Maldon Sea Salt: How the Pyramid Flakes Are Made and How to Use Them

Maldon sea salt is the flaky English salt you scatter on food at the end, for crunch. Its thin, pyramid-shaped flakes form on the surface of heated seawater in the town of Maldon, Essex, on the south side of the Blackwater estuary, and they’re raked out by hand. The Maldon Salt Company has traded under that name since 1882. Like other sea salts it’s almost entirely sodium chloride. What sets it apart is texture, not chemistry.¹

At a glance

How it is made

Foodism visited the saltworks in 2018. Seawater is collected according to the lunar cycle, when the tide covers the salt marshes. It’s brought to “a galloping boil” to remove impurities, then the temperature is lowered until salt starts to form on the surface. The surface tension of the water bends around each growing crystal, which is what gives the flakes their pyramid shape, and the salt is raked out by hand.² Maldon describes four generations of the Osborne family hand-harvesting the “naturally formed pyramid crystals.”⁵

The producer doesn’t publish its temperatures or timings, and we didn’t find an independent description of them.

History

• Salt making on the Essex coast. Historic England notes that over 300 salterns have been recorded in Essex, sites known locally as “red hills” for soil reddened by heating. At the early Roman saltern it protects on Mersea Island, brine was heated in pans and bowls.⁶ (You’ll often read that the Romans boiled the water in lead pots. We found no source for the lead.)
• Domesday. An Essex Field Club history counts some 46 salt pans in the Essex returns of the Domesday Survey, nearly all on the northern half of the county’s coast.⁷ It doesn’t single out Maldon.
• The company. The Maldon Salt Company started trading under that name in 1882, though salt had been made in the area long before. In 1922 Steve Osborne’s great-grandfather bought the company from a local wine merchant, and Steve is the fourth generation of the family to run it.
• Early reputation. Foodism quotes an early letter from Harrods saying it found the salt “much better than ordinary salt for pickling beef.”²
• Royal Warrant. Steve Osborne told Foodism the company got its Royal Warrant in 2012.² Maldon now describes itself as holding the Royal Warrant as Purveyors of Sea Salt to King Charles III.⁵

Other dates get passed around too: a typhoid remedy in 1866, a first export order to Sweden in 1955, salt at the 1977 Silver Jubilee and a first Sainsbury’s order in 1978. We couldn’t trace any of them to a source we could open, so we’ve left them out.

Flavor and texture

All salt tastes of sodium chloride. America’s Test Kitchen notes that salt is the same compound whatever its source, and that sea salts vary in color but only slightly in flavor.¹ Maldon says its flakes have “a fresh intensity and clean taste,”⁵ which is the maker talking.

The real difference is in your mouth. The thin flakes give a brief, delicate crunch and then dissolve, so the saltiness lands in small bursts instead of evenly through the food. Foodism notes that the crystal’s thin pyramid shape affects how its flavor comes across.²

How to use it

America’s Test Kitchen recommends sea salts as finishing salts, not for cooking, where you lose the texture.¹ Put Maldon on:

• steaks, chops and roast meat just after slicing
• sliced tomatoes, salads and roasted vegetables
• fried eggs, avocado toast and buttered bread
• chocolate desserts, caramel and cookies

Pinch the flakes between your fingers instead of pouring, and crush them lightly for a finer sprinkle. For cooking and baking, use a fine salt you can measure reliably. See Maldon salt vs. kosher salt for how they compare in use.

Buying and storage

Salt doesn’t spoil. Keep the box closed and dry so the flakes don’t clump or go soft. Save the flakes for finishing, where you’ll notice the texture.

Health and nutrition

• Same sodium. The American Heart Association says table salt, kosher salt and most sea salts contain about 40% sodium. A flaky salt may have less sodium per teaspoon, but only because fewer crystals fit in the spoon.³ Gram for gram, it’s not a lower-sodium salt.
• No meaningful minerals. A Swiss government survey of 25 salts concluded that specialty salts “do not possess relevant beneficial nutritional properties” that would make them a better standard choice.⁸ Maldon wasn’t among the salts tested.
• Iodine. Noniodized sea salt gives you virtually no iodine, according to NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements.⁴ As far as we can tell, Maldon’s site says nothing about added iodine. If you count on iodized salt for iodine, a finishing salt won’t replace it.
• How much. FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day, and WHO recommends that adults eat less than 2,000 mg of sodium a day.⁹¹⁰

Substitutes and comparisons

Any flaky finishing salt will do the same job; see Maldon salt substitutes. Comparisons:

• Fleur de sel vs. Maldon salt
• Maldon salt vs. kosher salt
• Fleur de sel, Anglesey sea salt and smoked sea salt
• Sea salt, kosher salt, best salt for cooking and cooking with sea salt
• Overdid it? See too much sea salt.