Anchovies taste so salty because most of the ones in tins or jars are heavily salt-cured for months, not just lightly seasoned like many other fish products.

Quick Scoop

  • Anchovies are usually preserved by packing them in layers of salt, which pulls out moisture and stops bad bacteria from growing, so they stay safe to eat for a long time.
  • During this long curing (often 6–12 months), the salt penetrates deeply, concentrates as water leaves, and the fish’s proteins break down into super-strong umami compounds, so you taste intense salt and savoriness in every tiny piece.
  • Other products like sardines are commonly canned in oil, water, or a mild brine and heat-sterilized, so they don’t need nearly as much salt and therefore taste much less salty.

A bit more detail

  • Anchovies are small and thin, so there’s a lot of surface area in contact with salt, which lets the curing brine soak in much more than with larger fish.
  • The high oil content in anchovies makes them spoil quickly, so producers rely on very strong salting instead of just smoking or simple canning, which is why classic anchovy fillets are “salt bombs” by design.

TL;DR: Anchovies are so salty not because of the fish itself, but because traditional anchovy fillets are long, hard salt-cured to preserve them and boost umami, packing a huge amount of salt into a very small bite.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.