Hetty McKinnon’s Seaweed Lettuce Salad

This is a green salad like you’ve never tasted before. The star of the show is kombu, a type of seaweed often enjoyed in East Asia but easy to find in the US

What’s in Seaweed Salad

Kombu becomes tender and silky after cooking and rehydrating, but still retains a crisp bite. It is a salad ingredient with savory flavors and pleasant textures

The crunchy lettuce adds freshness — I like red oak or butter lettuce for its creamy finish, but any leafy greens will do here. Iceberg lettuce would add a more pronounced crunch, while a peppery leaf like arugula would provide another layer of flavor. A raw shredded cabbage would also be a worthy substitute.

A perfectly just-ripened avocado provides a buttery backdrop that brings the kombu and salad together in one happy union. If you want a richer salad, you can add a tangle of rice or mung bean noodles.

Spicy sesame dressing

The spicy sesame dressing is a workhorse that’s perfect not only in this salad but in many others as well. It’s sweet, savory and tangy, with a tart note from the rice vinegar and is the perfect powerful antidote to the softer leaves.

This dressing also pairs well with a cold soba noodle salad or even grilled veggies.

Is Seaweed Good For You?

Seaweed is considered by many to be the future of nutrition. As the world’s most sustainable food, it is zero-input, meaning it requires no freshwater, fertilizer, forage, or farmland to thrive. It readily absorbs dissolved nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon dioxide straight from the sea and multiplies at a phenomenal rate – it can grow up to 2.5 cm per day.

Aside from its sustainability characteristics, seaweed is also very nutritious — it also contains more calcium than milk, more vitamin C than orange juice, and more protein than soybeans. In fact, fish does not naturally produce omega-3 fatty acids; You get these nutrients by eating seaweed.

Aside from their environmental and environmental superpowers, seaweed is also delicious. In 1908, Tokyo Imperial University chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda identified the glutamic acid in kombu seaweed as umami, the elusive fifth taste that makes food more delicious.

Aside from sushi and toasted snacks, seaweed is an ingredient that can easily become a common staple, as is the case in Japan and many other Asian countries.

Types of Algae and Where to Find Them

There are many types of edible seaweed – wakame and kombu are both great for salads as they absorb flavor like a sponge.

With a distinctive black and shredded texture, hijiki is great for stir-fries or served cold in a salad. Add a stick of kombu to your soup to deepen the flavor, or gently simmer with water for 10 minutes for a quick dashi.

Seaweed is most commonly sold dried, and you can easily find it in Asian markets, at Whole Foods, or online, although there are now a few companies that sell the highest quality fresh frozen seaweed, grown in the clear, frigid waters of Maine .

In this seaweed salad recipe I use kombu (kelp), but you can also use wakame or hijiki.

About To Asia With Love

To Asia with Love draws heavily on the blending of Eastern and Western cultures to capture light, healthy and vibrant Asian dishes that are rooted in tradition, but not tied to it. The book’s author, Hetty McKinnon, a mother of three, has written a cookbook for families who want to cook incredible meals every night of the week without feeling upset. Quite simply: this book makes cooking fun.

More recipes from Hetty McKinnon, author of To Asia with Love

• Flourless Soy Sauce Brownie
• Grilled cabbage with peanut sauce