Nori (seaweed)

This is the best thing for making maki-sushi rolls. You can roll your own by following our guide. Nori seaweed is red algae from the Porphyra genus. The major source of Nori is of course Japan. Because Japan is relatively small and hilly, farming land is scarce so Japan harvests the sea for it’s crops.

They have been using seaweed for almost 1500 years although only in the last 500 years has it become a staple of the common Japanese dweller. During this time the Japanese discovered that seaweed was growing on the fences of the docks so they realised it was a farmable crop. Around the same time (1600-1800AD) the Japanese in the Tokyo area invented nori papers, made using the same techniques used in making normal paper.

Japanese farmers now grow nori seaweed in the sea in nets about 8m deep. The nori crop usually takes about a month and a half to fully grow from seed, but it is less than 2 weeks between harvests after that.
The Porphyra plant is such a popular food today that nori farming is now one of the largest industries in japan selling over 11 million nori sheets per year and the industry being worth over £1,000,000,000 per year!

When you by nori sheets in the UK they will usually come in packs of 10 square toasted sheets. They need to be toasted before used in sushi rolls so if you have bought raw nori you will have to toast it first.

Nori is used in many sushi dishes. Not just maki-zushi, the easily identifiable sushi roll you can get in M&S, but also in nigiri where a thin strip of nori is wrapped around a ball of rice with a small piece of fish on top. Nori seaweed papers are also used in sushi hand rolls (Temaki), Onigiri and gunkan-maki. Nori is can even be shredded into a salad or soup.

Eating nori is good for you, check out our health benefits section for more info on how nori can help your diet.