Most bread dough uses salt at about 2 percent of the flour weight, so 500 g of flour gets about 10 g of salt. King Arthur Baking puts the usual range at 1.8 to 2.2 percent. That's the short answer to how much salt in bread dough, and it works for a single loaf or a big batch because it scales with the flour.
| Flour | 1.8 percent | 2 percent | 2.2 percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 120 g (1 cup) | 2.2 g | 2.4 g | 2.6 g |
| 250 g | 4.5 g | 5.0 g | 5.5 g |
| 360 g (3 cups) | 6.5 g | 7.2 g | 7.9 g |
| 500 g | 9.0 g | 10.0 g | 11.0 g |
| 1,000 g | 18.0 g | 20.0 g | 22.0 g |
How much salt in bread, using baker's percentage
Baker's percentage lists every ingredient as a share of the flour weight, with flour always at 100 percent. Salt then becomes one simple multiplication:
- Weigh the total flour in the recipe.
- Multiply by 0.02 for 2 percent.
- That's your salt in grams.
King Arthur Baking's own formulas show how consistent this is. Their basic white bread uses 2 percent, their French bread uses 2 percent, and their ciabatta uses 1.8 percent. Their baker's math example uses 500 g of flour, 330 g of water, 10 g of salt and 6 g of yeast, which is 2 percent salt.
One catch: count all the flour. If part of it is in a preferment like a poolish, or in your sourdough starter, add it in. King Arthur Baking shows a French bread with poolish where the salt looks like 3 percent of the final dough flour, but it's 2 percent once you count the flour in the poolish too.
Grams to spoons, and why the salt brand matters
Spoons are where salt goes wrong. Using King Arthur Baking's weights, here's what 10 g of salt looks like in different brands:
- Table salt (18 g per tbsp): about 1 2/3 tsp.
- Morton kosher salt (16 g per tbsp): a little under 2 tsp.
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt (8 g per tbsp): about 3 3/4 tsp.
Same 10 g, and the spoon amount more than doubles depending on the box. If a recipe says "2 tsp salt" and you use a different brand than the writer did, your bread can end up bland or too salty. Grams fix this completely.
What salt does in the dough
Salt isn't just for flavor, though that's the part you notice first. Bread made without it tastes flat. Salt also tightens the gluten network, which makes the dough feel stronger and less slack. And it slows yeast down, which gives you a steadier rise and more time for flavor to develop.
That's why bakers stay inside a narrow range. Below it, the bread tastes dull and the dough can feel loose. Above it, the yeast slows noticeably and the loaf may rise less.
Common salt mistakes
- Forgetting it. It happens to everyone. Weigh the salt into a small dish at the start so you can see it's still waiting.
- Swapping brands by volume. Convert to grams first, using the numbers above.
- Leaving out preferment flour. Count it in the total before you do the math.
- Using a heaped spoon. A heaped teaspoon of fine salt can carry a lot more than a level one.
Small salt amounts are easy to get right with a MeasureMate digital measuring spoon. It scoops and weighs in one step, reads in 0.1 g steps, and the tare button zeroes the reading, so 7.2 g for a 3 cup loaf is quick to hit without converting anything to spoons.
Quick questions
How much salt do I use per cup of flour?
At 120 g per cup and 2 percent, about 2.4 g. That's a little under 1/2 tsp of table salt.
Is 2 percent salt a lot?
It's standard for bread. King Arthur Baking treats 1.8 to 2.2 percent as the normal range for most doughs.
Do I count the flour in my sourdough starter?
Yes. A starter fed with equal weights of flour and water is half flour, so add half its weight to the flour total before working out the salt.
Weights based on King Arthur Baking's baker's math guide, baker's percentage reference and ingredient weight chart.