Emerald Cove Ready-to-Use Pacific Wakame, Premium Dried Seaweed, Non-GMO, Gluten Free, 1.76 oz (1 pk)

If you already know about wakame, then you don't need to read this review. If you don't, you should, because this is one of the greatest and most versatile staples you can keep in your kitchen. Wakame is a mild, slightly salty, tasty seaweed that is full of nutrients and flavor. However, you'd starve to death if you tried to live off this, because it has almost no calories. There are a number of ways you can prepare this. As a soup base, it's quite awesome - just simmer a half cup in a pot of water, add miso, soy sauce, or ponzu, and then spike it with frozen shrimp, thin sliced pork, or whatever else you'd like to toss in. Add a dash of sriracha and sesame oil, and you've got a great-tasting low-calorie soup that beats the pants off anything you can get in a can. If you want some carbs in there, add any kind of noodle you like, from vermicelli to udon. Because the wakame itself adds so much flavor, you don't really need to overload it with sodium-laden soy sauce - just add enough for a little more flavor. My favorite use it to use it as an instant salad - just add water! Place a cup or two of wakame in a bowl, and add 2 volumes of ice cold water. Place it in the fridge, drain the next day, and you've got instant salad to last the whole week. I add thin shredded daikon, carrots, cilantro, and whatever meat I have on hand: frozen shrimp, leftover chicken, canned salmon, even taco meat that didn't make it into shells. Add a sauce made of soy or ponzu with a little rice vinegar, fresh ginger juice if you have it, and a little splash of sesame oil. Top with toasted sesame seeds and you've got an awesome seaweed salad that costs pennies to make, has flavor for days, and very little calories. This bag might seem enormous when you first get it, but once you discover its many uses, you'll use it up faster than you ever thought possible - I go through 3-4 bags a year.More wakame trivia: don't worry about depleting the world's supply, as wild wakame is considered one of the top 100 invasive plants, and has even established itself in San Francisco Bay. Wakame also contains the chemical fucoxanthin, which Japanese scientists claim can enhance fat burning - this may be true or not, but given its low caloric content, it'd be hard to get fat eating this stuff anyway.

These are very fresh tasting. They add so much flavor to ramen and other dishes.

Bought this kombu for seasoning my miso broth and it does the trick. Good for at least 2 uses when making miso, discard or eat afterwards.If you're looking to make miso, this is definitely a no brainer, it really brings together that nice umami flavor, without it the flavor is lacking.

I bought this for making seaweed salad. It was the best value that I could find at the time. It was also my first time making seaweed salad. I soaked it to rehydrate waiting with bated breath until the time that I could enjoy the seaweed salad. Maybe it was my lack of patience, or lack of know how, but getting the seaweed into the little slices like store bought seaweed salad was not happening. After 20 minutes of attempted slaughter of the seaweed, I gave up and made a chunky seaweed salad. Chunky seaweed salad is very fishy. I would say this product is not great for 1st time seaweed salad makers but probably fantastic for other things that need seaweed.

Easy to hydrate. Simple to use. Excellent "seashore" flavor. And a little goes a LOOOOONG way. I'm still on my first bag that I bought months ago. So here's my story: Regular ramen bowls at restaurants give me headaches. Bummer, because they are so delicious, but I came up with a home version I adore (without headaches!) I use a Trader Joe's miso ramen cup, I add about a half can Amy's Mushroom bisque soup (also amazing on its own, or to add to other things), a little freshly ground pepper, and this seaweed. It's... sublime (modesty aside). You can also add chicken. I hydrate the seaweed in a tiny bowl while I'm getting the soup ready. I toss out the water is was soaking in (and pray that I'm also getting rid of any strange chemicals from unknown waters), cut it up small with kitchen shears inside the bowl (I don't handle it), and spoon it into the bowl with the soup. I love it, and hope that you will, too. Oh, also, you can do all the heating with a microwave - bonus! Almost no dishes, too. I also cut up the ramen noodles with the kitchen shears. I know it's supposed to be bad luck (long noodles, long life and all), but flicking soup on my clothing seems like bad luck in the here and now, and I want noodles that fit on my soup spoon. Duh, right? ;-)

WholeFoods no longer carries this product so very glad to find it available on Amazon. Use it in salads and stir fries

I love these seaweed taste good and is cut in small pieces.

I have tried several ways to re hydrate them ..even followed suggestions made by other reviewers but still came up with almost black, very difficult to handle seaweed.....finally gave up....