If you like your meat juicy, tender, and flavorful, there is one simple step that can improve all three: Salting Meat.
Salt, which is another name for the mineral sodium chloride (NaCl), is probably the oldest way to flavor food and essential to all living things. Our bodies require salt, and the only way to get it is to ingest it. All our bodily fluids, blood and tears, contain salt. Our nervous system requires salt to conduct electricity.
Salting and brining meat can significantly improve your cooking, whether you’re dry brining a steak or curing meats for bacon and pastrami. Salt is unlike any spice and herb in the house physically and chemically, and it behaves in strange and wonderful ways when applied properly to food. It can seriously amplify flavor without changing it, and it can help protein hold onto moisture. It’s even the star of our homemade seasoned salt.
