What Is Salt Bread, or Shio Pan?

Key points

• First seen in Japanese bakeries around 2014, salt bread, also called shio pan, later became a viral hit in Korean cafés.
• Combining elements of croissants and milk bread, this golden-brown loaf is now filling social media feeds throughout the United States and beginning to appear in several US bakeries.
• Every salt bread roll is finished with coarse salt and contains an airy hollow filled with melted butter.

The 21st century has brought a surge of bakery creativity. Content creators and professional bakers have produced countless croissant variations, from the crookie to the Suprême; mochi doughnuts have swept across social media; and pretzel focaccia recipes are everywhere. There has arguably never been a better moment to combine the most appealing features of favourite baked goods into entirely original creations.

Although it is only starting to gain traction in the United States, one bread has spent the past decade building a following in East Asia by uniting the characteristics of two much-loved classics. Salt bread, called “shio pan” in Japanese, pairs a croissant’s buttery taste with the pillowy, delicate texture of milk bread.

Salt bread’s social media rise

In recent months, salt bread has increasingly appeared on Western social media, where creators are teaching viewers how to bake it at home. Videos of the golden-brown rolls, crowned with salt, are instantly enticing: a roll is pulled apart to expose the air pocket at its centre. You may only be encountering it on TikTok at present, but it will probably reach local café counters before long.

Where does salt bread come from?

Most reports place the beginnings of salt bread in Japan’s Ehime Prefecture in about 2014. Though there is disagreement about which bakery created it first, Pain Maison is most often recognised for bringing the roll to wider attention.

Once it had become popular in Japan, shio pan - a term that literally means "salt bread" - travelled to South Korea, where the buttery roll rapidly caught on. During the 2020s, salt bread spread swiftly through Korea’s flourishing café scene, and chains devoted solely to the treat now exist, including Jayeondo Salt Bread.

Finding and baking salt bread

Salt bread is now starting to emerge in the United States, with recently opened food businesses serving it from Childish Bakery in Dallas, Texas, to Justin’s Salt Bread in New York City. While it has not yet become widely available, its expansion follows the route of other East Asian baking trends that have gradually moved from niche interest to the mainstream.

If there is no bakery nearby making fresh batches of crisp, buttery yet soft salt bread, there is no need to worry: dozens of creators are sharing recipes and guidance for baking it at home.

How is salt bread made?

Unlike many dishes currently trending online, shio pan is not something to make up as you go along. A recipe is essential. Plenty of content creators have published their own versions, but it is worth choosing one that shows an understanding of the bread’s underlying science. Baking depends on precision. For instance, trained pastry chef Sue (@littlebbanghouse) has posted a detailed tutorial with measurements in grams - a more accurate approach - as well as visual indicators showing how the dough should appear at each stage of baking.

Salt bread begins with a dough resembling Japanese milk bread. Many recipes, though not every one, use a tangzhong starter - a cooked mixture of flour and water or milk - to keep the bread remarkably soft. The yeasted dough is enriched with milk and butter, flavoured with salt, and baked into a roll with a tender crumb. Yet it is the construction, rather than the ingredients alone, that gives every piece its distinctive character.

For shaping salt bread, portions of the milk-bread-style dough are rolled into long, flat triangles, much as they would be for a traditional croissant. A substantial knob of butter is set at the broad end of each triangle before the dough is rolled up - again, in the manner of a croissant - enclosing and sealing the butter right at the bread’s centre.

While the bread bakes, the butter melts. Its water content turns to steam, forming shio pan’s characteristic air pocket, while the melted fat enriches the dough and creates an especially crisp crust underneath. In keeping with its name, each roll is topped with a generous scattering of coarse salt.