Umami Seasoning
Umami is a relatively new concept in the West, but in Japan, where the taste was first identified over a century ago, it's long been an essential dimension of cooking. Simply replacing plain salt with this Umami Seasoning Salt will amplify the savory taste in any dish you cook. This easy way to make any dish taste more delicious has made this an indispensable ingredient in my pantry.
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Why This Recipe Works
- By taking advantage of the synergy of ingredients rich in glutamate and GMP, this umami seasoning blend creates more umami than the sum of its parts.
- Grinding the ingredients into a fine powder and mixing them with salt makes it easy to use this all-purpose seasoning in almost anything as a substitute for plain salt.
Ingredients for Umami Seasoning
- Konbu - Konbu is the Japanese word for kelp. It's also spelled "kombu" in many parts of the world. Its scientific name is Macrocystis, and it's very different than nori or other edible seaweeds. It's thick and has a leathery texture when wet. In Japan, it's harvested, dried, and aged to make soup stocks such as dashi. It makes such a potent addition to this umami seasoning because konbu is a rich source of an amino acid called glutamate. Not all konbu is the same, so if you can find it, I highly recommend using konbu from the Rausu area of Hokkaido, Japan. The konbu from this region is thicker and has a very meaty flavor that works well in this seasoning salt.
- Dried Shiitake Mushroom - Mushrooms contain a nucleic acid called guanosine monophosphate (GMP). Dried shiitake mushrooms are a particularly rich source of GMP, with a much higher nucleic acid concentration than fresh shiitakes. You can find dried shiitakes in Asian grocery stores, and you may even find ground shiitakes in health food stores. If you can't find dried shiitake mushrooms, other dried mushrooms like porcini are another excellent alternative.
- Salt - There's no need to get fancy here. I used regular table salt, but you could do this with kosher salt, sea salt, or finishing salts like fleur de sel. You could also omit the salt and just use the umami powder on its own, but I find it more convenient to mix this with salt because you can substitute this one ingredient into any recipe. The umami powder alone(without the salt) tends to clump up in a humid area, so if you don't plan to mix it with salt, I recommend storing the powder with a desiccant to keep it from caking.
How to Make Umami Seasoning Salt
The first thing you need to do is turn the konbu and dried shiitake mushrooms into powder. One option is to break them into small pieces and add them to a spice grinder, blender, or food processor. Then you can run the machine until you have a fine powder. Another option is to use a stone mortar and pestle. If you're finding larger pieces left after grinding, pass the powder through a mesh strainer and return the large pieces to the grinder for a second round.
Once you have a very fine powder, you can just stir the umami powder with the salt to make the seasoning salt. If you plan to use the salt to sprinkle on foods like popcorn, potato chips, or French fries, you may want to grind the granules of salt into a finer powder as well to help it stick better.
As long as you keep the salt at room temperature in a cool, dry place, the seasoning salt will last for years (but hopefully, you'll find so many uses for it, that you'll use it all up in a matter of weeks).
Variations on Umami Seasoning Salt
I like to keep this seasoning salt neutral so that it can be used in various dishes, but you can mix in other herbs and spices to transform it into a variety of different spice blends with boatloads of umami flavor. Here are just a few ideas:
- Curry - Mix in some curry powder.
- Italian seasoning - Add some black pepper, garlic powder, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, and thyme.
- Lemon Pepper - Add dried lemon zest and black pepper
- Taco Seasoning - Add some chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper.
How to use Umami Seasoning
This Umami Seasoning Salt can be used in any savory dish as a substitute for regular salt. Shake it on steaks, veggies, chicken, pork, hamburgers, or salmon. Add it to soups, sauces, stews or rice. Sprinkle it on salads, eggs, broccoli, or potatoes. Or use it as a condiment on snacks such as nuts, popcorn, or avocado toast. It also works great in the recipes below:
FAQ
Umami is the fifth taste that's often referred to as savory, alongside salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. Humans have taste receptors in our mouths that can sense the presence of certain amino acids and nucleic acids in foods that we eat, and they register in our brains as umami. If you want to learn more about umami, check out my What is Umami post.
This Umami Seasoning is a seasoned salt that includes ingredients rich in glutamate and GMP. This results in a synergy that gives any food you season with this salt the rich flavor of umami. A couple companies are making packaged seasonings that combine a variety of umami-rich ingredients to make umami powder (like Trader Joe's Umami Seasoning), but it's super easy to make at home with this recipe.
You can use this umami salt as a 1:1 substitute for salt in any recipe. Since the other ingredients displace some of the salt, you'll end up with less salt in your food, but it will still be flavorful, thanks to the boost in umami. If you feel like the food is not sufficiently salted, just add a little extra seasoning.
I can't vouch for commercially available seasoning blends, but this recipe is vegan and vegetarian friendly, as well as gluten-free.
📖 Recipe
Units
Ingredients
- 5 grams konbu
- 3 grams dried shiitake mushrooms (stems removed)
- 150 grams salt (~½ cup)
Instructions
- Break the konbu and shiitake mushrooms into small pieces and add them to a spice grinder, blender, or food processor. Run until the ingredients have been ground into a fine powder.
- Pour the mixture into a bowl with the salt and mix to combine.
- Store the umami seasoning salt in a sealed container.
tammy says
I made this last night for my homemade Ramen and my husband and son loved the new addition! I didn't have konbu so I used dulse flakes and reduced the salt significantly (20g dulse, 12g dried organic shiitake mushrooms, 40g salt). They said even with this reduction, it was salty & delicious. I placed all ingredients in vitamix and it pulverized it to a fine powder. Thank you so much for this! As a vegan, this is an easy way to add B12, iodine, iron & potassium to my diet.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Tammy, I'm happy to hear you and your family enjoyed it so much! Hopefully you find a lot of uses for it!
DJ says
Insanely good condiment, Marc! Proportions are so spot-on. I had trouble finding a sufficiently dry kombu here to break up properly in the food processor, so I put some of my nice local brand in the air-fryer for about 3 minutes at 140C, which did the trick. Machines vary so check it frequently so it doesn't brown (like my first attempt). Much obliged again. I think I'll be using this every day until kingdom come =)
Marc Matsumoto says
Glad to hear you liked this. It's a staple in our household. Good call on drying the konbu. I hadn't even thought of this, but we tend to get big packs of konbu that go dry over time, but I guess it has a higher moisture content when it's first opened. Glad you were able to find a solution!
Jane says
Hi Marc,
I tried your shiitake konbu salt, it has become a versatile condiment in my kitchen now. Thank you for your generosity in sharing this great recipe.
May l seek your expertise in making shiitake & konbu powder seasonings? What should be the ratio for shiitake and konbu, sugar, Himalayan salt and nutritional yeast flakes if l want to have all these ingredients added in?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Jane, I'm happy to hear you've been enjoying this! As for a powdered seasoning, it kinda depends on how you want to use it, but you may want to powderize each ingredient separately and then blend them a spoonful at a time until you have a mix you're happy with (make sure to weigh the amount of each thing you add so you can make it again and scale it up). Here's a nutritional yeast and shiitake based seasoning for another point of reference: https://norecipes.com/vegan-parmesan-cheese/
Brian says
I have been unsuccessful in getting Konbu, would this be possible using something like dashi powder or would that be too fishy/salty ?. Also could you put some blitzed p chillie flakes to give it a bit of heat ?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Brian, have you tried looking online? If you're in a country with Amazon, they carry it. As for using dashi powder, it would work, but most dashi powder is loaded with MSG so if you're going to use that you may as well just buy MSG and use that instead. As for adding chili flakes, you can certainly add other seasonings like chili, garlic powder, spices etc, but I use this in place of regular salt, so I wanted the most neutral tasting mixture so it has the most versatility.
Rosalie says
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the great blog topic. Can you tell me why you would remove the stems from the shiitake, please?
Rosalie
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Rosalie, The stems are much tougher than the caps and won't turn into a powder as easily. They also sometimes still have growing medium (a.k.a. wood) attached to the base which you don't want in your salt.
Phyllis says
Thank you so much for sharing Marc! I usually buy flavored salt at my local Asian store, so I was ecstatic to see this. Perfect for just about everything, especially homemade ramen, since I don't always have Kombu and shiitake on hand. Just tried it out on homemade chicken soup and it was superb!
Marc Matsumoto says
You're welcome Phyllis, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Great idea using it to season chicken soup!
IzzieK says
I will get into this straight away, Mark. Excellent post! I always enjoy your post. the extra little video in the middle of your post always excites me and I would like t make most of them apart from when I encounter an ingredient that is not really available here in MidWest. USA. Keep up the good work.
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks! I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the video too!
Shan says
Sounds yummy. Made your Japanese pickles. So good.
If I were using kelp powder instead of kombu, how much would I use?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Shan, you can use the gram measurement. It won't make a difference whether it's whole or powdered.