Kosher Salt

Kosher salt is a coarse, flaky crystalline salt with large, easy-to-grab grains. It tastes clean and sharply salty, dissolves quickly, and gives a pleasant crunch when used as a finish. Cooks favor its pinchable texture for consistent seasoning, dry brining, curing, and rimming cocktail glasses.

Named for its traditional role in koshering meat under Jewish dietary practice, it became a standard seasoning in North American professional kitchens. Producers make it by evaporating seawater or brine or by mining rock salt, then forming larger flakes; some add anticaking agents.