The Plant-based Umami Heaven

Its not the meat most people crave they might well be craving umami. People who start eating vegan but then falls of the green wagon sometimes blame their cravings for protein, aged cheeses or meat. In general when people make the shift to a plant-based diet people lack knowledge about how to bring the umami into their new lifestyle.

Umami is a Japanese word for delicious. The good news is there are many plant-based umami foods, some of which taste very similar to what people are used to eat before shifting to a plant-based lifestyle. First of all adding spices to your plants-based foods can make a plant-based meal much more fun & filling. Remember back when you ate a lot of meat, one of the first thing you did when you wanted to cook it was to grease it in bbq sauce, salt/pepper, sugar and/or in other tasty spices. You can do the same thing to all plants.

To deliver high quality & tasty dishes, we first need to understand what Umami is. This word is properly used more than people actually know what it is. Umami is a high level of glutmate in food products and that is what our taste receptors recognise as a delicious taste. Glutamate is also known as glutamic acid. Some foods have a high level naturally, but it can also come from fermentation of food. Glutamic acid is an α-amino acid that is used by almost all living beings in the biosynthesis of proteins.

a mouth watery of a creamy soup — Miso Soup / Photo by Ponyo Sakana on Pexels.com

Nearly every region has a fermented product, which makes this process understandable for most people. All fermented food delivers an unique amount of umami. Fermentation is a important player in the plant-based kitchen. Long time ago farmers from Korea learned that salt could be used to preserve their harvests over the cold winter months, this is what started the kimchi hype. Kimchi is fermented cabbage, mostly made from napa cabbage. There is a million recipes online.

Miso is a fermented paste that adds a salty umami flavour to many Japanese dishes. Most Miso paste’s a cultured mixture of soybeans, a type of grain, salt, and koji (a mold). Depending on the variety, miso can be smooth or chunky and is fermented anywhere from a few weeks to several years. Koji grown on partially or fully cooked grains, such as rice and barley. You can use miso in dressing, soups, sauces or in a marinade.

Soy Sauce & Tamari is a Japanese sauce made from fermented soybeans. You can use this instead of regular salt. You can also add these in soups, stews, marinades, stir-fries & as a dip.

The umami flavour of nutritional yeast is a great alternative to cheeses like Parmesan. Using this in recipes makes your food hits a balanced tast. It supports many regular spices giving in the typical kitchen. Nutritional yeast is a easy and quick way to solve lack of umami in a sauces or even in a dressing.

fresh organic onions and garlic in square pot — Onion & Garlic / Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

All mushrooms are a rich source of umami and the darker the mushroom the more umami it contains. You can bake or fry them to bring out more umami. Dried mushrooms tend to have more umami than fresh ones.

Have you ever thought why there is onion in so many recipes? This is because the onion has a high glutamic acid, and therefore brings your dish umami.

Of the many plant foods that provide umami in western tradition is the wellknown tomato. Tomatoes contain high levels of the umami provider glutamic acid, and as the fruit ripens these levels increase. Fried, baked & sun-dried tomatoes together with salt will give your dish what it needs.