Wakame substitutes

Thin toasted sheets of pressed laver, the seaweed used to wrap sushi rolls and rice balls.

Best for

miso soup, clear soups and ramen, topping rice, noodle bowls

The realistic answer, because a packet of nori is in most kitchens and dried wakame is not. Flavour-wise it is a good stand-in, gently sweet, toasty and briny, and it dissolves its savour straight into the broth. Texture is where it parts company: nori has no structure once wet, so instead of slippery ribbons floating in the bowl you get soft, almost silky shreds that gradually melt into the soup and can look a little ragged. Snip it into wide strips rather than confetti so it holds its shape as long as possible, and add it at the very last second off the heat. In a cold seaweed salad it does not work at all, since it turns to mush in the dressing.

Dried kelp cut into fine threads and sold ready to soak, rather than in whole leathery sheets.

Best for

seaweed salad, miso soup, cold vinegared side dishes, rice cooked with seaweed

The best texture match if your shop has it, and worth asking for by name. Because it is cut thin it hydrates properly and stays in distinct strands, giving you the slippery ribbon quality that a whole kombu sheet never will. It differs in two clear ways: the flavour is markedly stronger and more savoury, since kombu is the most glutamate-rich of the seaweeds, and the strands stay chewier and slightly firmer than wakame's tender give. Soak it a little longer than you would wakame, and if you are also using dashi in the dish, hold back a touch of the miso or soy so the bowl does not turn overpoweringly savoury.

Soft reddish-purple North Atlantic seaweed sold in whole leaves or flakes.

Best for

miso soup, seaweed salad, cold noodle bowls, soups where you want visible strands

An underrated swap that behaves surprisingly like wakame in the bowl: it rehydrates in a few minutes to a tender, pliable leaf that slices into ribbons and stays intact in hot broth. The differences are colour and character. Dulse is reddish-brown rather than jade green, so the soup looks different, and the flavour is saltier, smokier and a little more assertively of the sea, with none of wakame's faint sweetness. In a sesame seaweed salad that saltiness is easy to manage; just pull back on the soy in the dressing.

Black, wiry dried Japanese seaweed sold in short twig-like strands.

Best for

seaweed salad, simmered side dishes, rice bowls, when you want strong seaweed flavour

A real substitute in the sense that it gives you separate visible strands rather than mush, and it is often stocked alongside wakame. It is a very different eating experience: hijiki is jet black, distinctly chewy with a firm bite, and much more strongly mineral and iodine-like, so a miso soup made with it tastes noticeably darker and more insistent. It also needs a long soak and a thorough rinse. Worth knowing that food safety agencies in the UK, Canada and elsewhere advise against eating hijiki regularly because it naturally accumulates more inorganic arsenic than other seaweeds, so treat it as an occasional ingredient rather than a staple, and use wakame, kombu or dulse if you eat seaweed often.

Bright green dried seaweed sold as fine flakes or powder for sprinkling.

Best for

miso soup, finishing soups and noodles, adding seaweed flavour and colour

Choose this when what you actually want is the green colour and the sea-vegetable aroma rather than something to chew. Stirred into a bowl of miso soup it gives a convincingly wakame-ish green fleck and a clean, grassy, briny smell. It contributes essentially no texture at all, so the soup reads as flavoured broth rather than a bowl with something in it. Add it off the heat, because sustained boiling turns the green dull and drives off most of the aroma.

Tender leafy greens, wilted and squeezed dry, standing in for the body of the salad.

Best for

goma wakame style seaweed salad, sesame side salads, cold noodle toppings, kitchens with no seaweed at all

This is the honest fallback when there is no seaweed in the house, and it is better than it sounds because in a sesame seaweed salad most of what you are tasting is the dressing of sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy, sugar and toasted sesame seeds. Blanched spinach, or very thinly sliced cucumber, gives you something cool, soft and slippery to carry it. What is missing is the sea: no brine, no iodine note, and none of that faintly sweet ocean flavour, so the result tastes like a good sesame salad rather than seaweed salad. A pinch of any seaweed flake, or even a few drops of the water from a soaked kombu sheet, closes a surprising amount of the gap.