Umami: What It Is, Glutamate, Ingredients and Cooking Tips
Umami is the fifth basic taste, next to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. You taste it as a full, savory, brothy flavor caused by the compounds glutamate, inosinate and guanylate, for example in broth, aged cheese, tomatoes, soy sauce or dried mushrooms.
Where the term comes from
In 1908 the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda studied in Tokyo why dashi made from kombu tastes so savory. He isolated glutamic acid from the seaweed and called the taste umami (うま味), roughly “delicious taste”. His student Shintaro Kodama found inosinate in dried bonito flakes in 1913. In 1957 Akira Kuninaka discovered guanylate in shiitake and showed that the compounds boost each other. Ikeda patented his process, and as early as 1909 glutamate went on sale in Japan as a seasoning powder.
For a long time Western science counted only four basic tastes. In the early 2000s researchers identified separate receptors for glutamate on the tongue. Since then umami has counted as a taste of its own.
Glutamate, inosinate and guanylate
- Glutamate is the salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid. Bound in protein you can't taste it. It is free only once ripening, fermentation, drying or long cooking break the protein down. A lot of free glutamate is in kombu, ripe tomatoes, Parmesan, soy sauce, miso and fish sauce.
- Inosinate is found in meat and fish, and in large amounts in bonito flakes, anchovies and dried sardines.
- Guanylate is found mainly in dried shiitake. Drying and soaking raise the content.
If you combine glutamate with inosinate or guanylate, the result tastes clearly more savory than the sum of its parts. Japanese cooking has used this effect for centuries: an Awase dashi combines kombu (glutamate) with bonito flakes (inosinate). The vegan version, Shiitake dashi, pairs kombu with dried shiitake (guanylate). In Europe, bolognese follows the same principle with tomato, meat and Parmesan.
Ingredients rich in umami
| Ingredient | Umami compound | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Kombu | glutamate | for broths, soak in cold water, don't boil hard |
| Bonito flakes | inosinate | in dashi, as a topping on okonomiyaki |
| Dried shiitake | guanylate | soak, use the soaking water too |
| Soy sauce, miso, doenjang | glutamate | in marinades, soups, dressings |
| Fish sauce | glutamate | by the drop in sauces and dressings |
| Oyster sauce | glutamate | in the wok at the end |
| Parmesan, ripe tomatoes, tomato paste | glutamate | in sauces, soups, braises |
| Anchovies, meat broth | inosinate, glutamate | as a base for sauces and soups |
Nori, dried shrimp, kimchi and air-dried ham also deliver umami. Keep allergens in mind: fish sauce, bonito flakes and anchovies contain fish, and oyster sauce contains mollusks. Soy sauce and miso contain soy and often wheat.
How to use umami in cooking
- Cook with broth instead of water. Dashi or a strong broth gives soups, braises and rice a savory base. Even a piece of kombu in the cooking water for rice or beans makes a difference. Dashi and dashi powder explains how to make dashi and when powder is enough.
- Combine two umami sources. Kombu with bonito, miso with mushrooms, tomato with meat. The Miso soup with shiitake shows what this looks like in everyday cooking.
- Use seasoning sauces in small amounts. A teaspoon of fish sauce in tomato sauce or a splash of soy sauce in goulash barely shows as its own flavor, but makes the dish fuller. These sauces are salty, so reduce the salt. With no salt at all, umami tastes flat; the two need each other.
- Brown and reduce. Briefly toast tomato paste, brown onions slowly, reduce sauces: this concentrates the flavor and adds roasted notes.
- Soak dried ingredients. Soak dried shiitake in cold water for a few hours and add the soaking water to the pot. You find tips under How to prepare shiitake.
- Balance with acid. A lot of umami with no counterweight tastes heavy. A squeeze of lemon, rice vinegar or a few pickled vegetables bring the dish into balance.
In ramen cooking, cooks stack umami in several layers: the Ramen broth brings inosinate from bones and meat, a Miso tare the glutamate. For a quick umami plate, Tamago kake gohan is enough: hot rice, raw egg, soy sauce.
Umami in the cuisines of Asia
Every cuisine in Asia has its own umami sources. In Japan dashi forms the base, supplemented by soy sauce, miso and mirin. Chinese cooking seasons with soy sauce, oyster sauce, fermented black beans and dried shrimp. In Korea doenjang, gochujang and fermented seafood such as saeujeot give the savory undertone, for example in kimchi.
In Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia fish sauce and fermented shrimp paste take on this role. A splash of fish sauce in the dressing of a Thai salad brings salt and umami at once, with lime juice and palm sugar pushing back. You don't need all of these ingredients in your pantry. Two or three that suit your favorite dishes are enough to start.
Glutamate as an additive
Monosodium glutamate, MSG for short, is approved as a flavor enhancer, E 621. Producers make it by fermentation, for example from sugar beet molasses or starch. Chemically the glutamate is no different from the one in tomatoes or Parmesan.
In 2017 the European Food Safety Authority reassessed glutamate and set an upper limit for daily intake. The so-called Chinese restaurant syndrome could not be reliably shown in controlled studies. If you react sensitively or want to avoid MSG, you find it on the ingredient list as E 621 or “flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate”. Yeast extract also contains free glutamate, but producers don't have to label it as a flavor enhancer.
You don't need MSG in your kitchen. With kombu, bonito flakes, mushrooms, soy sauce and miso you reach the same effect and get their aroma as well. You find more on the seaweed with which it all began under Kombu.