Salt Free Seasoning at Home: Which Spices Replace Salt?

Your doctor said cut the salt, so you reach for the lemon pepper, flip the jar, and there it is: salt, first on the ingredient list. Salt free seasoning at home starts with 6 workhorses: garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, citrus zest, paprika and cumin, plus dried herbs such as oregano, thyme and basil.

The FDA's own sodium advice is to use no-salt seasoning blends and herbs and spices instead of salt. Mississippi State University Extension publishes 10 salt-free blends built from exactly those jars, and 3 of them cover most weeknight dinners. Houseland's wall spice rack comes in 3 widths, from 11.4 to 17.5 in, and that matters for one reason: blends you can see are blends you use.

Which spices replace salt best in everyday cooking?

No single spice tastes like salt, so the trick is to layer 3 jobs: a savory base, some heat, and something bright. The MSU Extension blends do exactly that, and every one of the 10 includes garlic powder, onion powder or black pepper.

• Savory base: garlic powder and onion powder. One or both appear in every MSU blend except Barbeque, from Greek to Ranch.
• Heat: black pepper, cayenne or red pepper flakes. MSU's Cajun blend uses 2 tsp each of black pepper and cayenne.
• Brightness: lemon or lime zest. MSU's Lemon Pepper blend is 3 tbsp lemon zest to 2 tbsp black pepper.
• Depth and color: paprika, smoked paprika, cumin, coriander and chili powder, the backbone of the Chili, Taco and Chili Lime blends.
• Herbs: oregano, thyme, basil, sage, parsley, dill and chives, which carry the Italian, Barbeque and Ranch blends.

Tip: taste the finished dish before you add anything else.

You're not replacing salt with one jar. You're replacing it with a chord.

How do you mix salt free seasoning at home?

Measure the dried herbs and spices into a jar, close it, and shake; MSU Extension says to mix the ingredients in a jar or airtight container, and its blends contain no added salt. These 3 cover chicken, vegetables, eggs and taco night.

1. Italian blend: 1 tbsp oregano, 1 tbsp parsley, 1 tbsp thyme, 2 tsp basil, 2 tsp sage, 1 tsp garlic powder and 1 tsp black pepper. Use it on roasted vegetables, chicken or a pot of tomato sauce.
2. Lemon Pepper blend: 3 tbsp lemon zest, 2 tbsp black pepper and 1 tbsp garlic powder, which MSU marks optional. It's the salt-free answer to the jar that sent you here.
3. Chili Lime blend: 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tsp lime zest, 1 tsp onion powder and 1 tsp ground cumin. Try it on fish, corn or a sheet pan of chickpeas.
4. Label each jar with the blend name and the date you mixed it.
5. Keep it closed, and give it a sniff when you open it; MSU's freshness test is aroma, taste and color.

The Italian batch works out to 3 tbsp plus 4 tsp plus 2 tsp, which is 3 tbsp plus 6 tsp, or 5 tbsp, since 3 tsp make 1 tbsp. That's a small jar's worth, not a pantry project.

MSU says to discard the blends after 1 to 3 years, or sooner if the aroma isn't strong, the taste isn't potent and the color isn't vibrant. Our guide to how long ground spices last before they go flat explains why the nose test beats the date.

If it smells like dust, it will taste like dust.

Fresh blends only help if you reach for them, so keep the jars in sight from the stove on a one-tier wall spice rack. Recommended for this use case: the cook replacing salt with 3 homemade blends plus her regular pepper, cumin and paprika should choose the Medium rack, 13.8 in (35 cm) wide, which the listing sizes for around eight standard 4 oz jars in one row. That's 3 blend jars plus 5 of her everyday spices.

From the shop

Wall Mounted Spice Rack, Steel Wire Grid Shelf with Wood Base

Best for keeping everyday blends in sight on the wall near the cooking zone; powder-coated steel wire with a solid wood base, 11.4 in (29 cm), 13.8 in (35 cm) or 17.5 in (44.5 cm) wide and 3.9 to 4.1 in (10 to 10.5 cm) deep; one light-duty tier, so use the screw hooks for a full row of glass jars.

View the wire spice rack — 3 sizes & current price

How do you spot hidden salt on a store-bought blend label?

Read the ingredient list first: US rules list ingredients in descending order of predominance by weight, so a blend that starts with salt contains more salt than anything else. That rule is 21 CFR 101.4, and it's the quickest check in the spice aisle.

• Look for the word salt, sea salt or sodium anywhere in the list, not just first.
• Trust "salt free" on the front: under 21 CFR 101.61 it may be used only on a food that is sodium free, meaning less than 5 mg of sodium per serving and no ingredient that is sodium chloride.
• Don't confuse "no salt added" or "unsalted" with salt free; those foods can still contain sodium, and the label has to say "not a sodium free food" if they do.
• Check the %DV: the FDA calls 5% DV or less of sodium per serving low and 20% DV or more high.
• Look for potassium chloride too. It's the usual swap in salt substitutes, which are a different product from an herb blend, and the next section covers who should ask before using one.

For jars you fill yourself, what to put in a seasoning jar besides salt has more ideas.

The front of the jar sells. The back of the jar tells.

Do herbs and spices actually help you eat less sodium?

Yes, with a caveat: in the SPICE trial, adults taught to cook with spices and herbs ate about 957 mg less sodium a day than a self-directed group, but most sodium doesn't come from your salt shaker. The FDA says over 70% of the sodium Americans eat comes from packaged and prepared foods.

The SPICE trial, published in 2015 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, ran in Baltimore with adults who had high blood pressure, prehypertension or diabetes. All of them first spent 4 weeks on a low-sodium diet with every meal provided, then 40 were split into two groups for 20 weeks, so the trial measured how well people kept sodium down, not a cold-turkey switch. The intervention group got cooking demonstrations and recipes using familiar and unfamiliar spices and herbs, plus goal-setting and self-monitoring. At the end, their 24-hour urinary sodium was 956.8 mg a day lower than the control group's.

That's a lot next to the targets. The FDA says Americans average about 3,400 mg of sodium a day, while the Dietary Guidelines limit is less than 2,300 mg, about 1 tsp of table salt.

Keep it in proportion, though. It was a small trial, and the researchers themselves concluded that changing the food supply matters too, because so much sodium arrives already in the food. The FDA's list of top sources starts with deli sandwiches, pizza, burritos and tacos, and soups.

So swap the shaker for a blend, and read the labels on the packaged food too.

A blend helps. A bag of chips undoes it.

Salt substitutes vs salt-free blends: which should you use?

A salt-free herb blend simply leaves the salt out, while a potassium salt substitute is where the experts split, so ask your doctor first if you have kidney disease or take blood pressure medicine. The 2 products work differently: one leaves salt out, the other swaps part of the sodium chloride for potassium chloride.

The SSaSS trial, published in 2021 in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed adults in 600 villages in rural China who had a past stroke, or were 60 or older with high blood pressure, for an average of 4.74 years. The substitute group had fewer strokes, fewer major cardiovascular events and fewer deaths, and serious hyperkalemia was no more common: 3.35 vs 3.30 events per 1,000 person-years.

Guidelines haven't caught up evenly. A review in the journal Hypertension found only 4 of 32 hypertension guidelines mentioned potassium-enriched salt: Chinese and European guidelines recommend it, while the UK's NICE guidance carries a warning. Of 14 kidney disease guidelines, 4 mentioned it, mostly with caution.

An herb blend changes the flavor. A potassium swap changes the chemistry, so check first.

Where should salt-free blends live so you actually use them?

Keep your blends in closed jars where you can see them from the stove; MSU Extension's storage advice is a jar or airtight container. Tip: move the salt shaker to the back row while you get used to the blends.

A wall shelf beside the cooking zone does the "in sight" part. Houseland's wall spice rack is a single tier of powder-coated steel wire with a solid natural wood base, in black or white, and it arrives as one piece with 2 screw-in hooks and 2 adhesive pads in the box. Before you pick a spot directly over the burners, read whether the wall right above the hob is the worst place for a spice rack.

The limit is plain: the rack holds jars, it doesn't make anything salt free, and it's a light-duty shelf. Depth is 3.9 to 4.1 in (10 to 10.5 cm), so measure your jars' diameter first, and use the screw hooks for a full row of glass jars, as the listing advises. Jars for your blends and the rest of the kit are in the kitchen and home collection.

Out of sight, out of the pot.

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