Shake, Shake! After Testing 9 Salt Cellars, Four Pinched the Winning Title

Salt cellars (a.k.a salt boxes, salt keepers, salt pigs—pig is supposedly the old Scottish word for pot) have a pretty self-explanatory function: they hold salt. But testing salt cellars was no trifling matter—we filled and pinched from our lineup for a few weeks, sometimes leisurely, sometimes in a frantic dash (we were testing woks at the same time, and food cooks fast!). In the end, most salt cellars were fine, keeping salt unblemished (well, mostly) and within arm's reach. What set our top picks apart was their aesthetics and capacity, if they were easy to fill and clean, and they were friendly to a variety of hands, both big and small.

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Overall Salt Cellar

Zero Japan Bee House Salt Box

$25 at Amazon

With an easy-to-open wooden lid and a wide, boxy shape, this salt cellar was both a cinch to fill and a pleasure to grab a pinch of salt from. It also comes in a variety of colors to suit your style. 

The Best Fancy Salt Cellar

Williams Sonoma Marble Salt Keeper

$40 at Williams-Sonoma

This marble offering proffered up salt and looked good doing it. It was sturdy, and the swivel top magnet kept the lid from spinning around. 

The Best Basic Salt Cellar

Totally Bamboo Salt Cellar

$11 at Amazon $11 at Walmart

If you’re looking for a no-frills, does-the-job salt cellar, this offering fits the bill. With a nice deep cavity and 6-ounce capacity, this little cellar held a decent amount of salt. 

The Best Salt Cellar for Finishing Salt

Sur La Table Glass Salt Keeper

$10 at Sur La Table

The one glass option in our lineup, we enjoyed using this to hold finishing salt—it glitters through the glass. It’s also light enough to pass around a table.

The Tests

• Ease of Use Tests: We used each salt cellar for at least a week, noting if it was easy to fill (we used Diamond Kosher salt), open and close, and if we struggled to fit our hand inside to grab the salt.
• Moisture Test: We set each filled salt cellar next to a pot of simmering water for 30 minutes to see if the salt clumped.
• Cleaning Test: Before filling, we hand-washed and dried the salt cellars, noting how easy it was to do so.

What We Learned

Lids Were Salt’s Friend and Kept It Protected

Lids are salt’s best friend: they kept it safe from splatters and moisture. While open, lidless options like the Le Creuset and Emile Henry promised fast access, they also allowed gunk to get in our salt. This was most noticeable during everyday cooking, when sauces and stews splattered and the flecks landed in the open salt containers adjacent to the burner—yuck! We also found that, over time, open containers did tend to clump slightly, though it wasn’t super discernable during our boil test.

That Said, Some Lids Were Better Than Others 

We liked lids that were easy to open in times of need (no one wants to fumble around trying to grab a pinch of salt), which is why we loved the easy flip-top lid on the ZEROJAPAN salt cellar; It was just a quick flip away from accessing all the salt you could desire. The unique dome-shaped push top on the Chef’n Dash was also quite easy to open and close. Swivel top designs were a smidge less ideal, since if you overfilled them the salt got swiped out and scattered all over the counter, but if you’re mindful when filling, it shouldn’t be a problem. That said, we liked swivel tops with magnets that slotted in, like on the Totally Bamboo and Williams Sonoma Marble Salt Keeper. This prevented them from just swinging around and around, like the one on the Berard (which swung right ‘round, getting the Dead or Alive song stuck in our heads). 

Wide Openings Were More Versatile 

Since there are as many hands in the world as there are grains of salt in, er, your salt cellar, we wanted options that were big enough to accommodate hands of all sizes. The ZEROJAPAN shone here since it features a wide, rectangular opening that was easy to reach into. The swing top models also performed fine in this aspect, since the salt rests quite high up in the basin, allowing you to easily pluck a pinch. We really didn’t like the Le Creuset in this respect, since the opening was kinda small and awkwardly shaped, making it difficult for folks with larger hands to stick their hands into. 

Cellars with Openings on Top Made Filling Easier

Filling a salt cellar is a messy endeavor no matter what (salt boxes always seem to spurt out one last gush of salt when you stand them up), but some cellars made it less messy than others. We liked cellars with a flat opening on the top since you could just pour the salt in and lift the box up to stop its flow. Oddly shaped cellars, like the Emile Henry, took more ingenuity to fill and made more of a mess. Because it’s curved kinda like a periscope, we had to tilt it to pour the salt inside. Plus, it wasn’t obvious when it was full, so we poured too much salt in and when we righted it, salt poured out the opening. The Le Creuset was also challenging to fill since the opening is on the side, and we had the same problem as we did with the Emile Henry, with salt falling out when we righted it. 

We Preferred Larger Capacities 

As mentioned above, filling a salt cellar is a messy business—so the less you have to refill it, the better. With that in mind, we liked salt cellars that had larger capacities since we could dump weeks’ worth of salt inside. The ZEROJAPAN had the largest capacity of them all—we filled it with 303 grams of Diamond Kosher salt, with a little headspace left. The Chef’n Dash option was also quite spacious (it held 104 grams of kosher salt), since the domed lid allowed us to pile up a little mound. Conversely, the Berard was quite shallow, only holding 65 grams of salt.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Salt Cellar

When looking for a salt cellar, we recommend getting one with a lid, since it offers protection from moisture and cooking splatter. We also liked cellars that had openings on the top, since they were easier to fill and use, as well as ones that had larger capacities (more salt!). 

The Best Salt Cellars

The Best Overall Salt Cellar

Zero Japan Bee House Salt Box

$25 at Amazon

What we liked: This colorful option features a wooden flip-top lid—easy to open and a snap to close. It also boasted the largest capacity of our winners, and with a wide rectangular opening, hands of all shapes and sizes could fit inside to grab a pinch. This also made it pretty easy to rinse clean. 

What we didn’t like: Our one qualm is that the lid feels a little flimsy—though according to the brand, it’s meant to be lightweight to allow for breathing (salt needs to breathe?).

Key Specs

• Weight (empty): 1 pound, 0.9 ounces
• Measured capacity: 303 grams
• Materials: Wood, ceramic
• Dimensions: 3.4 x 6 x 3.5 inches
• Lid style: Flip top
• Cleaning: Hand-wash and dry

The Best Basic Salt Cellar

Totally Bamboo Salt Cellar

$11 at Amazon $11 at Walmart

What we liked: If you’re looking for a no-frills, spacious salt cellar that will match pretty much any kitchen, this is a great choice. With a neutral bamboo finish, a spacious interior (it held around 130 grams of salt), and an easy-to-open and close swing top, it’s a perfectly serviceable pick. Serious Eats editors also think it’s great for serving flaky finishing salt.

What we didn’t like: It’s rather plain looking, and the wood finish on one side was a little rough.

Key Specs 

• Weight (empty): 4.8 ounces
• Measured capacity: 129 grams 
• Materials: Bamboo
• Dimensions: 3.5 x 2.75 inches
• Lid style: Swivel top
• Cleaning: Hand-wash and dry

The Best Fancy Salt Cellar

Williams Sonoma Marble Salt Keeper

$40 at Williams-Sonoma

What we liked: What a beaut! This gorgeous marble salt cellar swung open nicely and featured a magnet that helped stop its motion when closing it. It was also capacious, holding roughly 76 grams of kosher salt. Overall, it’s a good option if you care about aesthetics. 

What we didn’t like: We do wish it was just a little bit deeper and that it held more salt.

Key Specs 

• Weight (empty): 4.8 ounces
• Measured capacity: 76 grams
• Materials: Marble
• Dimensions: 2 lbs, 6.8 ounces
• Lid style: Swivel top
• Cleaning: Hand-wash with warm water and mild soap; soaking not recommended; dry thoroughly with a soft cloth

The Best Salt Cellar for Finishing Salt

Sur La Table Glass Salt Keeper

$10 at Sur La Table

What we liked: With clear glass sides and a removable lid, this cellar was great for passing around during dinner (like when a guest wants to augment their fruit salad with a freckle of Maldon—for contrast!). The clear glass allows you to see the glittering flakes of salt inside, while the lid keeps out any unwanted splatter. 

What we didn’t like: The lid’s not attached, so it is prone to falling off. We wish it had some sort of silicone lining to keep it in place.

Key Specs 

• Weight (empty): 1 pound, 3.2 ounces
• Measured capacity: 161 grams
• Materials: Glass 
• Dimensions: 3.75 x 3 inches
• Lid style: Removeable
• Cleaning: Dishwasher-safe

The Competition

• Chef’n Dash Salt Cellar: This salt cellar almost made the cut but for one fatal flaw: the gap where the lid slots in. If we jostled it or sloppily filled it, salt fell through this gap and out the bottom of the container (there’s a hole down yonder). This was annoying and knocked it from our winning picks’ pedestal.
• Emile Henry Salt Pig: Does this kinda look like a periscope, or is it just us? No matter, we found the curved shape wasn’t great for filling, and since there’s no lid, the salt inside was more prone to getting splattered when cooking.
• Le Creuset Salt Crock: Featuring an opening on the side, this salt cellar was hard to fill and difficult to reach into if you have larger hands.
• Berard French Olive-Wood Handcrafted Salt Keeper: While we really liked the look of this salt cellar, the sliding lid was misaligned and wouldn’t stay shut—it just kept swinging around.
• Lekue Salt Cellar: We really liked the little 1/2 teaspoon that came with this, and the lid was easy to open and close (though sometimes we had to push it up more firmly to get it to stay open). But we found the lid also got in the way of hand entry since it is fixed halfway over the glass container.

FAQs

What's the best material for a salt cellar?

If "dishwasher-safe" is a must for you, we recommend glass cellars. But beyond that, any nonporous material will keep moisture away from your salt. The real key is a lid, which will keep your salt free from debris and cooking splatters.

What’s the best way to clean a salt cellar?

Most of the salt cellars we tested require hand-washing, though the one glass option we liked from Sur La Table is dishwasher-safe. 

How much salt do salt cellars hold?

We found quite a variation in salt cellar capacity, but overall, we liked larger capacity salt cellars the best. Our winner from ZEROJAPAN held about 303 grams of Diamond Kosher salt. 

What’s the best salt?

We at Serious Eats are partial to kosher salt, and in particular, Diamond Kosher salt, and you can read more about why here.

Why We're the Experts

• Grace Kelly is the associate commerce editor at Serious Eats. 
• Prior to this, she tested equipment and ingredients for America’s Test Kitchen. She's worked as a journalist and has done stints as a cook and bartender. 
• She has written dozens of reviews for Serious Eats, including petty knives and tortilla presses, among others. 
• For this test, Grace used nine salt cellars for at least one week to see if they were easy to fill, open, and close. She also examined how easy it was to grab a pinch of salt from each while cooking. In addition to usage, Grace also examined each salt cellar's ability to keep salt dry by placing the cellars next to a pot of simmering water for 30 minutes.