Salt is the spice of life. If its one spice that should be in your pantry, its salt. They enhance the flavor of anything you eat, even chocolate. One of the best way to improve your cooking is by salting your food. You should salt it before, during and after cooking. Doing this earlier and constantly ensures that your food is seasoned all the way through. The Best Salt Shaker for Cooking should have many perforation and help evenly distribute the salt.

Why Salting food is Important

Salt is a natural enhancer of food. However, in order to get the best benefit of salt, you should salt it early. There are some argument on whether you should salt before or after cooking. However, my experience and numerous taste test has shown that presalting food is the way to go.

During the initial stage of salting food, moisture is drawn out. This causes bead of liquid to form. However, after that, liquid starts getting drawn back in via osmosis. The liquid that is drawn back in is a salt solution. That salt solution will penetrate deep within the food. If you salt the food at the end of cooking, only the surface will be salted. This makes food taste salty with the center bland. Something you should avoid.

Why get a Salt Shaker for Cooking

There are many ways of salting food. The most traditional and commonly used technique for salting food is with your hand. Chef grab a pinch of salt and raise 2 – 3 feet over the food and sprinkle it. There are a few downfall to this technique.

The biggest issue that I experience when doing this is salt clumping. When you cook, its rare to have a completely dried hand. As a result, salt will start clumping in your hand. Its rare for you to get a even distribution of salt.

Another problem with this technique is evenness. When you raise your hand high, salt flies everywhere and you have little control. Not only do you waste salt, you also make a mess on your stove.

With a good salt shaker, you control how the salt fall and you dont have to raise it high to get a good distribution.

How to Use a Salt Shaker

Using a salt shaker will change depending on the fill level. If its completley filled, salt falls a lot quicker. In this case, you need a softer shake for a even distribution. Once it starts to get used, you can shake it a bit more rigorously.

For the distance, when you are experience, putting it a bit closer to the food will get you the best results. However, once you get a feel for it, you can raise it higher for quicker results.

What to Look For?

There are a few things to look for in a Salt Shaker for Cooking. The main thing is the perforation. It needs to have holes that are big enough to allow table salt to fall out. It should also have enough holes for quick salting. Models with just S as perforation are slow and ineffective.

Salt Shaker that uses a stainless steel body is the easiest to clean. It resist rust so it wont corrode overtime. I find that plastic models get dingy and looks off. Although they are more durable and wont dent.

What about Pepper

Pepper Shakers are generally useless and should be avoided. You should always grind pepper fresh. They offer the best flavor and you can easily change the grind setting. Pre Ground pepper lose flavor and potency. If you want something to distribute salt, then buy a pepper grinder. Interesting enough, the opposite is true for salt. You dont need a salt grinder since it does not loose flavor. What it can do is change the texture. But in the context of salting food, a regular salt shaker will do.

Best Salt Shaker for Cooking List

Below, you will find a list of the Best Salt Shaker for Cooking. Since I only found one that is effective, the list will be short. However, these are also the Salt Shaker that you see a lot of Chef Use.

TableCraft 10-Ounce Stainless Steel Dredge, Chrome (Best Overall)

Table Craft makes a lot of Kitchen tools for the home kitchen. A lot of time, there is almost no difference except for branding. So you can expect durability that is designed for the professional kitchen. This model has a lot of holes for quick and even distribution of salt. The stainless steel body also resist rust. While you can get models without a handle, I find that it actually helps when in use.

Cambro (96SKRD135) 10 oz Shaker w/Removable Salt & Pepper Lid (Best Plastic Model)

Cambro is one of the most used container manufacturer in the professional kitchen. Their salt and pepper shaker is durable and made of tough plastic. They wont work or rust like metal models. The holes is plenty and gives it easy distribution of salt like the Table Craft Model.

Thoughts

A Salt Shaker for Cooking can transform the result of your cooking. While you can use your hand, dedicated shalt shaker are better. You get better distribution and its cleaner. The overall best is the metal model by Table Craft. You can often see it use in restaurant and diners. However, if you want a plastic and more durable model, go for cambro. They are a trusted brand and you cant go wrong with it.

Looking for salt? Check out our article on the Best Salt for Cooking.