, and adjust your seasoning accordingly. The name of the game is to enhance, not destroy.

Have you ever eaten something that’s too salty? Even for those of us who prefer salty foods over sweets, it’s not an enjoyable experience. Your mouth and tongue go completely dry, and you’ll be scrounging around for water like a mad person. If you plan to use finishing salts, keep in mind that while they come in a range of sizes and flavors, it’s still salt. Ever heard the phrase “a little goes a long way?” Never has that been a more useful phrase than with this ingredient.

“You can definitely oversalt something. Finishing salt on an already seasoned steak can make for an overly salted dish,” notes chef Sue Zemanick. Chef Lior Lev Sercarz follows the same school of thought: Chances are the dish you’re making has been seasoned during the cooking process, so it’s entirely possible to oversalt. “We’re just adding a little extra touch here,” he said. While there’s no official measuring method, your eyes and your fingers will be the most helpful when it comes to using it.

Let’s say you’re preparing a raw fish crudo, and the only seasoning you want to add is finishing salt. That’s fine, but you’ll want to be just as judicious with it as you would for a dish that may already have some seasoning. Finishing salts pack a lot of punch, and on a delicate dish like crudo, having too much salt may take away from the fresh, bright flavor of the fish itself.

Like any ingredient in the kitchen, finishing salt has nuance. It can be easy to use too much of it, taking your dish well over the seasoning line and making it inedible. When it comes to using finishing salts on protein, like chicken, beef, or fish, it may seem logical to give that meat a healthy sprinkle as soon as it comes off the heat, giving it time to absorb that flavor before you cut and serve. But we refuse to let you be fooled, and if you go this route, your dish may be headed into overly seasoned territory.

For your grilled steak that is just begging for a sprinkle of Maldon salt before serving, patience is the key. Remove the steak from the grill or pan, let it rest, and slice it however you like. It’s at this point when you should grab that sprinkle of finishing salt and give each slice a small but meaningful portion. This is the method that chef Sue Zemanick recommends — slice and then season. That way, your smaller pieces are getting a more even, precise amount of salt.

Salt is an important ingredient in just about any recipe you can think of, and we’re not limiting that to savory dishes. In fact, most baked goods — cakes, cupcakes, cookies, you name it — will list a scant amount of salt as part of the dry ingredients. That salt is in there to enhance the flavor and provide balance. The usefulness of salt in desserts, specifically chocolatey ones, doesn’t end there. By using finishing salt on your chocolate sweets, even a scant amount, you’ll enhance the sweetness and chocolatey flavor while also tamping down any bitter notes.

Just like with your savory dishes, you should get to know the different types of finishing salts and see how they can be incorporated into your chocolate desserts. A chocolate caramel tart, filled with dark chocolate and sticky sweet caramel, can benefit greatly from a sprinkle of flaky, chunky Maldon salt on each slice for balance and crunch. The humble chocolate chip cookie, loaded with milk and semi-sweet chocolate chips and bursting with nutty flavor from browned butter, will be that perfect balance of sweet and a little salty when they get a sprinkle of flaky salt as soon as they come out of the oven.