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Seaweed Salad

This seaweed salad recipe is colorful, delicious and boldly flavored. If you're trying to eat more seaweed, make this nutritious salad.

Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 28, 2024

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This seaweed salad is colorful, delicious, and boldly flavored with sesame dressing. If you enjoy seaweed salads at Japanese restaurants, try this fun twist on the concept. Many prepared seaweed salads are colored with food dyes, but this one obtains its lively color from veggies.

If you’re relatively new to seaweed, like I am, this salad offers a great introduction. It calls for arame, which has a more mild and sweet flavor compared to other seaweed varieties. The crisp textures of cabbage and bell pepper, combined with soy sauce and ginger, contrast beautifully with the seaweed.

This salad is the perfect way to incorporate nutritious seaweed into your diet. Seaweed’s nutritional benefits vary depending on the specific variety, but they are often a good source of fiber, iodine, potassium and magnesium, among others. I try to consume a wide variety of whole foods, so seaweed is a welcome addition.

Seaweed Salad Ingredients

Arame

Arame seaweed, or sea vegetable, is a brown algae. It grows off the shores of the Ise-Shima National Park in Japan, and has been part of Japenese cuisine for centuries. I ordered EDEN brand arame online through Amazon, which seems to be sold out at the moment. Look for it in well-stocked grocery stores or Asian supermarkets.

Cabbage

Crisp strands of cabbage offer lots of colorful texture. I used green and purple varieties to make this recipe as bright as possible for photos, but either option will work well at home.

Bell Pepper

Sweet bell pepper is the perfect addition to this seaweed salad. Choose red, orange or yellow for this salad.

Cilantro and Green Onion

These herbs offer more fresh flavor. If you don’t like cilantro, you can skip it.

Avocado

Creamy avocado is the perfect counterpoint to the crisp textures. Wait to add avocado until you’re ready to serve each bowl.

Sesame Dressing

This homemade sesame dressing brings it all together! It’s made with tamari (soy sauce), toasted sesame oil, and fresh lime juice.

How to Make Seaweed Salad

Seaweed salad is surprisingly easy to make, and you’ll find the full recipe below. Arame requires a 5-to-10-minute soak in cool water. During that time, you can whisk together the dressing and chop the vegetables.

Drain the arame, then squeeze out any excess water. Return it to the bowl, add the prepared vegetables, pour in the full batch of dressing, and stir it all together. How’s that for easy?

Reserve the avocado until just before serving since it browns over time. The recipe keeps well in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Watch How to Make Seaweed Salad

How to Serve Seaweed Salad

This seaweed salad is a fun and nutritious side salad. Serve it with Japanese cuisine and beyond at any time of year.

You can turn this salad into a complete meal by topping it with Crispy Baked Tofu or prepared fish or shrimp, perhaps on a bed of brown rice. You could even skip the sesame dressing and serve it in place of the kale in my Build-Your-Own Buddha Bowls.

Here are a few more complementary serving options:

• Blistered Shishito Peppers
• Colorful Veggie Lettuce Wraps
• Fresh Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce
• Veggie Sushi Bowls

Leftover cabbage?

This recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of cabbage, less than one full head. Leftover cabbage will keep well in the refrigerator, wrapped, for up to one week.

Here are a few ways to use the remaining cabbage: 

• Extra Vegetable Fried Rice
• Easy Black Bean Tacos or Epic Vegetarian Tacos
• Perfect Roasted Cabbage
• Simple Healthy Slaw

Please let me know how your recipe turns out in the comments! I love hearing from you and hope you enjoy this salad.

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Seaweed Salad

• Author: Cookie and Kate
• Prep Time: 25 minutes
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 4 servings 1x
• Diet: Gluten Free

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4 from 1 review

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This seaweed salad recipe is colorful, delicious and boldly flavored with sesame dressing. The arame needs to soak for 5 to 10 minutes before using, so you can prepare the vegetables and dressing during that time. Recipe yields 4 servings (1 ½ cups per serving for 6 cups total).

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 ounce arame sea vegetables (about 1 ½ cups dried) 
• 1 ½ cups thinly sliced purple or green cabbage, roughly chopped into pieces no longer than 3 inches
• 1 red or orange bell pepper, chopped
• ½ cup thinly sliced green onion, sliced on the diagonal
• ¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
• 1 batch Sesame Dressing
• 1 ripe avocado, diced

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Instructions

1. Rinse the arame well in a fine sieve, then place it in a generously sized bowl. Fill the bowl with cool water and let it soak for 5 to 10 minutes, until nicely pliable. Drain the arame in the sieve, and gently squeeze out any excess water. Transfer the arame back to your empty bowl, which we will use as a mixing bowl. 
2. Add the cabbage, bell pepper, green onion and cilantro. Whisk the dressing once more, and pour it all over the salad. Gently toss until the salad is evenly coated in the dressing. 
3. When it’s time to serve, divide the seaweed into bowls and top with diced avocado. The salad will keep well in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 4 days (add the avocado just before serving).

Nutrition

The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.

• Category: Salad
• Method: By hand
• Cuisine: Japanese-inspired