Do you recommend using the Himalayan pink salt in canning? Or should I stay with the pickling and canning salt?
There are many salts to choose on the market today, but we still recommend sticking with plain pickling salt—sometimes labeled canning salt—for your preservation projects. The strength, purity and quality of this salt is uniform and leads to consistent results without undesired changes to color or cloudiness.
Himalayan pink salt is not recommended for canning and pickling because it has trace minerals in it that could affect the quality of the canned products, especially pickled products. Products made with this salt are not unsafe, but may not be top quality.
Other varieties of salts are not recommended for similar reasons: iodized salts can create discoloration in vegetables, whereas flake salts and kosher salts result in different levels of salinity or saltiness in the final product than tested in preservation recipes.
One type of salt that should not be used in canning is curing salt.
One type of salt that should not be used in canning is curing salt, which is sometimes dyed pink and labeled as "pink salt." This product is chemically distinct from table salt, or sodium chloride, and its primary use is to cure meats. When consumed in larger quantities, the nitrates and nitrites found in curing salt are toxic. Unlike Himalayan pink, which is pink due to harmless trace minerals, pink curing salts must be avoided in canning projects for safety reasons.
Related content
