One of the questions we’ve been asked in the past is how we make white salt dough. We’ve pointed readers to our Homemade White Cornflour Clay recipe as this is brilliant white but it does involve cooking so isn’t as child-friendly as classic salt dough recipes are. But, we’ve been playing around with our recipe and have a really simple way of making it white and you can air dry or oven dry the finished articles. So here we go our Easy No-Cook White Salt Dough Recipe to either oven-dry or air dry.

White Salt Dough Recipe
Salt dough because of the plain flour used is traditionally an off white colour and in the past, for snowmen Christmas tree ornaments, we have to use acrylic paints to get them white or use the homemade white clay dough recipe linked above.
But, playing around with our classic recipe a little we’ve managed to produce a bright white salt dough that is great for snowmen ornaments as well as some pretty stamped gift tags.

This salt dough is much drier before you add in the white ingredient this is the exact one that we use as this will add moisture to the dough. It’s also intended for ornaments we have been working on a dough that makes it easy for hand and footprint ornaments with even pets and babies! So watch out for that one to come.
When it comes to drying this salt dough we have tried oven drying and also air drying. Oven drying took us around an hour for our 1/2 cm thick dough to completely dry so wasn’t too long and as we didn’t need to paint afterwards they were ready to go.
We have included links to some of the products and resources we have used with this activity. If you purchase via the links we may earn a small commission.
How to Seal your White Salt Dough Ornaments and Gift Tags
Sealing your ornaments and gift tags will ensure that if you store them and bring them out year on year they won’t disintegrate or soak up moisture.
Simply coat with either PVA glue (white school glue) or use an acrylic sealer like Mod Podge so that the moisture doesn’t get in. Give each side at least one coat and allow to dry thoroughly before turning over.
How to Make White Salt Dough
Equipment
- Bowl
- Rolling Pin
Materials
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1/2 cup table salt
- 1/4-1/2 cups warm water
- white acrylic paint
- greaseproof paper
Instructions
- Place the plain flour and salt in a bowl and mix together
- Add in the warm water and knead.
- If the mixture is too dry then add in a little more water.
- Once kneaded keep the salt dough in the bowl and squirt in some white acrylic paint.
- Knead this together. We added the white paint twice to get the desired whiteness of the salt dough.
- Knead well until the white is thoroughly mixed then place on a surface.
- IMPORTANT – At this point WASH your equipment and hands.
- Roll out to around 1/2cm thick to create your Christmas Ornaments.
- Cut out your desired shapes.
- Place on a lined baking tray.
Oven Drying
- Set the oven to 100C.
- Into the oven for around 1hr. Turn over and check that the ornaments are thoroughly dried if not return and continue drying.
Air Drying
- Leave to dry in a warm dry place for around 12 hours.
Video
Notes

Check out our Salt Dough Gift Tags that we made with this recipe.
Favourite Salt Dough Recipes
We love Salt Dough and have a few favourite recipes that we like to use.

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