Celery salt

One US cup of celery salt weighs between 181.4 and 238.7 grams (6.4 to 8.4 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. Use 181.4 grams (6.4 ounces) as Frontier counts celery salt to the pound, with McCormick's label close. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Also called celery seasoning salt, salt and celery seed, celery seed salt.

A teaspoon of celery salt weighs 3.8 to 5 g, and a cup 181 to 239 g (6.4 to 8.4 oz). Frontier Co-op's count of cups to the pound and McCormick's label agree near the low end; the Shamrock Foodservice spice table is 32% heavier, so the page shows the range and recommends 3.8 g a teaspoon.

Celery salt is fine salt mixed with ground celery seed, sometimes with an anti-caking agent. It is the seasoning on a Chicago-style hot dog and on the rim of a Bloody Mary, and it goes into coleslaw, potato and egg salads, tomato juice, crab and shrimp boils and many seafood seasonings. Most of it is salt: Sainsbury's celery salt lists 23% celery seed and 73 g of salt per 100 g, and Frontier Co-op's lists sea salt first, then ground celery seed.

Frontier Co-op counts 2.5 cups of its celery salt to the pound, 181.4 g a cup or 3.8 g a teaspoon. McCormick's label gives a quarter teaspoon as 0.9 g, 3.6 g a teaspoon, close to Frontier; a quarter teaspoon rounded to a tenth of a gram can be 5% off either way, so it is listed without a figure. The Shamrock Foodservice spice table gives 5.7 teaspoons of celery salt to the ounce of weight, 238.7 g a cup, 5 g a teaspoon. The spread is 32%, past the 10% this site allows for spices, so the page shows the range and recommends Frontier's 181.4 g, the figure that agrees with McCormick's jar.

There is no USDA record for celery salt, and King Arthur Baking's chart has no celery salt row.

The physical check: celery salt should weigh between its two parts. Table salt weighs 292 g a cup on this site, and the Shamrock table puts ground celery seed at 113 g. A blend of about three parts salt to one part celery seed by weight, as in Sainsbury's, would weigh about 210 g a cup if the two simply shared the space. Fine powders and small crystals pack into each other's gaps, which pushes a fine blend heavier, toward the Shamrock figure. A coarser salt, or more celery seed, pushes it lighter, toward Frontier's sea-salt blend and McCormick's jar. Both ends of the range are blends a cook can buy.

Because it is mostly salt, celery salt pours and levels like salt, so one level spoonful is much like the next within a brand; the differences are between brands.

Practical guidance: use 3.8 g per teaspoon of celery salt, 11 g per tablespoon and about 180 g per cup for a supermarket jar, and up to 5 g a teaspoon for a fine foodservice blend. Celery salt is about three quarters salt by weight, so cut the recipe's other salt when you use it. To make your own, mix three parts fine salt with one part ground celery seed by weight, which is a little more salt than celery seed by volume.