Infuse Umami In Your Food With These Flavouring Agents

Umami flavour is a powerful savoury flavour, that got its name from a Japanese biochemist named Kikunae Ikeda. Umami-heavy ingredients add a layer of savoury flavour to food, which in turn encourages the tendency to want to eat more of something, while also enhancing already-present flavours. Here’s how you can stock up your pantry with a few ingredients that instantly bring an umami depth to your food, with little effort for maximum flavour.

Fish Sauce

A bottle of fish sauce is an umami-bomb. The sauce, made with fermented fish, salt and water is a caramel brown coloured ingredient that brightens the flavour of robust ingredients like birds eye chillies, meats and pairs well with Asian food, soups and oriental salads. It also works well as an ingredient to combine in a dipping sauce or boost the flavour in soups.

Tomato Paste

Image Credits: Practical Self Reliance

Rich in glutamic acid, concentrated tomato paste packs a flavour-boosting punch. Adding a spoonful or two of tomato paste to a slow-cooked pasta sauce, curries and stews offers the most delicious tomato flavour in its purest form. Cooking it lightly in some oil before it is combined with other ingredients helps elevate the tangy flavour, which combines easily with pretty much most other ingredients.

Dried Mushrooms

Image Credits: The Mom 100

Often known to have a ‘meaty’ and earthy flavour, mushrooms are packed with umami savouriness. Dried mushrooms are easier to store than their fresh counterparts and last longer when stored in your pantry. Soak some in hot water and use the soaking liquid as well the rehydrated mushrooms to boost flavour in your pastas, tacos, stuffing and more.

Cheese Rinds

Image Credits: Culture Cheese Magazine

If you’ve got a stub of the rind from a block of parmesan cheese leftover, reconsider discarding it and throw it into a pot of soup, stock or sauce for an extra depth of saltiness. Along with being intensely savoury, they have a nutty quality to them that’s hard to miss. Adding parmesan rinds to your risotto cooking liquid or a bubbling pot of chili allows the food to take on a savoury quality like no other.

Marmite

If you’ve had a chance to taste the dark, yeast extract that comes out of a jar and have been repelled by it in the past, we ask you to reconsider adding a tiny bit to your butter before slathering it on sandwiches; or adding some to your pasta water for an extra savoury edge of flavour for your pasta to absorb, as it cooks. Marmite is great to add some ‘richness’ to roasted vegetables or meat, or to add to gravies and pan sauces.