For the Love of Salt…..

I’m super into flavored, textured and super yummy salts.  But they are so expensive.  Micheal Chiarello makes my favorite salts, they are a bit pricey but well wroth it if you are not into putting in the time to make your own.  You can find his beautiful salts at www.napastyle.com.  However for those of you foodie adventurous types, I’m going to tell you how to DIY flavored salts.

There are so many uses for these salts but mostly they are for finishing not for cooking with.  So use them to add extra flavor to grilled meats, salads, fruit and whatever else you can think of.  Just cook your recipe with less salt than you would normally use then add the delicious flavored salt to finish.  This is also a fun gift idea and will wow your friends and family.  I often make small gift packs for Christmas gifts.

I have given you two different recipes to use as guidelines.  Basically if you are making a salt with just dried spices you do not need to bake the salt.  However if you are make a salt with any other ingredients then you need to follow the recipe for baking the salt.  This is almost like dehydrating the salt which will preserve the mixture.  Use your better judgment here you cannot add fresh tomatoes to this recipe because obviously that would have way to much water from the tomatoes.  However you could add sun dried tomatoes.  More questions just email me.

Here are a few other ideas on the baked salts:

Jalapeno/lemon

Dried Apricot/Rosemary

Lemon/Pepper

Roasted Garlic

etc….be creative, just remember the baking rule

Chili Salt

Ingredients:

2-3 tablespoons dried chili flakes (more or less to taste)

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional for even more heat)

1/4 cup Kosher Salt 

Directions:

1.  Grind chilis in food processor or even better a clean coffee grinder
2. When they are well processed about 1 minute of finding
3. Add salt and grind another 30 seconds
4. Reserve in a glass spice jar, mason jar or any glass container you have

Kalamata Olive Salt (Baked Salt)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives (can be substituted with any olive)

2 tablespoon rosemary or thyme

1/4 Kosher salt 

Directions:

1. Add olives and herbs to processor and grind for 1 minute
2. Add salt and process again for 30 seconds
3. Add to preheated 200 degree oven and bake for 2 hours or until mixture is dried and crumbly (the time will depend on what ingredient you are incorporating into the salt, as you can make many variations)
4. Reserve in a glass spice jar, mason jar or any glass container you have

YUMMY……..