Recently I took a ski trip to Colorado and packed a bunch of finishing salts with me in my bag so we had fun stuff to cook with while there. One night, over a dinner of spaghetti, I sprinkled my meal with French Grey sea salt and went on to tell our group why finishing salts are a great way to take a great meal to an extraordinary meal. That’s when I realized I was very passionate about salts! Why are finishing salts so awesome? Because when you finish with a sprinkle of a flavored or artisanal salt, you can actually taste how it complements the dish, versus when adding salt while cooking where it will just blend in with the whole flavor profile.
I first learned about Finishing Salts in Adam Perry Lang’s book “Charred and Scruffed” (which is a GREAT book by the way) where he finishes his grilled dishes, that are created with many layers upon layers of flavor, with a finishing salt. His recipes call for roasting the salt for 12 hours in a dehydrator and I don’t have that much time or a dehydrator. My recipe below achieves the same effect (and you can get creative with your herbs and aromatics) in very minimal time and steps (like 10 minutes)!. I think finishing salts are a great ingredients for dry rubs as well since they layer in the flavor. I’ve given a recipe below for citrus finishing salt and rosemary lemon finishing salt but these are just one of the many flavor combinations you can create!!
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Citrus Finishing Salt (How to Make Your Own Finishing Salts)
Ingredients
- 1 cup course sea salt
- the rinds of 5 large lemons (use a vegetable peeler)
Instructions
Bake the rinds in the over at 250 degrees for 10 minutes to help eliminate moisture.
Next, combine the salt and rinds in a food processor until uniformly mixed. I put mine in a cute, airtight glass container for a nice, tableside presentation.
Also, I took this recipe and halved it. Then added 3 sprigs of rosemary and combined in the food processor to make Rosemary lemon finishing salt. This is delish on Chicken! If you like this flavor combination, check out my Rosemary Lemon Spatchcocked Chicken recipe. This seasoning paste is great on all kinds of chicken.
Do you have a finishing salt combo you love? I'm all ears!
Finishing salts, such as the citrus finishing salt show above, are a great way to add extra ZING to any dish!
Sounds good! And great piece of advice… I have never used finishing salts before but now I want to give it a try!