Can Salt Really Prevent Oil From Splattering?

There's a whole universe of kitchen hacks floating around online, with salt-in-the-pan definitely being intriguing upon first reading. Basically, some people swear a pinch of salt stops hot oil from popping all over your stove, which sounds great in theory because the reasons why oil splatters and spits usually come down to tiny bits of moisture reacting with heat. So I decided to take it for a test spin by heating a decent pour of oil in a cast-iron skillet until it shimmered then tossing in a small pinch of salt. At first, nothing dramatic happened. The oil still hissed when I dropped a stray water droplet in, but it wasn't as explosive as it could have been. The splatter was there but quieter. I threw in some vegetables and I could see that the salt wasn't stopping anything but it was slowing down the chaos a little.

But here's the catch: the wetter the food was, the less salt did. The carrot sticks cooked nicely but the minute I threw in some bell peppers, the spluttering started. Plus, overcrowding the pan seemed to make the hack even more useless. So, while it wasn't a miracle, it made making my stir fry ever so slightly less dramatic which doesn't count for nothing.

My conclusion was that salt is not magic (because it won't stop oil from reacting to water altogether) but it can break up some of the tiny bubbles forming at the surface and so using it will be better than not using it. But even so, moisture still runs the show so if you're frying off things with high water content, expect some splashes and spits. And the oil's smoke point matters too, because oil that gets too hot will become unstable and will probably spit no matter how much salt you add. 

In my kitchen, the salt seemed to make the biggest difference when I'd already done the other work of patting the vegetables dry, not crowding too many together in the pan and keeping the heat at a reasonable cooking level. The truth is, those steps may have fixed most of the splattering before the salt even had a chance. If you seriously hate splatter, there are even tools you can utilize to avoid getting oil splatter on you, like a pair of kitchen tongs. Most will probably find that those dedicated tools are more practical than any sprinkle of seasoning ever will be. So yes, the hack can make a difference but just not in any magical, change-your-life way.