Does Salt Ever Expire?
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If you are obsessed with freshness, you may have considered that round container of salt in your pantry and wondered if it ever expired. Do you need to keep an eye on how old your salt is, like you do with other spices in your cabinet? Will it lose its potency over time? To put it briefly: no — salt never expires. Whether you are talking about table salt, sea salt, or even kosher salt (Ina Garten's go-to), these condiments have an indefinite lifespan.
Salt is the product of either underground mining or harvesting from the ocean. Either way, it's a compound of sodium and chlorine, and an important conduit for electrical impulses in the human body. This means we need salt in our diets as much as we crave it for flavor enhancement. The good news is that a shaker of salt has the volume to go some serious distance, given the fact it never technically goes bad. That's not to say, however, that there aren't factors that can make salt sub-optimal and tempt you to throw it out anyway.
Salt doesn't expire, but there are cases where you might want to toss it
If salt is good forever, what might entice you to dispose of it? Well, for one thing, salt is a magnet for scents and flavors from other foods, being highly absorbent. This is a good thing if you are deliberately trying to deodorize your kitchen, but not so awesome in the quest to keep salt pure. Especially if the container holding it is cardboard, there's a strong possibility of salt getting infused with undesirable odors if stored improperly — right by a stove where you do a lot of deep-frying, for instance. Just like water doesn't expire, but plastic bottles are a problem, so is the case with salt. If your salt absorbs off smells or flavors, it could contaminate the taste of what you sprinkle it on.
Another salt snafu could occur if steam or moisture seep into your container and make the salt clump up. Salt in your pasta water is great, but any kind of water in your salt makes it hard to dispense. If your salt ends up all cakey, it might be worth your money to just replace it altogether. On Amazon you can get two shakers for less than four bucks, which is well worth the cost of free-flowing salt.