Indian seaweed is the ingredient to watch out for

When Giles Knapton, the founder and director of Coco Shambhala, a luxury boutique property in Sindhudurg, Maharashtra, discovered the diversity of seaweed along the Konkan coast, it felt both nostalgic and full of culinary possibilities.

“I grew up eating dulse, a dark-red seaweed, in Ireland, first as a snack and later paired with drinks. Seaweed here reminded me of home, yet presented a new terroir of waters, textures and flavour profiles,” he says.

The team at Coco Shambhala, which opened in 2017, is running trials of risottos, salads, stir-fries and fritters that highlight the natural umami of local seaweed. They’re even trying out a seaweed-infused varan (dal). Some of these kitchen experiments will eventually make it to the menu.

With an approximately 12,000km coastline, India has largely overlooked seaweed as an ingredient, relying instead on imported varieties like nori and wakame from Japan, and gim from South Korea. India has a thriving seaweed economy through agar—a vegan alternative to gelatin widely used in icing, ice creams and marshmallows.

According to data from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, the country’s total seaweed production was 72,385 tonnes in 2023. With the help of marine specialists, entrepreneurs and chefs, India’s ulva and sargassum seaweed species are making their way on to our plates. Chefs and mixologists now prize local seaweed for its versatility and umami, and also for being a climate-smart food.

LITTLE LOCAL LORE

There are more than 800 varieties of seaweed flourishing in the Indian waters, but there is very little recorded of it in regional foodlore. There are fleeting anecdotal mentions, as Arnav Mariwala, the founder and CEO of MariTide, a seaweed cultivation and processing company in Devgad, Maharashtra, found.

“A family from Ratnagiri said they make shaivalachi bhaji with jawla or seaweed with dried shrimp (shaival is Marathi for seaweed/algae and jawla baby shrimp), but we couldn’t verify it with locals,” he says.

“Coastal communities always had an abundance of fresh vegetables and seafood,” says Poornima Somayaji, founder of Aragma restaurant in Pune. “There simply wasn’t a need to look for greens under the ocean.”

The disinterest is perhaps also due to seaweed’s taste, an intense savoury flavour. While the spatoglossum seaweed carries mouth-puckering tartness of a raw mango, dictyota is chewy with bitter notes, and can be used as a supporting ingredient to add contrast and complexity to salads and seafood dishes.

The most common species of edible seaweed in India is sargassum, which is widely available in the Arabian Sea. It is the most popular Indian seaweed genus used by chefs, most commonly for stocks and dashi. Beyond broths, seaweed can also be brined as pickles, seasoned with spices as garnishes, or used with condiments like the Japanese furikake.

American chef Jay Spenard, who hosts private cooking classes in Goa, prepares a dashi made with sargassum and shiitake mushrooms for a mushroom risotto. “Shiitake is already an umami-bomb, but by adding the seaweed to the dashi, there is a subtle oceanic oomph in the risotto,” he explains.

FOOD AND SCIENCE

Mariwala discovered the potential of seaweed in California while studying coastal ecosystems and climate-resilient engineering. Back in India in 2023, he launched MariTide, a regenerative seaweed cultivation startup that is scaling up edible seaweed supply chains with the help of technology. The company annually harvests about two tonnes of ulva, or sea lettuce, from the open sea.

He supplies dehydrated seaweed, priced at ₹800-1,000 for 100g, to restaurants such as Ground Up in Pune, Lovefools in Mumbai and Yazu in Mumbai, Goa and Indore. Mariwala plans to open an online shop in April.

Gabriella D’Cruz, a Goa-based marine conservationist, who founded The Good Ocean in 2022, says seaweed is a nutrient powerhouse and a sustainable ingredient. “Some species of seaweed can have up to 30-40% protein content, which is comparable to soy. These species can be selectively harvested if vegan protein is the goal,” she adds.

Her dehumidifying drying technique locks in all the nutrients and keeps the dehydrated seaweed shelf stable for two years. The Good Ocean has collaborated with Atmosphere Studio, a Delhi-based kombucha and vegan snacks brand, to create almond flour seaweed crackers, inspired by the Japanese seasoning furikake, combining sesame, garlic, chilli, and local sargassum.

Both Mariwala and D’Cruz are working with chefs to create dishes that highlight the umami-rich, earthy flavour of local seaweed. D’Cruz also conducts workshops for chefs and food enthusiasts. She recently partnered with Goa’s Bar Outrigger for a workshop, where the bar team made three cocktails with seaweed.

Arijit Bose, co-founder of Bar Outrigger, says: “We used Gabriella’s seaweed furikake as a component in our Picante and Punch. The Picante worked with the spices in the furikake, while the pineapple juice in the Punch worked very well with the seaweed salt.”

ON THE MENU

Seaweed has the potential to be the next soy sauce, a flavour that deeply impacts our palates, believes Sarita Pereira, chief executive chef at Mumbai’s Lovefools restaurant. She is preparing to relaunch her chef’s table this month, for which she plans to create a dish with local seaweed sourced from MariTide.

For his monsoon menu in 2024, Amit Ghorpade, head chef of Aragma in Pune, was inspired by the Kolhapuri pandhra rassa. The restaurant is known for its progressive Indian food using everyday ingredients.

“Pandhra rassa is all about umami for me,” he says. “It has no chillies, and the flavour comes from sesame, fresh coconut, poppy seeds, ginger and garlic. The umami of the seaweed was a natural fit in the dish, quite similar to how you would use it in ramen.” Ghorpade served the pandhra-style broth with masoor dal and chicken meatballs.

In another seafood-themed menu, he concluded the meal with a dessert starring Indian seaweed from The Good Ocean. “It was a watermelon and strawberry dessert where I had used sargassum seaweed in a pickle form.” In both the dishes, Ghorpade married flavours of the land and the sea seamlessly.

Gayatri Desai, the chef and founder of Pune’s Ground Up restaurant, is also working on a seaweed miso that she will launch on the restaurant’s e-shop in the next few weeks. It was during a R&D trip with Mariwala in Devgad last November that the two discussed the best ways to integrate the sweet funk of miso and the delicate umami notes of seaweed.

Desai has been experimenting with the seaweed miso in desserts and salads, and will introduce it in her tasting menus. “How you want to use local seaweed is a long journey to understand what works and what does not,” she says. Some varieties are delicate enough for salads, while others are so hardy that they can just be simmered into soups.

Her experiments have led her to infuse seaweed into tamari or soy sauce. “I recently discovered that one of the seaweed varieties has a flavour similar to matcha, when we were trying to make different teas with rice,” she adds.

For Knapton, Indian seaweed tends to be “naturally sweeter and milder compared to Irish varieties.” The warmer waters of the Konkan coast give it a softer texture and a delicate, briny flavour, making it lighter and more approachable for diners.

Perhaps one of the first chefs to experiment with the local genus is Varun Totlani of Mumbai’s Masque restaurant. A free-diving excursion in Goa with D’Cruz in 2023 led to a culinary revelation for him. He tinkered in the lab-like restaurant kitchen to create dishes that made the sea foliage a star on the plate.

In the same year, he served Seaweed and Ponkh Bhel, a salad of cucumber, green tomato and raw mango tossed with onion in an apple and green chilli chutney, topped with pickled seaweed, crispy ponkh, tender roasted sorghum and crushed seaweed.

Totlani’s tasting menus often spotlight a variety of seaweed—ulva and sargassum from The Good Ocean. The biggest challenge, according to him, is that it is a delicate ingredient and “building a consistent supply chain to get it from the coast to the kitchen while it is still fresh, takes a lot of time and effort.”

He also lists perception as a hurdle, where vegetarians instinctively compare the taste to seafood. Last year, at Bar Paradox, the sister bar of Masque, he served sea grapes as a final touch on his barramundi ceviche with raw mango, radish and charred avocado and agua chile. The salinity and acidity worked in tandem on the palate.

Indian seaweed has the potential to become the next big ingredient in dining, thanks to its deep umami flavour, strong nutritional value and sustainable nature.

As chefs, mixologists and marine conservationists do their bit, limited supply and lack of infrastructure restrict wider adoption. Reliable year-round access can transform this coastal gem into a premium staple on modern Indian tables.

Sayoni Bhaduri is a lifestyle journalist based in Mumbai.