Cooking with Himalayan Salt Plates, Blocks & Bricks
Pakistani Pink Himalayan salt blocks, plates, platters, and bricks can be used for sautéing, grilling, chilling, curing, baking, salting, plating, bathing, and contemplating.
The Fundamentals of Himalayan Salt
A boulder of Himalayan salt emerges from darkness of a 16th century mineshaft in Pakistan and explodes into light, catching and refracting the sun in hues ranging from water-clear crystal to clematis flower pink to deep meaty red. The rough salt rocks are then hand cut by local masons into a variety of shapes, providing the foundation for extraordinary new ways to prepare and serve food.
Indeed, there are as many uses for a heavy slab of Pakistani Pink Himalayan salt as there are foods, cooking styles, whims, acts of folly, and shows of bravado. The salt’s crystal lattice has a fairly high specific energy (energy per unit of mass), so it will tend to hold any temperature you bring it to for a good while. Also, due to its lack of porosity or moisture (.026%), the salt plates can be safely heated or chilled to virtually any extreme. We have tested them from 0°F up to 900°F.
Two other considerations come into play when working with our Himalayan salt plates. Their lack of porosity means that the surface area touches your food is minimal. Compared to, say, ground up salt or naturally evaporated salt crystals, these large blocks of salt will impart only a very moderate saltiness. Second, the high quantity of trace minerals (1.2% sulfur, .4% calcium, .35% potassium, .16% magnesium, and 80 other trace minerals) impart a more mild and full taste to the salt, providing another level of flavor complexity to your food.
Himalayan Salt Block Recipe & Cooking Ideas
Armed with that knowledge, we unleash the hounds and set to. Here are just a few of our favorite uses for our Pakistani Pink Himalayan Salt Plates.
a) Arrange thinly sliced Carpaccio or sashimi on a cool salt platter and serve. Watch as the food literally salt-cures while at the table, gently cooking the edges and bringing on just a smidge of mineral-rich saltiness.
b) Place a large square tile of Pakistani Himalayan salt under the broiler. Wait 30 minutes, then remove the tile with a kitchen glove. Set on trivet at table, and saute fish, meats, and veggies while your guests or family look on with awe, disbelief, and dawning admiration. While cooking, your food will take on a light saltiness. Note that The Meadow’s larger Himalayan salt tiles will often hold heat long enough for repeated grillings before needing to reheat, but that batches will be successively saltier.
c) For an out-doorsy variation on the above, place a large platter of our Himalayan salt on the backyard grill, and plank grill a fennel-and-lemon stuffed monkfish, a lime-and-ginger marinated flank steak, or a balsamic and garlic rubbed Portobello mushroom.
d) For a variation on the wilder side of the out-doorsy, do what our two boys clamor for day in, day out, day in, day out (be forewarned). Heat a large Himalayan salt platter on an outdoor gas grill (best) or an indoor gas stove (use extreme caution). Lightly butter the salt platter, toss on firm bananas, grill 20 seconds on each side. Turn off the grill (important), douse with grappa or bourbon, ignite with a long match, and watch the flambé! Blow out last flames and serve with scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.Barely salted and seductively caramelized, the bananas spring to life against the cool silken contrast of the ice cream.
e) Freeze a Himalayan salt block or plate for two hours. Remove, and plate up scoops of ice cream or sorbet. More fun yet, warm lightly whipped sweet heavy cream, egg, honey, and aged bitters, and refrigerate. Remove the salt slab from freezer, pour mixture on it, slowly lufting with spatula, for a salt-tinged ice custard you will not soon forget.
f) Impress your Jewish grandma with Gravlax. Thaw a filet of commercially frozen (for health reasons) salmon, roll in sugar and minced dill, arrange on a Himalayan salt plate, cover with a heavy brick of Himalayan salt, wrap in paper bag and refrigerate for three days, slice, serve with crème fraîche and melba toast or just eat!
g) Getting back to basics, just use it as a serving platter for butter, cheeses, dried meats, or your daily does of 
pickled ginger and wasabe. When used as a plate for moist food such as apple slices and mozzarella, the food acquires an enhanced salt and mineral flavoring. One of ours serves as our regular butter dish.
h) If panache is what it takes to brighten the musty corners of your soul, try serving up an entire meal using large round or square Himalayan salt plates. Moist foods take on a touch of saltiness, dry foods do not, and everything glows with the otherworldly power of the ancient world (see Ogling below).
i) Place our larger platters of the Himalayan salt on the rack of your oven, preheat, and then bake bread, pizza, and savory pastries.
j) Get existential for a moment, place in window and stare idly at the beauty of salt in its natural, ancient state (see Ogling below).
k) Cut into jewelry, set in the precious metal of your choice, and nibble it as nibble jewelry from the lobes and fingers of your loved-one.
l) Take old (generally after many years of service) or broken salt plates and smash them up with a hammer (this should be fun), then arrange the prettier bits on a dinner plate as a garnish.
m) Take a bath, breaking up an old salt plate and tossing it into the tub to serve as an excellent and therapeutic bath salt, and pumice stone.
Caring for your Pakistani Pink Himalayan Salt Plate
After each use, wash your Himalayan salt plate with warm water and a soft brush or green scrubby, and tamp dry with a paper towel before setting on a drying rack. This will remove a very thin layer of the salt and make it ready for use again. Treated with care, a large salt slab will provide years of service! In addition, the powerful antimicrobial properties of the salt insure that it is always proper and ready for future use, with no need for detergents.
Ogling Your Salt
Ancient quarried salt is a hologram through which the mineral lineage of own bodies can be discerned. In effect, it tastes good to us because it is a reflection of our own primordial physiology.
To gain an appreciation for the beauty of this salt, let your mind drift overland, off the path, and into the wilds of the Hindu Kush, where wildflowers scatter under the tessellated fingerprint of a mild spring breeze. We take up with the torrents of the Amu Darya river, and just keep climbing along the ancient path where recorded history began, back in the 6th century BC, under the Achaemenid Empire.
After several days more of rugged hiking, in the rarified air of northern Pakistan’s Himalaya mountain range, we find a quarry where men pull massive boulders of luminescent pink ore from the earth, glowing like freshly harvested meteorites.
Gaze into the deep ferrite light of a massive block of Himalayan salt, and glimpse the unfathomed history of our planet. Pakistani pink Himalayan salt was formed in the Precambrian era, about 600 million years ago, as a great inland sea evaporated. Volcanic and other geological activity then sealed the salt in a hermetic vault where, over eons, it was subjected to the intense pressure and heat of the deep earth.
Tracing the history of our own biological development, the salt is rich in iron, calcium, and 82 other trace minerals contains all the trace minerals present in your body—and in a remarkably similar balance. Over countless lost ages the land encasing the ancient seabed up rose to become the Himalayas. Meanwhile, the scattering of Eukaryotic cells that comprised all life on earth evolved into shellfish and trilobites. Fish began to swim in the sea, great fern forests emerged, and then came the reptiles. Still the salt glowed darkly in the depths of the earth. Dinosaurs grew to towering heights, mammals peeked from beneath the leaves, and birds took flight. Grazing and carnivorous mammals, and then primates took hold, and still the salt remained in darkness.
Man appeared, gawking at the heavens and whittling spears, then scattering across Asia and beyond. 1.8 million years later, one lovely evening in 326 BC, Alexander the Great gave his troops a rest in the Khewra area of what is now Pakistan. An observant fellow noted in his diary that the horses were taken with licking the rocks—and lo, salt was discovered. Some eighteen centuries later, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar was born. At the happy age of thirteen, the boy’s father fell to his death from the library stairs, and Akbar ascended to become the greatest Mughal emperor. Akbar’s two lasting contributions were the vast accessioning of art from around the world into the Mughal collections, and the introduction of standardized salt mining at Khewra.
Our Pakistani Pink Himalayan Salt is harvested in the same way it was under Akbar. The choice boulders from the harvest—sometimes weighing in excess of 500 pounds—are sliced into cubes and platters and planks and chunks for use on your table.
You can purchase a host of sizes and shapes of Himalayan salt blocks at The Meadow.
Mark Bitterman :: Oct.15.2007 :: :: 27 Comments »
I’m interested in purchasing this product where can I get?
You can buy Himalayan Salt Blocks from The Meadow. Visit http://atthemeadow.com/salt/himalayan-pink-salt-blocks.html
Where can one find recipes utilizing one the large salt blocks? (beef, seafood, etc?)
What are your prices for the “Himalayan salt block?
Himalayan Salt is also very good to relieve symptoms of psoriasis, very gentle and calming for the skin: http://www.nutri-info.com/common_complaints.htm#psoriasis
I’m looking for a cookbook that with recipes for cooking on/with the salt blocks. Anyone know of any? I’d like to give it as part of a gift for xmas. Thanks!
Alex,
Me, too. I’ve bought them for gifts and am looking for recipes. Did you get any responses?
Susan
I am on a low iodine diet and am wondering how Himalayan Rock Salt compares to sea salt in terms of iodine – can anyone comment? Thanks
How can I find recipes for cooking with salt blocks? I dont see any reponses from previous requests. g.
Sorry for not responding more promptly to requests for recipes for cooking on Himalayan salt blocks. We DO recipes for cooking on Himalayan salt plates all the time, but don’t seem to be writing them down as often as we should. So, I will start posting some of the dishes we have been cooking at The Meadow during classes on Himalayan salt rocks, when having dinner parties, and maybe most important for many of us, at home when we are just looking for something good to eat. I would really appreciate comments on the recipes to help perfect them! The first one will get posted tonight, if the Fates allow.
Hi Mark,
We are anxiously awaiting some recipes to use with the salt blocks! Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Mark, I have a glass cooktop. Would I still need a heat diffuser, or could I put a salt block directly on the heat source?
Yi, you will need to put a metal ring or some other spacer between the heating element and the Himalayan salt slab. Otherwise, you get hot spots on the block that stress it and may cause it to crack, or at least not last as long. I use a tart pan with a pop-out bottom, so you end up with an 8-inch metal hoop that fits around the heating element. I have experimented with pizza sauce rings as well, and they work okay. I’m actually working with a metal-maker right now to see if I cann’t get some inexpensive metal hoops made especially for use cooking with Himalayan salt bricks on electric ranges, and will definitely post something if/when I get something figured out!
I just purchased the Himalayan Salt Block and I too am looking for recipies
Thank You
Does anyone know if I can buy a slab in the uk?
Please.
I received 2 Himalayan salt blocks 8x4x2 as a gift. I heated them in the oven, opened the door and 1 exploded. It sounded like a bomb had exploded. I slammed the oven door shut but not before being hit with flying salt. I have bits of salt everywhere in the kitchen and in the oven. Guess I’ll save some pieces for the salt grinder! How can I prevent this from happening again? I am a little shy about a 2nd try!
Any feedback will be appreciated.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM COMMENTER ADDED BY EDITOR:
“I received the 8x4x2 blocks as a gift, purchased from XXXXXX. No instructions were included but I called & they gave me some tips, which I followed. I preheated the oven to 300 and placed the room temp blocks in. After 15 min., I increased the heat to 350, 15 min. later to 400 and then to 450. When the oven signaled that 450 had been reached, I opened the oven door and 1 block exploded.
I spoke to the owner of XXXXXX today. He is sending me a new block. I’m sending pictures of the oven explosion to him. Apparently they can crack from temp changes but I think I heated this up slowly. The next adventure will be with my husband heating the blocks on the grill and I will stay in the house.
MARK BITTERMAN: Susie, never heat your salt block in the oven. Many salt block sellers will recommend heating the salt blocks in the oven, but I believe this is a mistake. At The Meadow, we always recommend heating over a stove or the grill. You’ll have much better luck with the grill in the future! Also at The Meadow, we sell a grade of salt block called Cookware Grade that is specially selected for a crystal structure that is compatible with high temperature uses. Using Cookware Grade salt blocks is the way to go if you’re worried about breakage!
We received some Himalayan Salt Brick/Plates as gifts & have been trying to use them but so far…no luck. Has anyone actually used theirs, yet? If so, would you mind sharing your recipes please?
I receive a 9x9x2 block for Christmas and just tried it out tonight. I gradually heated, over about an hours time to a sizzling hot temperature. We then placed it on a trivet at the table and seared thinly sliced pieces of pork shoulder, beef, and pork belly (purchased at our local asian grocery, probably cut for Korean bbq or something like that). No other seasoning was needed, the meat turned out delicious. I hadn’t anticipated this and pulled together a couple of dipping sauces, one with mustard, soy sauce and vinegar, and the other with sesame oil, soy, and hot sauce. This was a good starter item for trying out the block, I will definitely be trying it again soon!
I’m trying to find a way to make small 2-3 pound round shaped Himalanyan electrolyte horsesalt licks. All I can find are sites to buy them. If at all possioble I’d like to be able to make my own. Can I only buy a big block & go from there? Any ideas? truestorm@verizon.net thanx, Lisa.
Hi Lisa, you can certainly buy a large block and go from there. Salt is quite soft and can be cut with power tools or even by hand. We have 4x4x4 cubes that might work for you. Alternately you could buy an 8x8x2 inch or larger salt block and cut any shapes you like from it.
Has anyone tried heating the block under the broiler like they suggest at the beginning of this page??
Mary Ann, from what I’ve heard heating the blocks up in the oven or under the broiler is not good for the life of the salt block. Heating it up gently on an element is the way to go. I’ve actually posted a HD video/recipe using the salt block on our blog here, anyone look for recipes should check it out! http://drewcooks.com/blog/2010/new-hd-video-recipe-salt-block-seared-albacore-tuna/
Hey, I’m building a meditation area and I was wondering if there are any salt tiles intended to be sat upon?
Why would you want to sit on a salt block? LOL
Hey Andrew: we sell architecture grade Himalayan Salt Blocks at The Meadow. http://www.atthemeadow.com We do have customers who use pink salt slabs for ceilings, walls, floors, chairs, and tables.
I’m confused. Mark, you note in a comment:
Yet in your very own article above, you say:
Based on your article I nearly purchased a piece of the cookware and only noticed at the last moment that the site said to only heat it on top of the stove. I would have been quite unhappy to have spent that much only to find out that I couldn’t do what I thought I could with my purchase. Why does your article contradict the instructions in the store and in your own comment?
Heather,
I’m sorry for the confusion. This posting is getting long, and the commentary is beginning to include a broader stretch of time and subject matter than originally intended. My bad.
I think i can clarify things for you. The “recipe & cooking ideas” for Himalayan salt blocks described above should not be mistaken for actual instructions on how to use the blocks. Each of those ideas requires may require some specific steps to execute them. Baking on salt blocks requires following a certain procedure.
To be clear, you can bake on salt blocks. But you should not use your oven for the actual heating up of the salt block. To bake on a salt slab and use it as a baking stone, you should heat your salt block on the stove top as described in our instructions, and then put the hot block of salt in a pre-heated oven for use in baking/cooking. Make sense?
I’ve gone into some pretty gruesome detail here and elsewhere about what happens when you actually put a cold salt block in a warm oven. Suffice it to say that putting cold, hygroscopic salt blocks in a warm, humid oven is not a great idea.
I haven’t yet written about it yet for this blog, but I’ll leak to you now that my forthcoming book, Salted – A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes (available for pre-order here: http://www.atthemeadow.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=69_14&products_id=1006 ) has a detailed section and a considerable number of recipes for cooking on Himalayan pick salt blocks, including heating and baking tips for salt blocks in the oven.