Wakame substitute

Best substitute

Nori sheets, torn or snipped

Use ½ to 1 sheet for every bowl of soup, in place of 1 tsp dried wakame

Best for miso soup

Different texture

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

Other wakame substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Shredded kombu (kizami kombu)
Different taste
Use the same amount by dry volume, soak 10 to 15 minutes
Dried kelp cut into fine threads and sold ready to soak, rather than in whole leathery sheets.
What changes
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.
3Dulse, soaked and sliced
Different taste
Use the same amount by dry volume, soak 5 minutes
Soft reddish-purple North Atlantic seaweed sold in whole leaves or flakes.
What changes
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.
4Hijiki, soaked
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by dry volume, soak 20 to 30 minutes and rinse well
Black, wiry dried Japanese seaweed sold in short twig-like strands.
What changes
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.
5Sea lettuce or aonori flakes
Different texture
Use 1 tsp flakes for every 1 tsp dried wakame
Bright green dried seaweed sold as fine flakes or powder for sprinkling.
What changes
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.
6Blanched spinach with a sesame dressing (for seaweed salad only)
Different taste
Use About 150 g spinach for every 2 tbsp dried wakame
Tender leafy greens, wilted and squeezed dry, standing in for the body of the salad.
What changes
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.

What is Wakame?

Wakame is a thin green-brown edible seaweed, also called sea mustard, sold dried in small crinkled flakes that swell to roughly ten times their size in water and turn silky, slippery and deep green.

Cooking tips

Respect how much dried wakame swells. A level teaspoon of dried flakes becomes a generous handful, roughly eight to ten times its dry volume, so recipes that call for a tablespoon per person are unusual for good reason. If you are converting the other way, about 1 teaspoon of dried wakame gives you 2 to 3 tablespoons of rehydrated seaweed, and that is the number to match when you measure a substitute.
Soak for five minutes, not fifteen. Wakame hydrates fast in cold or lukewarm water, and once it has softened, extra soaking makes it limp and slimy and leaches out the sweetness. Drain it, give it a gentle squeeze, and if you are making a salad, taste it: if it is salty rather than briny, rinse once in fresh water. Salt-packed wakame from the chilled cabinet always needs rinsing and a soak.
Add seaweed to miso soup at the end, off the heat, along with the miso. Both wakame and every substitute here suffer from boiling: nori disintegrates, aonori fades, and kombu turns the broth bitter and faintly gluey if it is cooked hard. Bring the dashi to a bare simmer, take it off, stir in the miso through a sieve, then add the seaweed and let the residual heat do the rest.
If a rehydrated substitute is tough, look for the rib. Wakame, kombu and dulse all have a thicker central spine that stays chewy while the frilly parts go tender. Slicing that rib out, or at least cutting across it into narrow ribbons, is the difference between a silky mouthful and something that squeaks.
When you swap in a stronger seaweed like kombu or dulse, adjust your salt before you serve. These carry considerably more sodium and more savoury punch than wakame, and both miso soup and sesame dressings are already salty. Add the seaweed first, taste, and only then decide how much miso or soy the dish still needs.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use nori instead of wakame in miso soup?

Yes, and it is the most common fix. Snip half a sheet into wide strips per bowl and drop it in off the heat, right at the end. The flavour lands close to wakame, gently sweet and briny, and it perfumes the broth nicely. The difference is that nori has no backbone once it is wet, so instead of springy green ribbons you get soft shreds that slowly dissolve into the soup. Eat it promptly rather than letting the bowl sit, and do not try the same trick in a cold seaweed salad, where nori simply turns to paste.

Is wakame the same as the seaweed salad from a sushi restaurant?

That salad, usually called goma wakame, is made from wakame, so yes, it is the same seaweed, but it comes seasoned. It has already been dressed with sesame oil, rice vinegar, sugar, soy and sometimes chilli, and it is often dyed a brighter green than wakame naturally is. That makes it a fine substitute for plain rehydrated wakame in a cold dish, as long as you take the seasoning into account and dial back your own dressing. It is a poor choice for miso soup, where the sugar and vinegar will taste out of place in the broth.

Can I use kombu instead of wakame?

Only if it is shredded. A whole kombu sheet is a broth ingredient: you steep it to pull out its glutamate, then take it out, and it stays leathery and chewy no matter how long it cooks. Wakame is the opposite, a seaweed grown thin and tender so that you actually eat it. Shredded kombu, sold as kizami kombu, bridges the gap well because the fine cut lets it hydrate into proper strands. Expect a much more strongly savoury flavour and a firmer chew, and reduce the miso or soy in the dish accordingly.

Can I just leave the wakame out?

In miso soup, yes, without any real harm. The soup's flavour comes from dashi and miso; the wakame is there for slippery texture, a flash of green and a light briny lift. Leave it out and add tofu cubes, sliced spring onion or a few thin rounds of daikon and you have a perfectly good bowl. A seaweed salad is different, because the seaweed is the salad itself, so you need something in its place, whether that is another seaweed or blanched spinach or cucumber with the same sesame dressing.

How much dried wakame equals fresh or salted wakame?

Roughly speaking, 1 teaspoon of dried wakame flakes gives you about 2 to 3 tablespoons once rehydrated, so if a recipe calls for a quarter cup of fresh or salted wakame, about a tablespoon of dried will get you there. Salted wakame needs rinsing under cold water and a short soak to pull the salt out before you use it, and you should taste it before adding any salt or soy to the dish. Dried wakame keeps for a year or more in a sealed bag, which is why it is the form worth having in the cupboard.

Related substitutes

More seafood substitutes

Wakame substitute

Other wakame substitutes

2Shredded kombu (kizami kombu)

3Dulse, soaked and sliced

4Hijiki, soaked

5Sea lettuce or aonori flakes

6Blanched spinach with a sesame dressing (for seaweed salad only)