Herbs & Spices
Best Table Salt Substitutes
Out of Table Salt? Here are 2 real substitutes, ranked and ratio-backed.
1. Diamond Crystal kosher salt
Ratio: 2:1 by volume (use about double the volume of Diamond Crystal for the same saltiness)
Diamond Crystal's larger, lighter flakes mean the same VOLUME is much less salty than table salt — this is a volume ratio, not a weight ratio (by weight they're closer to 1:1).
Best for: any use — get the ratio direction right
2. Morton kosher salt
Ratio: 1.25:1 by volume
Morton's denser crystals sit between table salt and Diamond Crystal in volume-for-saltiness — still not a straight 1:1 swap for table salt by volume.
Best for: any use
Salt substitution on this site isn't about replacing salt with something else — it's specifically about converting correctly between different TYPES of salt, since the real risk with salt substitution is a volume-based measurement error, not a flavor mismatch the way most other substitutions are.
Diamond Crystal kosher salt requires roughly double the volume of table salt for equivalent saltiness, because its larger, lighter flakes take up much more space per gram of actual salt — this is a volume ratio specifically, and by weight the two are actually much closer to equivalent, which is worth remembering if you ever have a kitchen scale handy for salt measurement.
Morton kosher salt sits at a different ratio (1.25:1) than Diamond Crystal, because its crystal structure is denser than Diamond Crystal's but still less dense than fine table salt — the two major US kosher salt brands are genuinely not interchangeable with each other 1:1 by volume, a detail that surprises a lot of home cooks who assume "kosher salt" is one uniform product.
Flaky finishing salts like Maldon sit outside this page's volume-conversion guidance entirely, and that's deliberate — they're irregular, large, delicate flakes meant to be sprinkled on top of a finished dish for a burst of crunch and salinity, not stirred into a batter or dissolved into a sauce, so converting them into a table-salt-equivalent volume misses the point of how they're actually used in a kitchen.
Seasoned salts (garlic salt, celery salt, and similar blends) also fall outside this page's straightforward salt-type conversion, since they're not just a different crystal shape of the same substance — they carry other dried ingredients blended in, so substituting one for plain table salt at any ratio changes the dish's flavor profile, not just its saltiness, in a way none of the pure salt-to-salt conversions here do.
Need to convert Table Salt first? See its conversion page.
Frequently asked questions
Why does salt need a substitution guide at all if it's chemically the same substance?
Because the crystal size and shape varies significantly between salt types, which changes how much actual salt (and therefore how much saltiness) fits into a given VOLUME — a teaspoon of one salt type can contain roughly double the salt of a teaspoon of another.
Are Diamond Crystal and Morton kosher salt interchangeable with each other?
No — they have different crystal densities (Diamond Crystal is lighter and flakier, Morton is denser), so a recipe written with one brand's volume measurements in mind isn't a direct 1:1 volume swap for the other.
Is weighing salt by grams more reliable than converting by volume?
Yes — by weight, different salt types are much closer to equivalent than by volume, since a gram of salt is a gram of salt regardless of crystal shape; volume conversion exists specifically because most home cooks measure by spoon, not scale.
Does this substitution guidance apply to sea salt too?
Not directly — sea salt's crystal size varies much more by brand and style than the two major kosher salt brands do, so there's no single reliable conversion ratio the way there is for Diamond Crystal or Morton; check the specific product's density if precision matters.
Does this substitution guidance apply to canning or pickling recipes?
Canning and pickling recipes are especially sensitive to exact salt concentration for both safety and preservation reasons, so weighing salt by grams rather than relying on a volume-based substitution ratio is strongly recommended in that specific context.