Salt substitute that tastes like salt when seasoning

September 23, 2024 12:06 PM

The title says it all, what do you suggest? I've gotten various suggestions ranging from lower sodium salts to salt substitutes, but am looking for recommendations from the internet too before I start buying things. To be clear, I'm just looking for something to replace salt when sprinkling on food I'm about to eat, that's it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Best answer: When I was on a low-salt diet a while back, I liked Mrs. Dash. It has enough interesting little tastes in it to work for me. For my palate, it was near-enough-to-salty-interesting to work on everything.
posted by jquinby at 12:48 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]

Seaweed! I buy plain dried seaweed crumbles.

You might check past AskMe threads on popcorn toppings for more ideas.
posted by knownassociate at 12:52 PM on September 23

I use the plain old Morton Salt potassium chloride salt substitute to season my meal on my plate; I feel like I have to put a lot more on to taste it, so maybe take that into consideration. It does taste like regular salt to me though.

(I use regular salt for recipes though, I don't know how KCl would behave differently)
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:59 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]

Since you're asking specifically for "tastes like salt" not "can serve a similar function" I think it's potassium chloride or nothing.

For me potassium chloride tastes salty but 'off'.
posted by away for regrooving at 1:34 PM on September 23 [4 favorites]

MSG perhaps? It does contain sodium, but less.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:52 PM on September 23

Best answer: I use a 50-50 combo of regular table salt and "No-Salt" (potassium chloride). It tastes like regular salt when cooking, baking, and sprinkling. You might start with that, then switch to 75-25, then 100% potassium chloride, as your taste buds adjust. (This is assuming you don't have any kidney issues, as advised by your doctor.)
posted by maudlin at 3:27 PM on September 23

Does this have to taste "of salt" 'cause I suspect that's too much salt. (Your taste buds aren't done in by smoking are they?!?)

Adding salt at each stage of food prep helps bring out the flavours of each component, and usually uses less salt than adding salt at the end. I don't think you want to taste saltiness if everything has been adequately seasoned -- but a few salt flakes can be their own play in the overall flavour balance.
posted by k3ninho at 3:34 PM on September 23

Potassium chloride is the standard salt substitute for folks avoiding sodium. It can taste sort of weird and off if you taste it by itself, but to my taste it does better job replacing salt than any of the fake sugars do at replacing sugar.

For sprinkling on food to add that little something extra, you might try True Lemon powder.
posted by sportbucket at 3:44 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]

I find acids to be the best enhancer. The Dash Caribbean citrus salt free blend is pretty good.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 7:46 PM on September 23 [2 favorites]

Here is a previous response to a similar question.

Potassium chloride ("No Salt") definitely has a salty taste, but for most people if you sprinkle it on just as you would normal salt, it has a VERY strong metallic taste. Yuck.

The trick though is to use it at a fraction of the amount you would table salt. Try 1/4 as much, 1/5 as much, maybe 1/10 as much. At those rates it adds a nice salty flavor and you don't get the horrible metallic taste.

MSG is an option most people simply discard out of hand because it includes sodium, too. But - the amount of sodium is literally 1/3 that of table salt. So if you would just replace your table salt with MSG, at 1-to-1 ratio, in all your cooking and sprinkling-at-the-table, you would reduce your sodium intake by 2/3s. That is not bad.

And to most of us, MSG tastes just great. It isn't the same as salt, but IMHO it is actually better. And the plus is, you can sprinkle it on "just like salt" which really helps.

It sounds like I'm feeding you a line of BS - just use this OTHER kind of sodium and all will be well!!11!!! - but no: Check out this article from Nature discussing this approach. The basic trick is that what people need is a REDUCED sodium diet, not a no-sodium diet. On a no-sodium diet you would, literally, die. In addition, you need your food to taste good enough to actually eat. Using moderate amounts of MSG can help a lot with this.

I have also used a mixture of MSG and potassium chloride that works well. Maybe 80% MSG, 20% potassium chloride. This definitely tastes saltier than plain MSG and has about 1/4 the sodium as table salt.

Yet another possibility is to use a mixture of MSG, potassium chloride, and regular table salt. So maybe 70% MSG, 15% potassium chloride, 15% salt. You can experiment with different percentages to see what works for you. As little as 5% or 10% salt might make this just salty enough for your tastebuds to really work.

Again this is not AT ALL a "no salt" approach. The 70/15/15 mixture has about 36% the sodium of regular table salt. But if you can use that to replace your previous salt usage 1-1 then it is roughly a 2/3 reduction in your sodium intake, which is really good.

However, don't make this and then dump in 3X as much as you would salt, because "that is what it takes to get the flavor". That won't reduce your sodium intake at all. The trick is, use it EXACTLY as you would salt, no more. Maybe even less.

Finally, most people don't realize that around for the typical person, around 80% of sodium consumption is NOT from the salt shaker. That 80% is from processed food that has salt & other sodium compounds added to it during manufacture. (Again, I am not making this up - here is one source of many.)

Point is, if you REALLY want to reduce sodium consumption you have to address that processed food, and not the salt shaker, as the primary culprit. Processed food is everything from the can of beans or tomato sauce you buy at the store that has huge amounts of added salt/sodium (check the label carefully) to fast food to restaurant food. All that has just mega amounts of salt/sodium added and - as I noted above - this is the major contributor to sodium in the typical person's diet.

So if you are serious about sodium reduction, you just have to eliminate all those things from your diet. There are certain processed & pre-prepared type things that you can buy & use (mostly things like canned or frozen beans, corn, tomatoes, and other basics that have no or very low added salt/sodium) but you end up doing most food preparation rather than buying it pre-prepared.

Now if you do that, you'll find one reason you hate doing it is that your home prepared food tastes really bland, because it has like 30mg sodium instead of 1000mg that similar pre-prepared option has.

But if you then use some kind of a mixture as I outline above (70% msg, 15% potassium, 15% salt), that adds a fair amount of salty & hearty flavor to your home prepared foods, you'll find they taste WAY better and you will probably even prefer them to the pre-prepared/store-bought version. Now it has maybe 200-300mg sodium - which makes it usable as part of a practical low-sodium diet, but also good-tasting enough to actually eat. And with just a fraction of the sodium of the processed-food version of the same dish.
posted by flug at 8:16 PM on September 23 [14 favorites]

Now if you do that, you'll find one reason you hate doing it is that your home prepared food tastes really bland, because it has like 30mg sodium instead of 1000mg that similar pre-prepared option has.

Taste buds and your sense of flavours attenuate fast -- I hope this pays off with the long-lasting health you deserve, BB!
posted by k3ninho at 12:05 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]