Crispy Seaweed Recipe, A Chinese Takeaway Classic at Home

Crispy seaweed is an irresistible, savoury Chinese takeaway starter. Despite it being called 'seaweed', there's no seaweed in it. This Asian side dish consists of fried cabbage leaves sprinkled with sesame seeds, Chinese five-spice powder, shrimp powder, oil, sugar, and salt.

Our easy recipe can help you recreate this savoury snack. It was adapted from our mum's when she ran a Chinese takeaway in the UK. It's a well-kept secret among restaurateurs and much easier to make at home than you would think.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Crispy Seaweed Recipe | Using Airfryer or Oven
• Cooking Tips
• Alternative Seasonings
• Oven
• Airfryer 
• Popularity

Ingredients

To make crispy seaweed like Chinese takeaways, you need the following ingredients.

• Outer cabbage leaves
• Sugar
• Salt
• Five spice powder (optional)
• Toasted sesame seeds (optional)
• Shrimp powder (optional)

Cabbage leaves

For our recipe, we're using sweetheart cabbage and only using the outer leafy green part. This is because the outer layers have a softer and crunchier texture once cooked.

Using cabbage leaves to make crispy seaweed is common, but people also use kale or bok choy leaves.

If you substitute cabbage for kale to make crispy seaweed kale, add 2-5 more minutes to the cooking time. It is also sometimes served with a sweet chilli dip.

Seasonings

Depending on the Chinese restaurant, this might be left seasoned with salt. However, other Asian restaurants will also add sesame seeds, salt, and a pinch of golden shrimp powder. 

This powder is made from sundried and grounded shrimp, with a lingering salty, fishy aftertaste. Some people may not like it, and it may be difficult to find in supermarkets outside Asia, so it's okay to omit it in our opinion. But, if you want that traditional fishy flavour, then definitely include this in.

You only want to add a pinch of it to our crispy seaweed recipe, as the powder is quite potent. The fishy taste and aroma is quite strong. Many refer to this particular fishy taste as 'umami'. 'Umami' is a Japanese word meaning 'essence of delicious' and has been described as the fifth flavour that lends your food a meaty, savoury texture.

For our recipe, we'll use toasted sesame seeds, five-spice powder, and shrimp powder as toppings, giving the dish a crunchier texture and an umami taste.

Cooking Tips

Here are some cooking tips for crispy seaweed to ensure you get a nice fried batch of crunchy veggies.

Washing and drying your cabbage leaves

First, when you wash cabbage leaves, make sure to thoroughly wash the outer leaves. They sometimes have dirt stuck to them. 

Your cabbage leaves need to be thoroughly dried before adding oil or seasoning. Otherwise, the excess water will interfere with the cooking process and affect the overall texture. To dry your leaves, you can either leave them on a clean tea towel or pat them dry using a paper towel and repeat this a few times.

Cutting the cabbage leaves

Make sure to cut out the thick centre stems of the cabbage leaves. The stems are quite hard and will not crisp up like the rest of the leaves when cooked.

A quick way to slice through cabbage leaves is to stack and fold them together. This will allow you to cut more efficiently and get more evenly sliced strips. Try to slice them into 2-3mm thin pieces. The thinner the slices, the crispier they will turn out.

Lining your baking tray

For both the air fryer and oven, make sure to line the trays with parchment paper before you start cooking the cabbage leaves. This will prevent the leaves from sticking to the tray's surface as they crisp. Also, make sure to preheat the oven and air fryer before popping in the cabbage leaves.

Too salty

We often find crispy seaweed from Chinese restaurants to be too salty for us. Therefore, we've already reduced the amount of salt and seasoning in our recipe. However, you can further reduce the amount of salt by half if you want a milder taste. We suggest leaving the amount of the five-spice powder alone, as this is what gives you a more authentic taste.

Bitter leaves

If your cabbage leaves taste bitter when you eat them, you will most likely need to lower the temperature of your oven or air fryer by 10 degrees Celsius and cook them for longer.

If your crispy seaweed is bitter in some places and not others, it could be that it wasn't dry enough in some areas. Another possibility is that your oven distributes the heat unevenly, which is common for older ovens. If you don't use your oven to bake often, we recommend trying a small batch first and testing the results before making a huge batch of crispy seaweed in the oven. 

Alternative Seasonings

Here are some typical Chinese crispy seaweed toppings and seasonings you can try to use. 

Shiitake powder is a great alternative for making this dish vegan or vegetarian. It adds umami to the dish. You can also top the dish with Chinese five-spice powder. 

You can use black sesame seeds instead of white sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds are a great alternative seasoning.

For added spice, sprinkle with crushed chilli flakes and toss well. We recommend being more sparing with the chilli, as less is more.

Oven

You can make crispy seaweed using an oven by either using kale or cabbage leaves. 

Then, toss your greens with toasted sesame seeds, sugar, salt, and oil. Toss until everything is coated evenly before sprinkling sesame seeds. 

Preheat the oven to about 170°C (or 340°F) and line a large baking tray with foil. Sprinkle dark brown soft sugar on the vegetables. Bake the vegetables for about 7 minutes before removing them from the oven and tossing them.  

Pop them back for another 5-7 minutes. Lastly, serve and garnish with more sesame seeds and other toppings.

Airfryer 

It's easy to make this Chinese takeaway dish in an air fryer. First, cut your chosen greens and place them in a bowl. Next, add sugar, salt, and oil and mix until evenly coated the veggies.

Next, pop the veggies in the air fryer for 7 minutes at 170°C (or 340°F). Once done, toss the cabbage leaves again and pop them back in the air fryer for another 5-7 minutes.

Popularity

This fried snack is often found in Chinese eateries in the UK and Asian cities like Hong Kong. We explore why this dish uses greens instead of actual seaweed based on online research.

Yes, there is seaweed in China. However, historians discovered that in 600 BC, the palace served algae only to a king's special guests, which contributed to the substitution of veggies.

The dish then travelled with Chinese seamen from Ningbo to the UK after 1842. UK food expert Ken Hom theorises Chinese cooks in the UK swapped seagreens for veggies due to a lack of ingredients in the past. So, like other East Asian cuisines like shrimp toast and chicken sweetcorn soup, the Chinese crispy seaweed recipe became a popular hit in the West.

Whether true or fiction, it is undoubtedly a popular dish. This popularity is because it can be enjoyed on its own or as a side dish. The Chinese usually use it to accompany soups, stews, and salads. The health benefits are another bonus for its popularity. 

Most people would order it at a Chinese restaurant as a takeaway, but you can also get premade nori seaweed sheets from Amazon or any Asian supermarket. Eating more greens is always a good idea, whether you deep fry veggies for a snack or buy them premade.

With our crispy seaweed recipe, you can now make a popular Chinese takeaway classic at home. We love to see our readers' creations, so share your final dish with us by tagging @honestfoodtalks on Pinterest or Instagram.