Lick your finger and dip it into your sea salt and taste. Tastes like salt, right? Now dip another finger into table salt and taste. Did you spit it out? (I did.)

I use sea salt to sprinkle on top of food. Not that I do that much, but hard boiled eggs come to mind. Aside from that, I use it when a recipe calls for it even though I'm sure I'd never know the difference in the end result.

For most everything else I use kosher salt. Mainly because I find it in more and more recipes these days, so switching to table salt could result in oversalting if following strict measures.

In a recent salt conversation someone mentioned kosher is easier to sprinkle between your fingers. I never noticed it before then, but it does seem to be somewhat true.

By the way, my Diamond Crystal kosher tastes MUCH better than my Diamond Crystal table, so maybe it's the iodine in the table I don't like? Who knows, but the sea salt still tastes best, straight.

all salt is sea salt....BUT....
Table sale has additives to make it free flowing and often iodine to prevetn goiter.
Kosher salt is coarse ground or flake salt like table salt without the additives. it's for "koshering" that is to add to meats to draw out any residual blood before cooking.
"Sea salt" has the minerals that are fopund in the salt included...and each tastes slightly different. there is pink Himalayan salt and grey Hawiian sea salt, French fleurs de sel etc...each has a predominant mineral inclusion which affects the taste.
The difference is most readily noticed in foods which don't have a lot of other tastes going on....like a rare beef filet, or an egg over easy or an ear of corn or a vine ripe tomato.
But in a pot of stew or a gigot de sept herbes I really don't think it much matters what you use.
Linda c

Lastly other than texture and taste, salt is salt is salt regardless of type or fancy name. The human body treats them all the same in your gizzard LOL

I usually use table salt as an ingrediant in most things and "finish" with course sea salt. I like the courser texture and "crunch" you get with the bigger pieces of sea salt. I do have Kosher as well and sometimes I do use that in place of table salt. I tend to use the sea/kosher salts in foods that are more delicate in taste - a pot of spaghetti sauce gets regular table salt for instance.

I ordered some French fleurs de sel from Penzey's but haven't used it yet. It's greyish in color and slightly moist. It's supposed to be used exclusively as a finishing salt to preserve its taste.

I would use Kosher and sea salt exclusively if it weren't for the iodine issue. We get so much salt in processed foods anyway tho, I wonder if it's anything I really need to worry about?

Lisa

Lisa, you live in Ma, definitly not a "goiter zone" you get enough iodine from the soil vegetables grow in and the ocean fish you eat.
Eat Kosher salt....and remember, some sea salts do have a bit of iodine.

I use kosher salt or grey sea salt in everything I cook. Himilayan pink salt at the table cuz the pink salt looks cool - found it cheap at TJMaxx.

I use table salt only for baking. I bought some fine ground white sea salt that I'm going to try using in my baking.

For me it's a health issue, I don't need or want any more iodine in my diet. I find also, that I use far less of the course salts than I do table salt. It tastes better too.

augie

Thanks Linda! I didn't think I needed to worry, I figured I was getting plenty of iodine, but I wasn't sure.

Augie - Ain't that the truth? I never would have thought there was a difference in taste, but the course sea salt does, indeed, taste better. It's almost like it has more in it than just salt and I guess it does with all the trace minerals. Am I'm not one that uses a ton of salt. But when I want salt, I like course sea salt the best.

Lisa

I use table salt because I DON'T like the big crystals, I get that big hit of salt flavor and just think "yuck". And I like salt, but not that much at once.

My salt grinder doesn't even grind the sea salt or kosher finely enough to suit me. Carol (readinglady) sent me some fleur de sel that is ground so finely it's nearly powder. Now that I like.

I use kosher when canning because the additives in table salt can result in a residue in the bottom of the jar of pickles or whatever. I also buy canning salt, when I can find it.

Annie

I've also been using popcorn salt which is very fine and lightly butter flavored, it stays on the popcorn for those still salting their popcorn. I hadn't known about fleur de sel, will keep that in mind.

Thanks to everyone that posted. I assumed that they were all interchangeable (as someone stated.... they are all SALT). But... I know that some cooks use different ones for certain applications.

I love to hear everybody's opinions on what works best for them....

I've learned so much from this BB over the year......