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Land is considered as the life‐sustaining platform for food and water. However, there are contaminants such as salt, heavy metal, and industrial waste that decrease land fertility, posing serious threat to sustainable agriculture. In recent years, novel crop varieties with improved tolerance against environmental contaminants have been developed, but most of them face severe yield penalty. Alternatively, naturally tolerant plants such as extremophiles can be screened for their potential as crops. These crops should be tolerant to various abiotic stresses, perform better under extreme conditions and produce higher biomass and yield. In view of this, the present review focuses on the effects of saline soil on plants and how a class of plants termed as “halophytes” can tolerate high levels of salt. The potential applications of halophytes in phytoremediation, desalination, secondary metabolite production, medicine, food, and …