What is the Best Low Sodium Salt?

Updated September 29, 2026

Short answer: it depends what you want the salt to do. If your only goal is the lowest possible sodium, Nu‑Salt and NoSalt contain none at all. If you want a strong sodium cut while keeping something that still tastes like salt, LoSalt does that best. Boulder Salt is the one to look at if you want the other minerals including magnesium, calcium, potassium and bicarbonate rather than sodium simply swapped for potassium.

Below is every product compared on the same basis, taken from each manufacturer’s own label, followed by what the numbers actually mean and where each product fits.

Low sodium salt comparison

All figures are per ¼ teaspoon, from each product’s published nutrition information. A quarter teaspoon is not the same weight for every product, so the per‑gram column is the like‑for‑like comparison.

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Where the “40% less sodium” comes from

It starts with the recipe. Every 100‑pound batch of Boulder Salt is made with 60 pounds of ordinary salt (sodium chloride). The other 40 pounds are minerals that contain no sodium at all. That is 40% less salt, by weight.

Our nutrition label is a little more conservative than the recipe. It lists 496 mg of sodium per ¼ teaspoon, which still works out to 37% less sodium than table salt, gram for gram: 248 mg per gram against about 393 mg.

Spoon for spoon, the difference is smaller, about 16%. Boulder Salt is denser than table salt, so a level quarter teaspoon weighs 2.0 g instead of 1.5 g. It’s a heavier spoonful, but not more salt. The extra weight is the minerals table salt doesn’t have:

So the two numbers describe different things. The 37% describes the salt itself. The 16% describes a straight spoon‑for‑spoon swap, and that same swap adds 154 mg of potassium, 140 mg of magnesium and 75 mg of calcium that table salt never gives you.

Which low sodium salt is right for you?

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How each low sodium salt tastes, and what people complain about

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Taste is the whole objection to this category, and it is worth being specific about why. Most low sodium salts replace sodium chloride with potassium chloride, which is where the bitter, metallic note comes from. Boulder Salt uses potassium bicarbonate instead, which is markedly less harsh, which is also why it makes water slightly alkaline rather than neutral.

In a blind tasting Boulder Salt ran at an endurance event in Boulder, Colorado, 32 of 40 participants chose it over premium sea salt and traditional table salt.

When Boulder Salt is the wrong choice

Two ordinary cases: money, and medical limits.

It costs more per ounce than Morton Lite, LoSalt or NoSalt, and it is not sitting on most supermarket shelves, so you have to order it.

The health limits matter more. This is not a sodium-free product, a quarter teaspoon still contains 496 mg of sodium, so it is the wrong choice if your doctor has told you to eliminate sodium.

It also contains potassium. Anyone with significant kidney disease, on a potassium-restricted diet, or taking medicines that raise potassium should not treat Boulder Salt, Morton Lite, LoSalt, Nu-Salt or NoSalt as a do-it-yourself swap. That decision belongs to the doctor who knows your lab results, not to a comparison table. The World Health Organization’s guidance on lower-sodium salt substitutes carries the same exclusion.

Why these minerals, and how it got here

I did not set out to invent a low sodium salt. I set out to build a naturally balanced salt blend that looked more like what a body already uses, rather than a random 50/50 mix.

That is why I still think of Boulder Salt as a multi-salt the same idea as a multivitamin, except the minerals are the ones you need in real amounts: sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride and bicarbonate. The ratio is in the neighborhood of those electrolytes in blood. You can chase the smallest sodium number on a label, or you can ask what else is in the spoon. Those are different questions.

The salts were chosen for taste as much as chemistry. Most lite salts use potassium chloride; it cuts sodium but it tastes bitter. We use potassium bicarbonate instead, which is far less harsh and makes the water alkaline. People always ask why magnesium oxide rather than a more soluble magnesium. Same answer: taste. Oxide was the least offensive form we tested. Calcium carbonate was chosen because it is also neutral in what it contributes to flavour.

We have reformulated more than once. Early on we were filling sea containers for overseas buyers and producing vitamin-fortified versions, a prenatal blend with folic acid, another with extra minerals for older adults. Around 2014 the work shifted toward endurance athletes, and that is when we changed the calcium and magnesium forms so the product would not cake up in a hot tent or a jersey pocket. That is also when Dr Ahmed Stowers found us.

Ahmed is an emergency physician at a metro hospital who also staffs medical tents at Boulder Ironman and Colorado cycling races. He sorts athletes into “not well” and “sick”. The first group is depleted, electrolytes off, but still able to continue. That is who he treats with Boulder Salt. He wanted magnesium at a level that actually counts, a buffer in solution so stomachs rebel less, and none of the sugar and dye that aid-station drinks carry. He tried it on himself first. At a hot, humid Ironman he says he was amazed how many of those “not well” athletes recovered enough to go back out and finish. That is his account of his own experience, not a clinical trial.

I chose these minerals because they are the ones a body spends in quantity. Lower sodium was never the goal; it showed up when the other salts took their place.

What customers report

The outcomes people have shared with us over the years fall into performance and health. Athletes told us their cramps had gone and their endurance was up. Then came reports from people with high blood pressure seeing results while working with their doctors. Then people with restless leg syndrome. Most recently people with POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) some of whom need far more salt than usual, and who have left a good deal of feedback about using Boulder Salt for it. And throughout, cooks: that it is good on scrambled eggs, and that it is a low sodium option that actually tastes good on food.

 

These are customer reports, not clinical outcomes, and no food can treat or prevent a medical condition.

If you are managing a specific condition

• Best salt for high blood pressure — what the guidelines actually say
• Potassium and magnesium enriched substitutes for blood pressure
• potassium enriched salt substitute for hypertension
• Is sea salt a good alternative for blood pressure? (No)
• Best salt for POTS
• Best salt for restless leg syndrome
• Best salt for athletes and hydration during exercise
• Low sodium diet and low sodium recipes
• Preventing muscle cramps and leg cramps
• Best unflavoured electrolyte powder — if you are looking for something to drink rather than season with

Sources

• World Health Organization — Guideline on the use of lower-sodium salt substitutes (2025)
• World Health Organization — Sodium reduction fact sheet
• American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology — 2025 Guideline for the Prevention and Management of High Blood Pressure
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Sodium in Your Diet
• New England Journal of Medicine — Effect of Salt Substitution on Cardiovascular Events and Death (SSaSS, 2021)
• National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements — Magnesium fact sheet for health professionals

Where to buy

Boulder Salt comes in a 6 oz shaker, 8 oz and 20 oz refill bags, single-serve packets, and a full bundle. See all products.