Smoked Salt
On October 11, 2019 (Updated May 11, 2024)
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This Smoked Salt is an awesome way to infuse a variety foods with smoky flavor. Simply prep your smoker for cold smoking and smoke away! This recipe is extremely versatile and allows you to play around with different smoke flavors and intensity. You’ve gotta try it!
What is Smoked Salt?
Smoked salt is exactly what the name says it is. You take salt, put it in the smoker, and infuse the salt with amazing smoky flavor. Smoked salt can be used in a variety of recipes to add some smoke flavor to meats, sides, and more.
Smoking salt requires the use of cold smoking. To prepare your smoker or grill for cold smoking, you’ll need the assistance of a smoke tube or something similar to allow you to smoke at temperatures under 80 degrees F. For more information on cold smoking, check out my post on How to Smoke on a Gas Grill.
Best Type of Salt to Smoke
There are a few different types of salt I recommend smoking. No matter what salt you choose, make sure to select a salt that has more surface area or is a larger granule. The smoke adheres to the surface of the salt, so skip over the table salt for this one. You have to use salt with enough particles to help the smoke cling to them.
Some good salt options to smoke include coarse sea salt and Morton kosher salt (it’s a flake salt). I prefer to use a flake salt when smoking because I can see the salt well. This makes it easy for me to see how much I’m using. Flake salt also takes on smoke flavor rather well.
I’ve had some folks ask me if you can smoke Himalayan sea salt. While you can technically smoke Himalayan sea salt, it’s not my preferred option because the smoke can overwhelm the already naturally unique flavor of the salt.
Best Wood for Smoked Salt
Here’s the fun thing about smoking salt – you can use whatever wood you like! Each wood will give your salt a different flavor, so you can really play around with wood to see what different flavors you can get in your salt.
If this is your first time smoking salt, I recommend trying apple wood as apple produces a nice, mild smoke flavor. Hickory is bolder and is an equally popular flavor for smoked salt. Honestly, try whatever wood you like (or have on hand)! Cherry, mesquite, oak, they’re all great options. The sky’s the limit on this one, friends. It’s all about finding your own favorite flavor.
How to Smoke Salt
Smoking salt is quite easy. It’s also a project that you won’t likely be able to mess up.
- Prep for cold smoking. I like to use a pellet tube smoker to cold smoke as it creates a lot of smoke while keeping the temperature of my grill under 80 degrees F.
- Spread the salt. You can place your salt in either a rimmed baking pan, or you can make your own. I find it easy to make my own (and then I can toss the container when I’m done!). Grab some heavy duty aluminum foil, fold up the edges and crimp them to make a nice makeshift pan for your salt. Spread it evenly in your pan.
- Smoke! This is where the fun comes in. You can choose your own adventure and smoke the salt for however long you want. I do recommend leaving the salt in the smoke for at least 4 hours, stirring the salt every hour or so Feel free to taste as you go and leave the salt in the smoke for up to 24 hours! After 4 hours the salt will just be beginning to yellow, and it’ll have a subtle flavor. Give it 6 hours and the salt will begin to brown and the salt will have a much deeper flavor. After 12 hours, you’ll see a significant color change and your smoke will have quite the intense flavor. With 24 hours in the smoke, the salt will blow your palate away with all the smoky goodness.
- Remove and Use. Once your salt has reached your desired flavor, remove it and store in an airtight glass container (I like to use these spice bottles and give them out as gifts!).
Salt Smoke Time
Depending on how smoky you like your salt, it takes at least 4 hours to smoke salt. If you’re going for the most out-of-this world smoke flavor, then go ahead and smoke for 12-24 hours.
Smoked salt is great way to play around with smoke flavor and intensity. Plus, you can taste the salt as you go, so you can remove it from the smoker when it reaches your preferred flavor. This salt is pretty foolproof.
Smoked Salt Uses
Smoked salt has an endless supply of uses!
You can put some on a steak before grilling for an extra smoky kick. You can sprinkle it on desserts for a kiss of smoke that’s not overwhelming (think smoked chocolate chip cookie!) It’s a great way to bring smoky BBQ flavor to anything if you are cooking in the oven or stove top. Sprinkle on vegetables before oven roasting to give them a smoky flavor without having to fire up the smoker.
Try this smoked salt on some of these recipes:
Homemade Steak Seasoning
Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak
Baked Potato on the Grill
Smoked Salt Recipe
Follow the recipe below and let’s make something delicious! I’m all about helping you make better BBQ, feed the people you love, and become a BBQ hero. If you want to see more of my recipes, tips, and behind the scenes action, follow along on my social channels. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!
Smoked Salt
Ingredients
- 2 cups coarse Kosher or sea salt
Instructions
- Prepare your smoker for cold smoking. Your target temperature should be under 80 degrees F.
- Spread your salt out on a rimmed baking pan, or you can make your own pan by folding up the edges of aluminum foil.
- Place the salt in the pan on the smoker, close the lid, and smoke for at least 4 hours. I recommend stirring every hour to agitate the salt and better allow all salt to be evenly exposed to the smoke.
- Remove the salt from the smoker when it has reached your desired color and flavor. After 4 hours the salt will begin to yellow with a nice subtle smoke flavor, after 6 hours the salt will begin to brown, and after 12 hours you'll see significant color change and a more intense smoky flavor.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I don’t have a cold smoker either but I do have a pellet smoker. It only goes down to 100 degrees so it may not be cold enough. If I use the ice, can I put it on the same level as the salt, (it’s indirect heat)?
I’ve never seen a pellet grill that goes this low. You could try to mitigate it with ice but you’ll have to fight the temperature. I’d recommend picking up a pellet tube and using ice over using your pellet grill.
Get a smoke tube….put your pellets in and light them up . When the flame is going good you just blow it out and let the rest of the pellets in the tube smoulder and create your “cold” smoke. You just lay the tube over inside your smoker ( I lay mine on the opposite side from the chimney so it filters all across the cheese or whatever you’re smoking).
Hot smoking worked really well. I used hickory.
Have you tried smoking different kinds of salts vs kosher or Himalayan? Hawaiian red sea salt or Hawaiian black sea salt?
hey, what about flavored smoked salt? herbs or wine?when do i add them to the salt? thanks 🙂
I’ve been making smoked salt for years and I found that setting the smoker at around 250 degrees with a pan of water over the heat source cuts the smoking time to less than two hours because the salt absorbs the moist smoke bearing air and after being left to cool dries out perfectly You can also make it much stronger this way for those that don’t want that much salt but more smoke flavor. Just use much less in your recipe.
We tried this and used pickling salt and use to make our homemade butter pickles for burgers and pickled eggs. Time is reduced a little so it’s not over bearing because of the larger surface area, but was out of this world.