What to use instead of flaky 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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Finishing salt sprinkled on at the end
The flakes are hollow pyramids that sit on the surface and dissolve in bursts, so you taste salt as a pop against the food rather than as background seasoning.
Fleur de selRan out
1:1 by volume
Damper and denser, so it clings better to wet food and the crunch is shorter-lived.
Coarse sea saltRan out
Half the volume
Hard crystals that crunch longer and taste sharper. It is heavier by volume, which is why it halves.
Kosher saltRan out
1:1 by volume for Diamond Crystal, 2/3 for Morton
Seasons correctly and dissolves on contact, so it does the salt job and none of the texture job.
Furikake or a seasoned finishing saltRan out
1:1
Brings its own flavour and colour. Right on rice and eggs, wrong on a caramel or a chocolate cookie.
What doesn't work: Table salt from the shaker. The grains are tiny and dense, so the same spoonful carries two to three times the sodium, it vanishes on contact, and the iodine reads metallic on something plain like shortbread.
Seasoning that dissolves into the food while it cooks
At this stage the crystal shape is irrelevant because everything dissolves. All that matters is how much sodium your spoon actually holds.
Kosher saltRan out
1:1 by volume for Diamond Crystal, 2/3 for Morton
Nothing you will taste. Weigh it instead of measuring if the recipe is a dough or a brine.
Fine sea saltRan out
Half the volume
No difference in the finished dish, and it dissolves faster in a cold brine.
Soy sauce or fish sauce, in a savoury braiseRan out
1 tbsp per 1/2 tsp salt, and cut other liquid by 1 tbsp
Adds colour and glutamate along with the salt, so the dish comes out browner and more savoury.
Potassium chloride salt substituteLow-sodium
1:1 by weight, in cold or gently cooked food
Salty at the front with a metallic bitter finish that gets stronger the longer it is heated, so keep it out of long braises and roasts.
What doesn't work: Measuring flaky salt by the teaspoon into a bread dough. Flakes are mostly air, so a teaspoon of Maldon is around half the sodium of a teaspoon of fine salt, and the loaf comes out bland and over-proofed because salt is what slows the yeast.
Salt brands differ by up to double per spoonful. If a recipe has to work, weigh the salt.