I think there's 1/4 teaspoon of salt in 1/2 cup butter. How much butter and salt are called for in your recipe?

I was just checking the same thing. A stick of salted butter usually would have ~2/3 gram of salt. A teaspoon of salt (depending on grind) is 4 to 5 grams of salt. That would be four to 10 times more salt than a stick of butter. I just checked some cookie recipes and found one with no added salt, but most had a half to a teaspoon per 2.5 to 3 cups flour. Therefore, most recipes have way more salt than any butter would add.

My recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Although, honestly, sometimes I feel like I can taste the salt in my cookies and I don't like it.

I use salted butter in my chocolate chip cookies. In fact, I use salted butter every single time. I normally don't use salt though, even though it brings out the flavor In the ingredients.

I'm with mottogear :-) I cook and bake only with salted butter, as I find unsalted to be extremely bland and overly greasy. And I add salt as the recipe directs or to taste. It has never resulted in a finished product that tastes overly salty. There is not enough salt in salted butter to make any sort of significant difference. To me, baking soda adds a much more salty taste to baking and I tend to reduce that leaving agent in favor of baking powder (although they are not exactly interchangeable).

btw, I never measure the amount of salt I add either - usually just a pinch or a tiny mound poured in the center of my palm :-)) Salt is pretty essential in cooking and baking as it does bring out and enhance the flavors of various foods. Just avoid any seasoning after cooking if you are worried about salt intake!!

Yes. One more thing, use the salt directed in baking, like if it says kosher salt, use kosher, because fine salt is way, well, finer, so your cookies, cakes etc... Will be saltier if you use fine salt and the recipe says kosher. You don't have to do this, but my baking projects turn out better.

I'd use the salted butter and omit the added salt in the recipe. But I would also sprinkle some Maldon on top of each cookie...it adds a great salty hit and crunch!

So I used the salted butter and added no additional salt and the cookies were great. I may do this from now on because my teen complains my cookies are too salty (probably not great at incorporating the salt in well).

I'd omit the added (usually 1/8-1/4 tsp.) salt if I was making the cookies to serve others. For me, I'd only pull back on the added salt just a little, if at all.

I love salt and chocolate, and will use Kosher salt so that I get distinct bites of salt.

I use salted butter for all my baking too - I prefer the flavor & it really does not make any discernable difference to texture, IME. Is unsalted butter supposed to have less moisture than salted? I seem to recall that is another reason for its preference.

I use unsalted for cooking and baking, salted on the table. If I don't have unsalted, I use what I have and my family must not have very discriminating tastes because no one at all ever mentions the salt (taste or texture) when I've used either type interchangeably ;0)

Salt is one of those things, like vanilla, that I don't measure.

Salt is one of those things, like vanilla, that I don't measure.

Right on!

I also use salted butter for baking, I never use unsalted for anything. I usually leave out additional salt and let the salted butter make up for it.

It's funny, I love salt. Potato chips, crackers, I used to pour salt into a dish and dunk each bite of celery in it. But I don't like it with things like cookies or candy, I just sigh when I see that they've covered my caramel with sea salt or salted the top of my cookies. Of course, it often keeps me from buying and eating something I shouldn't have anyway, so it's probably a good thing!

Annie

I'm sensitive to salt and just don't eat much of it. I once ate a cookie a friend made and almost spit it out it was soooooo salty. She's a salt-a-holic, and l think probably used salted butter along with the called for salt in the recipe. I didn't actually spit it out, but I politely declined any more cookies. So, I always and only use unsalted butter in my cookies and other baking. I only buy unsalted butter.

Sally

I am with you Annie -- I don't see the appeal of the salted caramel craze....

Don't get into the salt/caramel thing either. Do pour a pile of salt on the plate and dip the radishes in it tho, used to occasionally sprinkle a little salt on top of a celery stick. The recipes I got from my mother were from way back when there was no unsalted butter available so the recipe said "butter" it was no choice but salted butter and usually there was something like a quarter tsp of salt so no big deal. The extra grain or two of salt in a cookie would not be discernible, especially in peanut butter cookies! I didn't start using unsalted butter until probably 15 or 20 years ago. It was not common at the time either. The only time I noticed an issue was when I made some mud bars and I had goofed the first time I made them so the icing turned out to be thick, rich fudge. So good, I kept doing it that way and everyone loved it. But I made some and it was SO salty even I had trouble eating it (and this comes from a person who at the time still put salt on ham!). Amount of salt was tiny so my guess was it had to be the butter, hence the switch to unsalted and usually buy it ever since unless I'm buying soft butter. Don't see an unsalted version of the soft stuff.

Can't remember the last time I bought UNsalted butter intentionally?? IF I think about it, I'll just not add the small amount of salt the recipe calls for... usually like 1/2 t... is it even important? Now days, seems like everything is some kinds "salted" caramel this/that anyway?. A little OT, but have found if butter for CCCs is VERY soft, like borderline melted, I get a flat but chewy/bendy cookie... my preference.