What to use instead of finishing salt
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Crunch and salt bursts on the surface of a finished dish
Large hollow flakes sit on top and dissolve slowly, so you get a crackle and a spike of salt rather than an even background of it.
Fleur de selRan out
1:1 by volume
Denser and slightly damp, so it does not crackle the same way. It dissolves slower still and tastes faintly mineral.
Coarse sea saltRan out
3/4 the volume
Hard grains that crunch rather than shatter, and they are denser so the same spoonful is saltier. They can stay gritty on something dry.
Furikake or za atarRan out
1 tsp per generous pinch of flakes
Brings its own flavour, seaweed and sesame or thyme and sumac, plus salt and texture. On avocado toast it takes over the dish.
DukkahRan out
1 tbsp per generous pinch of flakes
Nut and seed crunch that lasts longer on the plate than salt flakes do. Under-salted on its own, so add a pinch of fine salt as well.
What doesn't work: Fine table salt sprinkled over a tomato or a piece of focaccia. It dissolves on contact so there is nothing to bite, the same spoonful is roughly twice as salty by volume, and iodised salt reads faintly metallic on something as plain as a sliced tomato.
Salt dissolved into a dough, a brine or a pot of water
Here the crystal shape is irrelevant because it all dissolves, and only the weight of sodium chloride matters.
Fine sea saltRan out
Weigh it, 1:1 by weight
Nothing changes if you weigh it. Dissolves faster into a cold brine, which is useful.
Kosher saltRan out
Match by weight. If you must scoop, Diamond Crystal is about 2 tsp per 1 tsp table salt and Morton about 1 1/4 tsp
No difference in the finished bread. The two brands are not interchangeable by volume, which is where most over-salting comes from.
Table salt, non-iodisedRan out
Match by weight
Identical in a dough. Iodised salt can leave a faint bitter note in a long-fermented bread.
What doesn't work: Flaky salt measured spoon-for-spoon in place of the fine salt in a bread or couscous recipe. A teaspoon of flakes weighs roughly half what a teaspoon of fine salt does, so the focaccia comes out visibly under-seasoned and you have spent four times as much doing it.
Add it after the last time the dish will be moved. Flakes that get stirred or tossed dissolve and you have paid for ordinary salt.