by Samin Nosrat
When food tastes flat, the most common culprit is underseasoning. If you’re not sure salt will fix the problem, take a spoonful or small bite and sprinkle it with a little salt, then taste again. If something shifts and you sense the zing!, then go ahead and add salt to the entire batch. Your palate will become more discerning with this sort of thoughtful cooking and tasting. Like a jazz musician’s ear, with use it will grow more sensitive, more refined, and more skilled at improvisation.
HOW SALT WORKS
Cooking is part artistry, part chemistry. Understanding how salt works will allow you to make better decisions about how and when to use it to improve texture and season food from within. Some ingredients and cooking methods require giving salt enough time to penetrate food and distribute itself within it. In other cases, the key is to create a cooking environment salty enough to allow food to absorb the right amount of salt as it cooks.
The distribution of salt throughout food can be explained by osmosis and diffusion, two chemical processes powered by nature’s tendency to seek equilibrium, or the balanced concentration of solutes such as minerals and sugars on either side of a semipermeable membrane (or holey cell wall). In food, the movement of water across a cell wall from the saltier side to the less salty side is called osmosis.
Diffusion, on the other hand, is the often slower process of salt moving from a saltier environment to a less salty one until it’s evenly distributed throughout. Sprinkle salt on the surface of a piece of chicken and come back twenty minutes later. The distinct grains will no longer be visible: they will have started to dissolve, and the salt will have begun to move inward in an effort to create a chemical balance throughout the piece of meat. We can taste the consequence of this diffusion—though we sprinkle salt on the surface of the meat, with the distribution that occurs over time, eventually the meat will taste evenly seasoned, rather than being salty on the surface and bland within.
Water will also be visible on the surface of the chicken, the result of osmosis. While the salt moves in, the water will move out with the same goal: achieving chemical balance throughout the entire piece of meat.
Given the chance, salt will always distribute itself evenly to season food from within, but it affects the textures of different foods in different ways.
How Salt Affects . . .
Meat
By the time I arrived at Chez Panisse, the kitchen had already been running like a well-oiled machine for decades. Its success relied on each cook thinking ahead to the following day’s menu and beyond. Every day, without fail, we butchered and seasoned meat for the following day. Since this task was a classic example of kitchen efficiency, it didn’t occur to me that seasoning the meat in advance had anything to do with flavor. That was only because I didn’t yet understand the important work salt was quietly doing overnight.
Since diffusion is a slow process, seasoning in advance gives salt plenty of time to diffuse evenly throughout meat. This is how to season meat from within. A small amount of salt applied in advance will make a much bigger difference than a larger amount applied just before serving. In other words, time, not amount, is the crucial variable.
Because salt also initiates osmosis, and visibly draws water out of nearly any ingredient it touches, many people believe that salt dries and toughens food. But with time, salt will dissolve protein strands into a gel, allowing them to absorb and retain water better as they cook. Water is moisture: its presence makes meat tender and juicy.
Think of a protein strand as a loose coil with water molecules bound to its outside surface. When an unseasoned protein is heated, it denatures: the coil tightens, squeezing water molecules out of the protein matrix, leaving the meat dry and tough if overcooked. By disrupting protein structure, salt prevents the coil from densely coagulating, or clumping, when heated, so more of the water molecules remain bound. The piece of meat remains moister, and you have a greater margin of error for overcooking.
This same chemical process is the secret to brining, the method in which a piece of meat is submerged in a bath of water spiked with salt, sugar, and spices. The salt in this mixture, or brine, dissolves some of the proteins, while the sugar and spices offer plenty of aromatic molecules for the meat to absorb. For this reason, brining can be a great strategy for lean meats and poultry, which tend to be dry and even bland. Make Spicy Brined Turkey Breast, and you’ll see how a night spent in a salty, spicy bath will transform a cut of meat that’s often devastatingly dry and flavorless.
I can’t remember the first time I tasted—consciously, anyway—meat that had been salted in advance. But now I can tell every time I taste meat that hasn’t. I’ve cooked thousands of chickens—presalted and not—over the years, and while science has yet to confirm my suspicions, I’ll speak from experience here: meat that’s been salted in advance is not only more flavorful, it’s also more tender, than meat that hasn’t. The best way to experience the marvels of preseasoned meat for yourself is with a little experiment: the next time you plan to roast a chicken, cut the bird in half, or ask your butcher to do so for you. Season one half with salt a day ahead. Season the other half just before cooking. The effects of early salting will be apparent long before the first bite hits your tongue. The chicken salted in advance will fall off the bone as you begin to butcher it, while the other half, though moist, won’t begin to compare in tenderness.
When salting meat for cooking, any time is better than none, and more is better than some. Aim to season meat the day before cooking when possible. Failing that, do it in the morning, or even in the afternoon. Or make it the first thing you do when collecting ingredients for dinner. I like to do it as soon as I get home from the grocery store, so I don’t have to think about it again.
The larger, denser, or more sinewy the piece of meat, the earlier you should salt it. Oxtails, shanks, and short ribs can be seasoned a day or two in advance to allow salt time to do its work. A chicken for roasting can be salted the day before cooking, while Thanksgiving turkey should be seasoned two, or even three, days in advance. The colder the meat and surrounding environment are, the longer it will take the salt to do its work, so when time is limited, leave meat on the counter once you season it (but for no longer than two hours), rather than returning it to the fridge.
Though salting early is a great boon to flavor and texture in meat, there is such a thing as salting too early. For thousands of years, salt has been used to preserve meat. In large enough quantities, for long enough periods of time, salt will dehydrate meat and cure it. If dinner plans change at the last minute, a salted chicken or a few pounds of short ribs will happily wait a day or two to be roasted or braised. But wait much longer than that, and they will dry out and develop a leathery texture and a cured, rather than fresh, flavor. If you’ve salted some meat but realize you won’t be able to get to it for several days, freeze it until you’re ready to cook it. Tightly wrapped, it’ll keep for up to two months. Simply defrost and pick up cooking where you left off.
Seafood
Unlike meat, the delicate proteins of most fish and shellfish will degrade when salted too early, yielding a tough, dry, or chewy result. A brief salting—about fifteen minutes—is plenty to enhance flavor and maintain moisture in flaky fish. Inch-thick steaks of meatier fish, such as tuna and swordfish, can be salted up to thirty minutes ahead. Season all other seafood at the time of cooking to preserve textural integrity.
Fat
Salt requires water to dissolve, so it won’t dissolve in pure fat. Luckily, most of the fats we use in the kitchen contain at least a little water—the small amounts of water in butter, lemon juice in a mayonnaise, or vinegar in a vinaigrette allow salt to slowly dissolve. Season these fats early and carefully, waiting for salt to dissolve and tasting before adding more. Or, dissolve salt in water, vinegar, or lemon juice before adding it to fat for even, immediate distribution. Lean meat has a slightly higher water (and protein) content—and thus, greater capacity for salt absorption—than fattier cuts of meat,
so cuts with a big fat cap, such as pork loin or rib eye, will not absorb salt evenly. This is illustrated beautifully in a slice of prosciutto: the lean muscle (rosy pink part) has a higher water content, and thus can absorb salt readily as it cures. The fat (pure white part), on the other hand, has a much lower water content, and so it doesn’t absorb salt at the same rate. Taste the two parts separately and you’ll find the lean muscle unpleasantly salty. The strip of fat will seem almost bland. But taste them together and the synergy of fat and salt will be revealed. Don’t let this absorption imbalance affect how you season a fatty cut. Simply taste both fat and lean meat before adding more salt at the table.
Eggs
Eggs absorb salt easily. As they do, it helps their proteins come together at a lower temperature, which decreases cooking time. The more quickly the proteins set, the less of a chance they will have to expel water they contain. The more water the eggs retain as they cook, the more moist and tender their final texture will be. Add a pinch of salt to eggs destined for scrambling, omelettes, custards, or frittatas before cooking. Lightly season water for poaching eggs. Season eggs cooked in the shell or fried in a pan just before serving.
Vegetables, Fruits, and Fungi
Most vegetables and fruit cells contain an undigestible carbohydrate called pectin. Soften the pectin through ripening or applying heat, and you will soften the fruit or vegetable, making it more tender, and often more delicious, to eat. Salt assists in weakening pectin.
When in doubt, salt vegetables before you cook them. Toss vegetables with salt and olive oil for roasting. Salt blanching water generously before adding vegetables. Add salt into the pan along with the vegetables for sautéing. Season vegetables with large, watery cells—tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplant, for example—in advance of grilling or roasting to allow salt the time to do its work. During this time, osmosis will also cause some water loss, so pat the vegetables dry before cooking. Because salt will continue to draw water out of vegetables and fruits and eventually make them rubbery, be wary of salting them too early—usually 15 minutes before cooking is sufficient.
While mushrooms don’t contain pectin, they are about 80 percent water, which they will begin to release when salted. In order to preserve the texture of mushrooms, wait to add salt until they’ve just begun to brown in the pan.
Legumes and Grains
Tough beans: a kitchen fiasco so common it’s become an idiom. If there’s one way to permanently turn people off of legumes, it’s serving them undercooked, bland beans that are hard to eat. Contrary to popular belief, salt does not toughen dried beans. In fact, by facilitating the weakening of pectins contained in their cell walls, salt affects beans in the same way it affects vegetables: it softens them. In order to flavor dried beans from within, add salt when you soak them or when you begin to cook them, whichever comes first.
Legumes and grains are dried seeds—the parts of a plant that ensure survival from one season to the next. They’ve evolved tough exterior shells for protection, and require long, gentle cooking in water to absorb enough water to become tender. The most common reason for tough beans and grains, then, is undercooking. The solution for most: keep simmering! (Other variables that can lead to tough beans include using old or improperly stored beans, cooking with hard water, and acidic conditions.) Since a long cooking time gives salt a chance to diffuse evenly throughout, the water for boiling grains such as rice, farro, or quinoa can be salted less aggressively than the water for blanching vegetables. In preparations where all of the cooking water will be absorbed, and hence all of the salt, be particularly careful not to overseason.
Doughs and Batters
The first paid job I had in the kitchen at Chez Panisse was called Pasta/Lettuce. I spent about a year washing lettuces and making every kind of pasta dough imaginable. I’d also start the pizza dough every morning, adding yeast, water, and flour into the bowl of the gigantic stand mixer and tending to it throughout the day. Once the water and flour brought the dormant yeast back to life, I’d add more flour and salt. Then, after kneading and proofing, I’d finish the dough by adding in some olive oil. One day, when it was time to add the flour and salt, I realized the salt bin was empty. I didn’t have the time right then to go down to the storage shed to get another bag of salt, so I figured I’d just wait to add the salt at the end, along with the oil. As I kneaded the dough, I noticed that it came together much more quickly than usual, but I didn’t really give it a second thought. When I returned a couple of hours later to finish the dough, something unbelievable happened. I turned on the machine and let it deflate and knead the dough, like I always did, and then I added the salt. As it dissolved into the dough, I could actually see the machine begin to strain. The salt was making the dough tougher—the difference was remarkable! I had no idea what was happening. I was worried that I’d done something terribly wrong.
It was no big deal. It turns out that the dough tightened immediately because salt aids in strengthening gluten, the protein that makes dough chewy and elastic. As soon as I allowed the dough to rest, the gluten relaxed, and the pizzas that night emerged from the oven as delicious as always.
Salt can take a while to dissolve in foods that are low in water, so add it to bread dough early. Leave it out of Italian pasta dough altogether, allowing the salted water to do the work of seasoning as it cooks. Add it early to ramen and udon doughs to strengthen its gluten, as this will result in the desired chewiness. Add salt later to batters and doughs for cakes, pancakes, and delicate pastries to keep them tender, but make sure to whisk these mixes thoroughly so that the salt is evenly distributed before cooking.
Cooking Foods in Salted Water
Properly seasoned cooking water encourages food to retain its nutrients. Imagine that you’re cooking green beans in a pot of water. If the water is unseasoned or only lightly seasoned, then its concentration of salt—a mineral—will be lower than the innate mineral concentration in the green beans. In an attempt to establish equilibrium between the internal environment of the green beans and the external environment of the cooking water, the beans will relinquish some of their minerals and natural sugars during the cooking process. This leads to bland, gray, less-nutritious green beans.
On the other hand, if the water is more highly seasoned—and more mineral rich—than the green beans, then the opposite will happen. In an attempt to reach equilibrium, the green beans will absorb some salt from the water as they cook, seasoning themselves from the inside out. They’ll also remain more vibrantly colored because the salt balance will keep magnesium in the beans’ chlorophyll molecules from leaching out. The salt will also weaken the pectin and soften the beans’ cell walls, allowing them to cook more quickly. As an added bonus, there will be less of an opportunity for the green beans to lose nutrients because they’ll spend less total time in the pot.
I can’t prescribe precise amounts of salt for blanching water for a few reasons: I don’t know what size your pot is, how much water you’re using, how much food you’re blanching, or what type of salt you’re using. All of these variables will dictate how much salt to use, and even they may change each time you cook. Instead, season your cooking water until it’s as salty as the sea (or more accurately, your memory of the sea. At 3.5 percent salinity, seawater is much, much saltier than anyone would ever want to use for cooking). You might flinch upon seeing just how much salt this takes, but remember, most of the salt ends up going down the drain. The goal is to create a salty enough environment to allow the salt to diffuse throughout the ingredient during the time it spends in the water.
It doesn’t matter whether you add the salt to the water before or after you set it on the heat, though it’ll dissolve, and hence diffuse, faster in hot water. Just make sure to give the salt a chance to dissolve, and taste the water to make sure it’s highly seasoned before you add any food. Keep a pot boiling on the stove for too long, though, and water will evaporate. What’s left behind will be far too salty for cooking. The cure here is s
imple: taste your water, and make sure it’s right. If not, add some water or salt to balance it out.
Cooking food in salted water is one of the simplest ways to season from within. Taste roasted potatoes that were seasoned with salt as they went into the oven, and you’ll taste salt on the surface but not much farther in. But taste potatoes that were simmered in salted water for a little while before being roasted, and you’ll be shocked by the difference—salt will have made it all the way into the center, doing its powerful work of seasoning from within along the way.
Salt pasta water, potato cooking water, and pots of grains and legumes as early as possible to allow salt to dissolve and diffuse evenly into the food. Season the water for vegetables correctly and you won’t have to add salt again before serving. Salads made with boiled vegetables—be it potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, green beans, or anything else—are most delicious when the vegetables are seasoned properly while they’re cooking. Salt sprinkled on top of one of these salads at the time of serving won’t make as much of a difference in flavor as it will in texture, by adding a pleasant crunch.
Salt meats that are going to be cooked in water, like any meats, in advance, but season the cooking liquids for stews, braises, and poached meats conservatively—keep in mind that you’ll be consuming any salt you add here. While some salt may leach from the seasoned meat into the less savory broth, it will have already done its important tenderizing work. Anticipate the flavor exchange that will happen between the seasoned meat and its cooking liquid, and taste and adjust the liquid, along with the meat, before serving.