Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt (United States)

Aromatic profile

Culinary use

• When to add : cooking
• Dosage : by the pinch, by feel; lighter per teaspoon than table salt, so trust your hand not the recipe's volume
• Ideal pairings : seasoning meat before searing, salting pasta and vegetable water, brines and dry-brines, doughs and baking, everyday cooking, the salt you season by feel
• Avoid with : finishing a plate (use a flaky salt for the crunch), swapping one-for-one with table or Morton kosher (the grain is much lighter, so volumes differ)

The grain in detail

Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt is the salt you cook with, not the one you finish with. It is made by the Alberger process, which produces light, hollow, pyramid-like flakes rather than dense cubes. Those flakes crush between the fingers, cling to food, and dissolve fast, and crucially they pack loosely, so a pinch holds less salt by volume than table salt or Morton kosher. That is why it is the default in professional and test kitchens: it is forgiving, hard to over-salt with, and easy to season by feel. It has no additives and no anti-caking agents, which keeps the salinity clean and neutral. Use it for everything upstream of the plate: seasoning meat before a sear, salting pasta and vegetable water, brines and dry-brines, doughs and baking, the steady background seasoning of a dish. Do not use it to finish, where you want the visible crunch of a flaky salt. One real warning: Diamond Crystal and Morton kosher are not interchangeable by volume because the grains differ in density, so a recipe written for one will over- or under-salt with the other. When a recipe just says 'kosher salt' and you are unsure which it meant, season by taste.

History & origin

Diamond Crystal salt has been produced in the US since 1886 using the Alberger evaporation process, originally at Saint Clair, Michigan. Its light, hollow flake made it a fixture of American restaurant and test kitchens, to the point that many recipe writers specify it by name because the grain density changes how a recipe salts.

Indicative price

Reference format : 3 lb box — from $10.00 to $14.00 (median : $11.50).

Storage

Keep dry in the box or a covered bin. Keeps indefinitely.

Where to buy?

Alternatives if unavailable

• Maldon Sea Salt
• Jacobsen Pure Flake Salt

Tags

• USA
• kosher salt
• Alberger
• cooking salt
• additive-free
• test-kitchen default

Frequently asked questions

How do you store Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt?

Keep dry in the box or a covered bin. Keeps indefinitely.

What dosage for Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt?

by the pinch, by feel; lighter per teaspoon than table salt, so trust your hand not the recipe's volume

When should you add Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt in cooking?

It's best used cooking.

What should you avoid pairing Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt with?

Avoid with: finishing a plate (use a flaky salt for the crunch), swapping one-for-one with table or Morton kosher (the grain is much lighter, so volumes differ).