There's a formula behind these iconic NYC eats

If you ask Samin Nosrat (above), the world’s most delicious dishes break down into four mouthwatering elements: salt, fat, acid and heat. And that formula applies to everything from fine dining to food-truck fare.

“We are biologically programmed to want these [four] things,” the 38-year-old tells The Post. Her Netflix food and travel series “Salt Fat Acid Heat” — based on the James Beard Awardwinning cookbook of the same name — premieres Thursday.

Nosrat, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., and travels to New York as often as once a month, says she cracked her culinary code in the early 2000s during an apprenticeship at the famed restaurant Chez Panisse. There, she says she had a “lightbulb moment,” in which she realized everything on the menu boasted the same quartet of key qualities.

Her favorite Big Apple grub is no different, she says. When she’s not dining at Via Carota in the West Village or stocking up on Middle Eastern essentials at Sahadi’s (“I’ve finally become a person who always has a MetroCard in my wallet,” she says), you can probably find Nosrat scarfing down one of the following. Here, she explains how salt, fat, acid and a just-right blast of heat make these dishes so irresistible.

Junior’s cheesecake

This dessert’s creamcheese base is subtly acidic, explains Nosrat, and the salt in the crumbly graham-cracker crust is a perfect complement. Baked slowly in a water bath, the cheesecake emerges with a silky, ultrarich texture that takes the ideal serving size from sliver to slab.

Lucali pizza

“The ultimate salt, fat, acid, heat,” Nosrat says of Brooklyn’s coveted wood-oven pie. Fatty cheese bubbles with salt and tang; acid in the tomato sauce makes it sing. A superheated stint in the oven creates a crust that’s “not too chewy and perfectly blistered.”

Russ and Daughters’ lox bagel

Nosrat says these classic New York bagels — made by boiling, then baking — get their lip-smacking cred from a “golden chewy crust that completely contrasts [with] the center.” Piling on rich, tangy cream cheese and briny lox? “Brilliant,” she says.

Mamoun’s Falafel

While these crispy, flavor-packed chickpea balls check a lot of boxes on their own, Nosrat says a great falafel sandwich is “all about the yummy, creamy, tangy toppings.” She likes hers layered with fatty tahini sauce, salty pickles and cabbage.