Have you ever wondered where high-end, restaurant-style dishes get that nice rich, rustic flavor from? The answer is often simple unique ingredient called smoked sea salt. What makes smoked salt different from regular salt is that it offers more than just an intense level of saltiness. Unlike regular table salt that only brings an intense saltiness, smoked sea salt delivers that delicious, earthy, wood-grilled aroma that kicks simple recipes up a notch. Smoked sea salt can go on roasted vegetables, or as a final touch to many desserts, essentially bringing the taste of cooking over an open fire to your kitchen.

This article will dive deeper into what smoked sea is, how it is prepared, what is distinct about it, and why so many chefs and food enthusiasts are now choosing smoked sea salt over regular salt.

Understanding Smoked Sea Salt

Smoked sea salt is a naturally made sea salt that has undergone an extended smoking process with a wood fire, typically lasting between 24 to 72 hours. The long-term saturation smoking provides for the salt crystals to absorb the smoke from the piecing wood and adds flavour nuances to a refined ingredient and condiment that can elevate almost any meal or ingredient.

In general, the flavour profile of smoked sea salt is defined by the wood that has been used to smoke the salt. For example, applewood adds a very mild flavour with slightly sweet notes, while hickory offers a strong robust smoky flavour profile. Smoked sea salt uses this traditional curing process with a completely natural manufacturing method to create an authentic flavour profile for a refined ingredient.

Production Process: Smoked Sea Salt

  • Harvesting: Sea salt is harvested from either the evaporation of sea water, and the sea salt retains all minerals in their natural state.

     

  • Cold Smoking: Smoked sea salt is allowed to absorb cold smoke of the burning wood, allowing the flavour of the smoke to infuse each salt crystal naturally. 

     

  • Cooling and Packaging: The salt cools and dries before being packaged to retain the aroma and freshness. 

This artisanal production supplies chefs and cooks a method of creation to add flavour depth and quality of product which illuminates the definition of an ingredient.

The Unique Properties of Smoked Sea Salt

Smoked sea salt is more than just a seasoning - it's a flavour enhancer that turns virtually every kind of everyday food into artisanal food experiences. Smoked sea salt has a uniquely exercise aroma and flavour that comes from natural wood that has been smoked and is becoming the go to seasoning for cooks. Here is why you should at least get some smoked sea salt in your kitchen.

  •  A Natural Smoky Flavour

    One of the best things about smoked sea salt, is you can capture that very strong, authentic, smokiness of flavour, without a grill or smoker. When the crystals of smoked sea salt are slow cold smoked, they are treated with real wood smoke. Smoked sea salt will add flavour to anything from meats and vegetables to soups, it will taste as though your food was cooked over an open flame. If you love Smokey flavour, smoked sea salt is an easy way to add more Smokey flavour, indoors and without the mess. Even a tiny bit of smoked sea salt, it will add a super Smokey flavour to broth, meat, or veggies and it's more than delicious.

     

  • Contains Essential Trace Minerals

    Unlike table salt, smoked sea salt has retained some vital trace minerals including magnesium, calcium, and potassium. These serve to enhance the salt's own, natural seasoning, and there is possible slight nutritional benefit. The salt is derived from evaporated seawater and is minimally processed so you have an almost complete, pure and natural product. So, not only are you sprinkling on flavour, but some healthful helpers to make your food become more natural and whole.

     

  • Less sodium, more flavour

    Smoked sea salt is definitely salt, but what you will find is that many times you are using less than you would with table salt. The flavour is more concentrated, aromatic, and has flavourful depth and satisfaction to it. A sprinkle is often all it takes to deliver the dish’s full character, which allows you to use less overall in the dish, while you still enjoy it – health-conscious individuals and their salt. It is good, flavour-full, healthy, and satisfying – in every morsel.

     

  • Applications Beyond Sweet and Savoury Dishes

    Smoked sea salt is a rare ingredient that will work well with basically everything. It lifts the flavour of grilled meats and roasted vegetables, and it adds depth to soups and stews. It can also serve as a surprise ingredient in desserts and sweet recipes such as chocolate truffles, caramel sauce, and even brownies. The combination of salty and smoky create a fascinating foreground/background flavour that helps produce complexity, sophistication, and depth in sweet dishes. With smoked sea salt, feel free to experiment in your home kitchen, even in healthy, easy recipes, to achieve a fine dining culinary experience.

     

  • Completely Natural, Additive Free

    A second strong point for smoked sea salt is that it is pure salt. True smoked salts only contain two ingredients — natural sea salt; and actual wood smoke, and do not contain anything artificial and nothing chemical. Unlike flavoured salts that use essences or other additives such as with bacon flavoured salts or other infused salts, this smoke salt flavour and character comes from the traditional cold smoking process. The end resultant seasoning is clean, rustic, and authentic, and you get natural, pure flavours from the sea and smoky characteristics from the smokehouse.

Smoked Sea Salt and Regular Salt – What’s the Difference?

At first glance, smoked sea salt and regular table salt appear the same, but the differences are far deeper than that. Regular salt is usually mined from underground deposits and chemically refined to remove impurities, also stripping out the natural minerals in the process. Chemical additives, such as anti-caking, are added and sodium chloride is simply cleaned out — flat and basic in flavour.

Smoked sea salt, however, is naturally harvested from seawater and then calmly smoked (cooked) with the actual wood. The result is a natural, rich aroma in addition to superior flavour — something you will never get with regular salt. Smoked sea salt is much more potent than regular salt, allowing you to use less and lower sodium without sacrificing flavour. Furthermore, smoked sea salt retains its natural trace minerals (such as magnesium and calcium), which lends a wholesome, earthy character it’s lacking in regular salt.

Simply put: regular salt makes food salty, smoked sea salt makes food flavourful; it is the difference between a basic meal and a memorable one.

How to Use Smoked Sea Salt in Your Everyday Cooking

Yes, you read that right - smoked sea salt can replace most of the applications for your average salt - but you will gain a depth of flavour and freshness! Smoke cured sea salt Smoked taste and aroma a little goes a long way Sea salt smoked with natural wood smoke, adding richness depth to savoury dishes imparting A real depth to sweet dishes. backgroundColorDepth.yellow; For chocolate put this in as your last 10% of sugar content. Here are the top places for including smoked sea salt in your everyday cooking:

  • Grilling and roasting
    Lightly brush/spray/habitat that shit on your proteins and veggies, ahead of roasting or grilling as you prepare everything else- the meat/fish/veg before it goes in the oven/grill is perfect! As the flavoured cooks, the salt combines with a natural 'BBQ' style smoke to naturally richen and deepen without needing a smoker or grill. It’s very easy to ‘flavour’ an outside of a dish being cooked indoors by using regular salt-coatings on meats or veggies!
  • Soups and stews
    If you throw a pinch of smoke sea salt into soups or stews at the very end of making them, it will literally CAVORT IN THEREWITH! The smokiness, the saltiness of it makes a great warm flavour to go with hearty ingredients like beans and lentils or slow-cooked veggies; that hot ‘campfire feeling’ taste input.
  • Salads and Seasoning
    Your salads will never look the same again after adding seasoning blends. Use it as a quick chopped salad, too, and if you try our creamy avocado toast, extra points for using a seasoning blend. No longer can you just sprinkle a little flavour dust onto your scrambled eggs and seasoned smoked sea salt onto all your morning meals. The seasoned dust has a different mild sweetness and smokiness that transforms the humble into glory with flavourful seasoning, and even the most mediocre cooking ingredients, food, etc., simply enhance just enough flavour to elevate.
  • Dessert and Sweet
    Of course, smoked sea salt goes well with chocolate, caramel, and all good baked sweet things. A light sprinkle across brownie, cookie, or ice cream makes life an exciting, sweet and savoury experience.
  • At Forman's, using dried seasoning mixes
    You could even use all the same seasoning for either making your own mix or pepper of some sort - heck, you could just use more garlic, ha-ha! Simply sprinkle seasoning dust across regular old roast potatoes, grilled mementos an extra layer of flavour to your everyday normal foods.

Where to Buy Smoked Sea Salt

When buying smoked sea salt, look for a label that processes their smoke (wood) based sea salt using a real cold smoked methodology - nothing with artificial smoked flavouring. If you are specifically interested in only pure naturally-smoked smoked sea salt, head over to the Agri Club where they offer very high-quality smoked sea salt using 100% naturally sourced ingredients using a true wood-smoked methodology.

Conclusion

Smoked sea salt is more than just an ingredient - it’s an experience. The moment you pop the jar open is the very heart of your experience capturing that deeply pronounced wood-fired aroma that is announcing something very special. It adds depth to every recipe whether sweet or savoury while being a healthy naturally sourced alternative to highly processed table salt.

If you're excited to infuse that gourmet element into your home-cooked meal, smoked sea salt is an excellent addition to anyone's pantry.  Once you try it, you won't be able to look at standard salt in the same capacity!