Salt doesn't just add flavor, it reveals the flavor already there

Nosrat's foundational claim about salt is that its main function isn't to make food taste salty but to intensify and clarify flavors that are already present in an ingredient, essentially making food taste more like itself. This happens partly through basic chemistry: salt draws moisture out of cells through osmosis, which concentrates flavor compounds and makes them more perceptible, and partly through how salt interacts with our taste receptors to suppress bitterness while enhancing perceived sweetness and other flavors. She encourages cooks to season in layers throughout the cooking process rather than only at the end, since salt added early has time to penetrate and transform an ingredient from within, producing more even seasoning than salt sprinkled only on the surface right before serving. Under-salted food, in her framework, isn't missing a separate salty taste — it's failing to be fully itself. Takeaway: salt's job is to unlock an ingredient's existing flavor, not to add a flavor of its own.