How do you get umami flavour without meat?

Umami is the savoury, mouth-filling depth that makes a broth taste complete and a sauce taste like it has been cooking all day. Meat and fish are famous sources of it, but they are far from the only ones. A good pantry can give vegetable dishes the same depth.

What umami actually is

According to the Umami Information Center, umami is one of the five basic tastes, alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It comes mainly from glutamate, an amino acid, and from two nucleotides called inosinate and guanylate. Professor Kikunae Ikeda identified glutamate as the source of the savoury taste of kombu broth and named that taste "umami" in 1908.

The same source describes a useful kitchen fact: combining glutamate with inosinate or guanylate makes the umami taste much stronger than either on its own. That is the logic behind layering, and why a Japanese dashi made from kombu and bonito tastes so deep. Without meat or fish, you get the same effect by combining glutamate-rich ingredients like cheese, tomato and kombu with guanylate-rich dried mushrooms.

The ingredients that do the work

The Umami Information Center's table of umami-rich foods lists Parmigiano Reggiano, tomatoes, dried shiitake, miso and soy sauce among its glutamate- or guanylate-rich foods. Here is how we use them.

Parmesan and its rind

Aged hard cheese brings deep savouriness, and the Umami Information Center notes that glutamate in cheese increases as it ages. Grate it into sauces and soups. And keep the rinds in a bag in the freezer: drop one into a pot of beans, minestrone or a tomato sauce while it simmers, then fish it out before serving. It quietly seasons the whole pot.

Tomato paste and concentrated tomato

The same table lists dried tomatoes well above fresh ones. In the pan, we use tomato paste the same way: fry a spoonful in oil for a minute or two until it darkens to a brick red before adding liquid. That deepens its flavour and takes away the raw, tinny edge. Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped finely, do a similar job in sauces and stews.

Mushrooms, especially dried

Dried porcini or shiitake bring a lot of depth for very little effort. Soak them in hot water, chop them into a sauce or risotto, and use the strained soaking liquid as part of the stock. Fresh mushrooms, roasted or fried until deeply browned rather than steamed, also add savoury depth.

Miso

Miso, the Japanese fermented paste, is salty and savoury. A spoonful stirred into a soup, a pan of greens, a dressing or butter for roast vegetables adds roundness without tasting obviously Japanese. Add it at the end, off a hard boil, and taste before adding more salt.

Soy sauce

A few drops of soy sauce in a tomato sauce, a bean stew or a mushroom ragù deepen the flavour without announcing themselves. It is salty, so it counts as part of your salt.

Other helpers

• Kombu in the pot when cooking beans or making stock.
• Nutritional yeast, which many cooks use as a savoury, cheesy-tasting seasoning.
• Caramelised onions and well-browned vegetables, which bring savoury sweetness.
• Olives and capers, for salt and depth together.

How to layer it

Use two or three of these in one dish rather than piling on one. A tomato sauce with fried tomato paste, a parmesan rind, a splash of soy and a few dried porcini tastes like it has been simmering for hours. A bean soup with miso stirred in at the end and parmesan on top does the same.