A GUIDE TO EDIBLE SEAWEED
Seaweed isn't one ingredient. It's hundreds of species across three broad groups, and they taste as different from each other as spinach does from a mushroom. Some are sweet, some smoky, some barely taste of anything and are used for texture alone.
This guide covers the seaweeds worth knowing — what they are, what they taste like, and how they're used in cooking.
Green Seaweeds
The mildest group. Fresh, grassy, lightly briny — the easiest place to start if seaweed is new to you.
- Aonori — the fine green flakes scattered over okonomiyaki and takoyaki. Savoury and clean, used as a finishing seasoning.
- Sea Lettuce — delicate, translucent, faintly grassy. Good raw in salads.
- Gutweed — bright green tubular fronds, common on British shores. Crisps well.
Brown Seaweeds
The umami group. Brown seaweeds carry the most savoury depth, which is why they underpin stocks and broths across Japanese and Korean cooking.
- Sugar Kelp — Britain's answer to kombu. Sweet, deeply savoury, the backbone of a good stock.
- Laminaria Digitata (Oar Weed) — broad-bladed kelp from the low-tide zone. Strong flavour, high in iodine.
- Bull Kelp — large Pacific kelp with a hollow stipe. Often pickled.
- Alaria — Britain's native wakame equivalent. Mild, slightly sweet, tender cooked.
- Sea Spaghetti — long strands that behave like pasta. Blanch and dress, or add to soups.
- Wrack — the bladder-popping seaweed of every British beach. Briny and mineral.
- Sargassum — free-floating Atlantic seaweed, eaten in parts of East and Southeast Asia.
Red Seaweeds
The most varied group in flavour — from smoky to peppery to sweet.
- Dulse — salty and smoky. Fried dulse is often compared to bacon.
- Pepper Dulse — small, intense, genuinely peppery. Sometimes called the truffle of the sea.
- Laver — the seaweed behind Welsh laverbread, and a close relative of Japanese nori. Sweet and nutty.
- Sea Noodles — fine red strands used in East Asian cooking.
Is Any Seaweed Poisonous?
Very few. Seaweed is unusual among wild food in having almost no genuinely toxic species — there's no seaweed equivalent of the death cap. A handful of species in tropical and subtropical waters are best avoided, but the vast majority of the world's seaweeds are safe to eat.
Some are simply unpleasant rather than dangerous. Desmarestia stores sulphuric acid in its tissues and turns sour once out of the water — it won't harm you, but it will spoil anything harvested alongside it. Unpalatable and poisonous are different things, and the two get confused often.
More on this in our guide to whether seaweed can be poisonous.
Why Seaweed Tastes Savoury
Seaweed is one of the original sources of umami — the savoury depth that makes a dish taste complete. Brown seaweeds in particular build body and roundness without meat or fish. That's the principle behind Sozyë's sauces, brewed from a blend of wild Scottish seaweeds harvested off the north coast of Scotland.
More on Seaweed
- Edible Seaweed in the UK — the species found around the British coast, and how to forage them
- What Is Laverbread? — Wales' traditional seaweed dish
- Is Any Seaweed Poisonous? — what's safe and what isn't
- What Is Umami? — the savoury fifth taste, explained
Seaweed has been a source of savoury flavour for centuries. Sozyë's sauces are brewed from a blend of wild Scottish seaweeds, harvested off the north coast of Scotland.