Add These Japanese Ingredients To Your Tomato Sauce For A Total Umami Boost

If pasta with red sauce is a go-to meal for you, you might say, "Been there, done that," to even the most clever ways to fix bland marinara sauce. To cure your fatigue, turn to Japanese miso – an aged, savory paste made of fermented soybeans — and dried nori seaweed. These powerful ingredients create the most umami-packed sauce you've ever tasted.

Miso comes in tons of varieties, and the mild white (Shiro) style can play a subtle but brilliant role in pasta sauce, enhancing the umami and sweetness in the tomatoes without overpowering them. It's similar to how salt brings out the innate taste of ingredients, but miso adds complex, aged, winey notes. Meanwhile, nori and other types of edible seaweed are one of nature's richest sources of umami-tasting, flavor-enhancing glutamate amino acids. The same crispy black nori sheets you find on your sushi can be toasted and blended into a fine powder that mixes into sauces seamlessly, adding a briny flavor and mild aroma of the sea.

Miso and nori can be potent, especially in combination, so start with small amounts. For the miso, 1½ to 2 tablespoons is a good bet, but if you're making a bigger pot of sauce, you can go up to ¼ cup. As for the seaweed, start with 1 teaspoon and work up gradually until you detect a slight oceanic flavor. To avoid saline overload, always taste your sauce before adding more miso, nori, or extra salt.

Once you come to love tomato sauce with miso and nori, get creative with how you combine the three. Firstly, learn about three popular types of miso and how to use them. Yellow (Shinshu) and red (aka) miso are more intense than white, so use them in smaller amounts or in more robust sauces. Yellow miso plus nori could add an earthy dimension to spicy arrabbiata sauce. For an invigorating twist, replace the traditional red pepper flakes with shichimi togarashi, the Japanese spice blend that deserves a place in your kitchen. The mix already contains nori, in addition to chili powder, yuzu peel, and other addictive seasonings.

Potently salty, rich red miso can make punchy puttanesca with olives, capers, and anchovies even more savory and satisfying. Just make sure to reduce these salty ingredients to make room for the soybean paste. If you're cooking for vegetarians, you can use miso and nori to replace the anchovies in any sauce recipe, as the combo provides a similar briny ocean flavor.

On the other hand, if you're a total seafood fiend, grab some tinned clams – the canned seafood you should be adding to tomato sauce – and pair them with just a little white miso and plenty of ground nori. For a final hit of seaweed goodness, crush a sheet of nori into small flakes and sprinkle it onto your finished pasta as a crispy garnish.