I just bought a breadmaker. I had heard/read that salt is necessary to make bread. Not for flavor, but for the yeast to react properly. I asked around though, and several people said I could make bread without salt. I just looked at the directions with the breadmaker, and it says salt is necessary. I want to make my own bread because I need to restrict sodium. That's really the only reason I bought the thing. Because I love bread, but have been avoiding it because of the sodium.
So... has anyone tried making bread with little or no salt? Have any recipes, or suggestions? Maybe adjusting the amount of yeast or something?
Also, does anyone know how many mg. of sodium are in one tsp of salt? If I knew how much was in a loaf, I could determine how much I could have. Trouble is, I like bread too much, and won't have just one slice! It's at least half a loaf, or it's nothing!
I'll probably just try it once without salt and see what happens. I was hoping someone had some ideas, though.

EDIT:
A quick search shows 1 tsp = about 2400 mg sodium. WAY more than I can accept. I guess I need a "no sodium" recipe. Lot's of recipes in the book with the breadmaker. Just leave out the salt?

 

The salt in bread recipes is necessary to control or temper the yeast reaction. In my bread machine, for a 1 1/2 pound loaf, recipes vary between 1 and 1 1/2 tsps. That's 2400- 3600mg. sodium for the entire loaf. But i'm sure there's got to be low sodium recipes out there. Usually in comercial bread the sodium content may be higher due to the addition of baking soda and/or baking powder. If you do not use salt you will have run away bread rise. trust me on this, because i dropped my salt container into the sink full of water and had only about 1/4 tsp. in my shaker and used that. had a huge balloon of bread dough with a big air pocket under the crust.
Hope this helps.

 

I will check my wife's recipe books. We bought a bread maker 6 years ago, and we haven't bought another loaf since. Better tasting and no preservatives. We finally got a horizontal machine this year, Oh, Yeah!!!!!!!!

 

The salt is not nessary. The yeast reaction needs sugar not salt. I put a little salt in it for taste then again I usually cook sourdough. I have been doing this for years and never use the amount of sugar or salt that it calls for. I usually start with the reciepe and drop almost all the salt out and then change it to taste

 

Thanks for the replies!
I did find this website with many low sodium recipes:
http://www.lowsodiumcooking.com/free/Archive.htm#breads
I'm going to try the Italian Bread recipe right now. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Whowey, the machine I bought yesterday is "horizontal". I wondered what that meant, I guess the older machines had a "vertical" pan?

 

Well, if anyones interested, I made bread today. I used that no-salt Italian bread recipe. It came out fine. It did not "fall" or have big air pockets like the book said it would. Success!
It was a bit bland, though. That's to be expected with no salt and unsalted butter, I guess. I'm going to try some more recipes.