Gomasio Substitutes: Make It in Minutes, or Use These Sesame Blends

Out of gomasio? It’s just toasted sesame and salt, so the best substitute is almost always a fresh batch, a few minutes’ work in a dry pan. The recipes don’t agree on how much salt goes in, which leaves you room to make it the way you like it on rice. If you’re short on time, toast a spoonful of seeds and salt the food separately. Furikake, shichimi togarashi and za’atar can step in too, but each trades one of gomasio’s two jobs for flavors of its own.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• Attributed: a named source publishes this ratio. We quote it as theirs.
• Disputed: named sources give different answers to the same swap. You get each one, side by side.
• Method: our starting point, based on how the two compare. Taste and adjust.

If gomasio is a nutty, salty topping

1. Make your own gomasio

Ratio (Disputed): Published recipes don’t agree on how much sesame to salt:

Weight and volume ratios aren’t interchangeable, so compare like with like. Starting point: begin at 10 to 1 by weight, the middle of the weight-based figures, and taste it on rice.

How to make it. The two published methods differ. Itoh dissolves the salt in water and toasts the raw seeds in that brine over medium-low heat until they start to pop, so each whole seed gets coated with salt. She advises against grinding the seeds, because ground seeds release oils that go rancid quickly.¹ Gourmandelle’s macrobiotic method toasts the salt in a dry pan, toasts the seeds until they start to crack, then grinds the two together lightly in a mortar or a suribachi, a Japanese mortar.³ Either way, the mix has to be completely dry before it goes into a jar.¹

Why toasting matters. Toasting is what makes sesame taste like gomasio. Some of sesame’s aroma compounds only form during toasting.² Untoasted seeds give you crunch but little of that roasted flavor. Milk Street prefers unhulled seeds, which it describes as larger, plumper and nuttier.⁴

2. Toasted sesame seeds and salt, unmixed

Don’t want to make a jar? Toast a spoonful of seeds in a dry pan and salt the food separately.

Amount (worked from the Disputed ratios): USDA’s FoodData Central puts a tablespoon of whole dried sesame seeds at 9 grams,⁵ and ATK weighs a teaspoon of table salt at about 6 grams regardless of brand.⁶ By our math, at Itoh’s 10 to 1 by weight, a tablespoon of seeds goes with 0.9 gram of salt, about 1/7 teaspoon of table salt; at the 8 to 1 she gives for commercial gomashio, it’s about 1.1 grams, or 1/5 teaspoon. Start with 1/8 teaspoon of table salt per tablespoon of seeds, the low end, and add more to taste. The seed weight is for untoasted seeds.

If you want a rice topping with more flavor

Furikake

Itoh calls gomashio the most basic furikake, the family of dry Japanese rice toppings.¹ A typical furikake goes further: Namiko Hirasawa Chen’s has bonito flakes, toasted sesame seeds, nori seaweed, sugar and salt.⁷ It suits plain rice and onigiri, the same places gomasio goes, but it’s sweeter and tastes of fish and seaweed. In Itoh’s homemade noritama, most of the flavor comes from the bonito flakes.⁸

Ratio (Method): Start with the same amount and taste. Salt levels vary by recipe and brand; Itoh describes her own noritama as lower in salt.⁸

Cooking for someone with allergies? Check the label. Fish, soybeans and sesame are all major food allergens in the US,⁹ and furikake can contain all three.

If you want sesame crunch with heat

Shichimi togarashi

Shichimi togarashi, Japanese seven-spice, varies by maker, but chile, sansho pepper and sesame are its standard ingredients. Chen’s list adds hemp seeds, among others. It’s a table condiment for noodles and hot dishes: Chen names ramen, udon, soba, gyudon, tonjiru and yakitori.¹⁰

It’s a different seasoning from gomasio. It’s hot where gomasio is mild, and it may have no salt at all: Shichimiya Honpo’s ingredient list, for example, is chile, white and black sesame, sansho, aonori, green shiso and hemp seed.¹¹

Ratio (Method): Use a small pinch where you’d use a spoonful of gomasio, and salt the food separately.

If you want sesame and salt with herbs

Za’atar

Za’atar recipes share gomasio’s sesame and often its salt, with herbs and sour sumac on top. UC Cooperative Extension describes the basic blend as sumac, thyme, oregano and sesame seeds.¹² One version published in Fine Gardening uses 4 parts each of Origanum syriacum and roasted sesame to 1 part each of sumac and salt,¹³ which by our math puts salt at about a tenth of the mix, close to gomasio’s share. It tastes strongly of herbs and it’s tart from the sumac, so it’s better on flatbread, eggs and roasted vegetables than on plain rice.

Ratio (Method): Start with the same amount and taste. Check whether your za’atar has salt in it: UC Cooperative Extension’s basic ingredient list doesn’t include it.¹²

A note on salt

Gomasio sometimes gets pitched as a low-sodium alternative to salt. It does have less salt than the same weight of plain salt, in proportion to its ratio, but how much sodium you eat depends on how much you sprinkle. George Ohsawa, who named the macrobiotic diet, counted sesame salt among its sodium-rich foods, along with soy sauce, miso and pickles.¹⁴ Every substitute here except plain toasted sesame carries salt too.

What isn’t known

• There’s no single gomasio ratio. Named sources range from 8 to 1 by weight to 18 to 1 by volume, and no source explains where the macrobiotic 18 to 1 figure came from.
• The salt in commercial furikake and za’atar blends varies by brand, and we found no survey of it.

Related

• Gomasio and gomasio vs. furikake
• Sesame seeds, black sesame seeds, black vs. white sesame seeds and hulled vs. unhulled sesame seeds
• Furikake seasoning and furikake substitutes
• Shichimi togarashi and shichimi togarashi substitutes
• Za’atar, za’atar substitutes and sesame seed substitutes