Salt is an essential component of cooking and in a professional kitchen, chefs are lucky enough to have a sous-chef to offer a second taste opinion. Whenever I eat out, it's one of the things I notice right away, because both under- and over-seasoning ruin the dish for me.
According to a recently released study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, many restaurant chains are guilty of overloading their meals with salt, thus increasing millions of customers' risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, Nearly 85 percent of the adult-sized meals at 10 popular chain restaurants have more than the recommended daily limit for total sodium intake -- 2,300 milligrams, or roughly one teaspoon of table salt.
Most home cooks are keenly aware of the connection between excessive salt consumption and high blood pressure which results from the body's need to dilute high concentrations with additional water. As a result, home cooks tend to err on the side of caution and don't use enough salt to bring out the best of each dish.
So, how do you know if you're using enough salt?
Get Jennifer's smart seasoning and salt-busting tips after the jump.
The answer depends on which type of salt we're talking about -- table salt, kosher salt or sea salt. Each is derived through a different process, which gives it a different concentration of flavor.
- Table salt, the one found in most salt shakers, is mined from salt deposits and has most of the minerals removed. The salt is harvested by forcing water into a mine to create brine, which is then evaporated, leaving cubes of salt.
- Using a different evaporation process, brine can also produce kosher salt, which is coarser, flakier and less dense than table salt -- making it a favorite for many chefs.
- Made from ocean water, sea salts contains trace minerals not in the mined salts, and these can confer interesting flavors and colors not found in table or kosher salt. However, sea salt typically doesn't contain iodine, which is a necessary ingredient for thyroid health.
- There are no hard and fast guidelines around how much salt to add. Experimenting with what you like and stay within your doctor's guidelines if you have health concerns. The key is to season and taste as you go. Many people spend a lifetime cooking without tasting their the food before it hits the dinner table.
- Salt meat before it hits the heat so that the seasoning is uniformly distributed. When you add salt at the dinner table, it's never quite the same.
- If your recipe also includes soy sauce or some other inherently salty ingredients, use less salt than indicated.
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