Furikake: Japan’s Rice Seasoning, What’s in It and Where It Came From

Modern furikake goes back to a Kumamoto pharmacist who, early in the Taisho era, wanted to get more calcium into Japanese diets, so he ground fish, bones and all, into a powder to eat on rice.¹ Today it’s the dry seasoning you shake over rice, and Namiko Hirasawa Chen of Just One Cookbook calls it the salt and pepper of the Japanese kitchen.² The name means “sprinkle.” The most common versions mix bonito flakes, toasted sesame seeds, nori seaweed, sugar and salt, but it comes in lots of flavors, from simple sesame salt to egg-and-seaweed noritama.

At a glance

What is in it

Furikake is a category, not a single recipe. Makiko Itoh of JustBento counts gomashio, sesame salt, as the most basic furikake.⁵ Chen describes the common commercial style as bonito flakes, toasted sesame, nori, sugar and salt, and lists salmon flakes, dried baby shrimp, shiso, egg, wasabi and vegetables as other add-ins.² Here are two homemade versions side by side:

Itoh calls noritama one of the most popular commercial furikake flavors; the name joins nori with tama, short for tamago, egg. In her version the bonito flakes give most of the flavor and the egg yolk is mostly there for color. She says her noritama is lower in salt, so you can pile it on rice.⁶

Where furikake came from

According to the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun, early in the Taisho era (大正初期) a pharmacist named 吉丸末吉 (Yoshimaru Suekichi), founder of the company now called Futaba, set out to fix calcium deficiency among Japanese people by grinding fish, bones and all, into a powder to eat on rice. The product, 御飯の友 (Gohan no Tomo, “friend of rice”), is still made in Kumamoto City, and the All Japan Furikake Association recognizes it as the originator of furikake.¹

Chen takes a longer view: records of a salty powdered condiment go back to the 12th century, and the current form was invented in the early 20th century as a nutritional supplement.² You may also read that a national manufacturer spread furikake across Japan after World War II to fight malnutrition. We couldn’t trace that story to a source, so we’ve left it out.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Furikake tastes salty, a little sweet, toasty from the sesame, smoky and savory from the bonito, and oceanic from the nori. Of the main ingredients, sesame is the only one whose aroma chemistry turns up in the sources we checked: under mild toasting, pyrazines dominate its flavor.⁷ We found no published analysis of furikake as a whole.

How furikake is used

Chen recommends it on plain rice, rice porridge and udon, and for seasoning onigiri (rice balls), soba noodle salad, grilled salmon and rice crackers; she also suggests avocado, eggs, popcorn and pasta.² Itoh sprinkles noritama on rice and soup.⁶

Buying and quality

There’s no standard for furikake that we could find; the USDA’s specification for spice blends doesn’t include it.³ Check the label for salt and sugar levels and for the allergens below.

Storage

Chen notes that without a desiccant, the nori and katsuobushi start to go stale.² This is the authors’ guidance for their own recipes, not measured shelf lives.

Safety

Allergens. The FDA lists fish, soybeans and sesame among the nine major food allergens.⁴ Bonito is a fish, and sesame and soy sauce are common furikake ingredients. Check the label.

Iodine. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements calls seaweed, nori included, one of the best food sources of iodine, and notes that iodine content varies greatly among seaweed species.⁸ Its table gives 116 mcg (77% of the Daily Value) for 2 tablespoons (5 g) of dried, flaked nori.⁸ That’s for nori alone; we found no iodine measurement for furikake. The adult upper limit is 1,100 mcg a day, and the ODS notes that too much iodine has been linked to thyroiditis and thyroid papillary cancer.⁸

Health claims

You’ll see claims that furikake helps prevent osteoporosis, thyroid disease or high cholesterol. We couldn’t trace any of them to a regulator or systematic review, so we don’t make them.

Substitutes and comparisons

• Furikake substitutes
• Gomasio vs furikake
• Gomasio, the simplest furikake
• Other Japanese seasonings: shichimi togarashi
• The seeds: sesame seeds, black sesame seeds
• Another seed-based topping: everything bagel seasoning