Using different types of salt: Weight vs. Volume

When cooking or baking, one of the most common mistakes when substituting one type of salt for another, say ordinary table salt with Kosher or sea salt, is that recipes usually follow a measure of volume not weight. Tablespoons, teaspoons and cups are units of volume, not weight. Since the composition of different types of salt is not the same, the same volume of salt will have different weight, thus different “salting” capabilities.

For example, Kosher salt weighs less than regular table salt per unit of volume. So, for every teaspoon of ordinary salt you will need more than a teaspoon of kosher salt. Different salts have different weights per unit of volume, so if you are going to use different salts in your kitchen, you really need to understand the equivalencies. There are salt conversion charts on the internet or if you want to be more precise, you can calculate your own equivalencies by weighing equal volume amounts of the different salts and comparing their weights. If you want a rough ratio for Kosher salt (the one I use the most), I usually use about 1.5 volume units of Kosher for every unit of regular salt.