Sometimes you just want to have a taste of smoke without firing up the cooker. That's where smoked salt comes in. It's a great seasoning to have in your spice cabinet and it's easy to make yourself. All you need is a smoker and some patience.
Step One - Choose Your Salt
A little salt education:
The biggest factor in the different types of salt boils down to the shape of the salt crystal. Typical table salt is spherical so when we sprinkle it on top of our cooked food, it "sits" on top allowing you to taste that salty flavor. When you are cooking with salt, it's preferable to choose a salt crystal that is NOT spherical as the more trapezoidal shape allows for better absorption into your food. Because I plan on using my smoked salt while cooking, I choose Kosher or Sea Salt. Kosher is a chunkier, larger crystal than Sea Salt. It really just comes down to preference.
Step Two - Cold Smoke Prep
Salt can be smoked under heat, but it will give an amber color to your salt. In addition, over smoking salt with heat can give it an acrid burnt taste. For these reasons, I prefer to cold smoke salt. If you have a cold smoke box, that's great. I used the 12" A-MAZE-N pellet tube to create smoke in my grill.
Load up the tube with pellets (I used a competition blend pellet of cherry/hickory/oak) and stand it upright in the middle of the grill so the lid can close without knocking it over.
In order to get the pellets lit, I placed a small piece of fire starter in the top of the tube to get the pellets started. This tube will create smoke for about 4-5 hours.
While the starter is burning down and getting the pellets lit, grab a couple of disposable pans and prep your salt.
Step 3 - Smoking the Salt
Pour a very thin layer of salt in each of the pans. When the pellets are lit and creating a nice wispy smoke without flame, place the pans in the grill and close the lid. Most grills will not have a tight seal and will allow some of the smoke to escape. This is good, you need the air flow to move that smoke around.
Smoke the salt for about 5 hours stirring every hour. Salt is very dense and it needs to smoke for a long time.Moving the salt around will make sure the smoke flavor is distributed evenly.
NOTE: Keep an eye on the pellet tube. Depending on how hot your pellets are burning you may need to refill the tube. If you do need to refill, pull the trays of salt out of the grill first!! Otherwise you will end up dumping ash from the tube into your pans of salt!
Step 4 - Bottle It Up
So. Many. Cute. Containers!!!!
I found these cute 2 oz jars on Amazon then put a label on them and filled up 10 bottles with the two trays! How cute is this??
What are some of my favorite things to put smoked salt on??
Chicken Salad
Pizza
The Rim of a Bloody Mary Glass
Corn on the Cob
Sliced Tomatoes
Scrambled Eggs
Grilled Fish
The Possibilities Are Endless!
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