Four Fresh Ways to Cook with Japanese Seaweed

If you have a packet of nori seaweed lying about in your pantry, don’t let this Japanese superfood go to waste. Japanese seaweed comes in many forms, including those dried sheets of dark green, salty goodness, plus delicate flakes of wakame seaweed and dried tendrils of hijiki seaweed. Find out how this versatile gift from the sea adds a savoury umami flavour to a range of recipes, with four fresh ways to cook with Japanese seaweed.

Sushi

More than any other recipe, nori seaweed is synonymous with sushi rolls, so why not put your nori to good use by whipping up a batch of Japanese California rolls?

Salads

We love watching wakame seaweed come to life when you soak the dried pieces in a bowl of water. Add these silky, delicate leaves to an easy soba noodle salad or your classic miso soup.

Garnishing

Nori also works a charm as a garnish. To create slender matchsticks of nori, simply cut your nori sheet into four long strips, stack the strips on top of each other, then quickly snip at 2mm intervals with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Soups

Warm up from the inside out with a restorative Japanese soup this autumn. You can use either wakame or hijiki seaweed your udon soup with tofu and seaweed—or why not try both for an added hit of texture, iodine, and saline flavour?