Umami Explained: The Fifth Taste and How to Cook With It

Umami is the savory, brothy, mouth-filling taste you notice in a Parmesan rind, a bowl of miso soup or a slow-simmered tomato sauce. It is one of the five basic tastes, alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter, and it comes mostly from a compound called glutamate. Once you know where it hides and how heat, time and fermentation build it, you can make almost any dish taste more finished without making it saltier.

This guide covers what umami is, how it differs from salt, which foods are rich in it, what MSG has to do with it, and the techniques we use in our own kitchen to add it.

TL;DR

• Umami is the fifth basic taste: savory, meaty or broth-like, and it lingers longer than salt does.
• It comes mainly from free glutamate, plus compounds called nucleotides. Aging, fermenting, drying and cooking release more of it.
• Easy sources: aged cheese, tomato paste, mushrooms, soy sauce, miso, anchovies, fish sauce, kombu and well-browned meat.
• Pairing a glutamate-rich food with a nucleotide-rich one (say, tomato with mushrooms or meat) makes the effect stronger.
• MSG is the pure, purified form of glutamate, and the FDA considers it generally recognized as safe.

Table of Contents

• What umami actually is
• The two compounds behind it
• Why aging, fermenting, drying and cooking build savory flavor
• Umami foods list
• What MSG is, and how it relates to umami
• How to add umami to everyday meals
• Putting it together in one bowl
• Our perspective on umami
• Cook with it this week
• FAQ
• Sources

What umami actually is

For most of the 20th century, the standard teaching was four tastes. Umami was proposed as a separate one in Japan in the early 1900s, and a 2015 peer-reviewed review by Kenzo Kurihara lays out the research that established it as independent of sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The word is Japanese and is usually translated as a pleasant savory taste.

In plain terms, umami is what makes you want another bite of something that is not sweet, sour or especially salty. Researchers describe it as savory, meaty or broth-like, with a prolonged aftertaste and a taste-enhancing effect. A 2022 molecular review adds the words readers tend to reach for when they try to describe it: mouthfulness, thickness, continuity and satisfaction.

That last group of words is the useful one for cooks. Umami is less a flavor you pick out than a quality of roundness. A soup without it tastes thin even when it is properly salted. The same soup with it tastes complete.

How it differs from salt

People often use “savory” and “salty” interchangeably, and they are not the same. Salt is detected as sodium and gives a quick, sharp hit that fades. Umami is detected through different receptors. Sweet, bitter and umami tastants all work through G-protein-coupled receptors on the tongue, while salt and sour work differently. OpenStax ties umami specifically to L-glutamate.

The practical point: a pinch more salt will not fix a flat sauce if the real problem is missing umami. You will just end up with a flat, salty sauce. Adding a spoonful of tomato paste, a splash of fish sauce or a few minced anchovies often fixes it with less sodium overall.

Why it makes other flavors better

Research describes umami as harmonizing other tastes and bringing mildness and deliciousness to a food. That matches what cooks see: umami rounds off the edge of acidity, balances bitterness in greens and makes lightly seasoned food taste more seasoned. It is also the main taste in dashi, bouillon and other stocks, which is why a good stock lifts everything it touches.

The two compounds behind it

Two families of molecules do most of the work.

Glutamate is an amino acid. Free glutamic acid occurs naturally in meat, poultry, seafood and vegetables. The word “free” matters. Glutamate locked into protein chains does not register as umami. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ evidence paper explains that protein-bound glutamate is tasteless for umami purposes until hydrolysis releases it.

Nucleotides (inosinate and guanylate) are the amplifiers. Inosinate is found primarily in meats, while guanylate is more abundant in plants, notably dried mushrooms. On their own they are mild. Together with glutamate, the savory effect gets much stronger than either gives alone.

That is the science behind combinations cooks have used for centuries: kombu and bonito flakes in dashi, tomato and ground beef in ragù, Parmesan on mushroom risotto.

Why aging, fermenting, drying and cooking build savory flavor

An ingredient does not need to start out rich in free glutamate. Many foods get there through processing, because proteins break down into free amino acids.

• Aging: As cheese and cured ham age, enzymes slowly chop up proteins. This is why a young mozzarella is mild and a long-aged Parmesan is intensely savory.
• Fermenting: Microbes do the same job faster in soy sauce, miso, fish sauce, kimchi and natto.
• Drying: Removing water concentrates what is already there, which is why dried shiitake and sun-dried tomatoes taste far more savory than their fresh versions.
• Cooking: Moist-heat cooking with stocks or broths can increase free glutamate availability. Dry heat creates a different kind of depth through browning.

If you are curious about the broader idea that flavor is a full sensory experience, not only taste, this sensory guide to culinary experiences is a good companion to the chemistry here.

Browning is a separate layer of flavor

The Maillard reaction is not umami itself, but it works alongside it. The Exploratorium explains that heating amino acids and sugars produces the Maillard reaction, creating new aromas, new flavors and the brown color we associate with cooked food. A seared steak is savory partly because of free glutamate and partly because browning adds roasted, nutty aroma on top. Both register as “deeply savory” on the plate, which is why good browning is the cheapest umami trick in the kitchen.

Umami foods list

The Umami Information Center keeps a table of glutamate-rich foods. Grouped by how you will actually shop and cook, the natural sources look like this:

Is matcha umami? Do olives have it?

Matcha, yes. The same table lists a glutamate range of 490 to 700 mg per 100 g for matcha, and green tea in general is on the list. That explains the brothy, almost vegetal depth of a good cup.

Olives are less clear. WebMD’s guide mentions olives among the ingredients in an umami-style sauce, but that is not evidence that they are a concentrated source. Cured olives taste salty, briny and a little savory. For reliable umami, reach for tomato paste, mushrooms or anchovies, and treat olives as a supporting player (they are excellent alongside those ingredients in a puttanesca).

What MSG is, and how it relates to umami

MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. As the FDA explains, glutamic acid is naturally present in our bodies and in many foods. In other words, the glutamate in MSG is the same compound that gives a ripe tomato or aged cheese its savory taste.

Today’s MSG is not extracted from seaweed broth, as it was at first. The FDA notes that it is produced by fermentation of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane or molasses, a process similar to the one used for yogurt, vinegar and wine.

On safety, the FDA considers added MSG generally recognized as safe. The agency also says that although many people identify as sensitive to it, studies giving such people MSG or a placebo have not been able to consistently trigger reactions. If you personally notice symptoms after eating certain foods, talk with your doctor or a registered dietitian rather than guessing.

For cooking, MSG is a seasoning like any other: a small pinch in a soup, stir-fry or burger blend adds savory depth. Many cooks find that a little goes a long way, and since it contains sodium, it is best used as part of your overall seasoning, not on top of it.

How to add umami to everyday meals

The Associated Press’s 2025 guide to cooking with umami points American home cooks to the same short list we reach for: aged cheeses, concentrated tomato products, mushrooms, roasted or grilled meats, cured meats, broths, fish and seafood, bonito flakes, kombu, shiitake and soy sauce. Here is how to put those to work.

1. Brown things properly

Get the pan hot, use enough fat and do not crowd it. Crowded mushrooms steam in their own liquid and turn gray. Give them space and they brown, concentrate and taste like roasted meat. The same applies to onions, cauliflower, sausage and ground beef.

2. Concentrate your tomatoes

Fry tomato paste in oil for a minute or two, until it darkens from bright red to brick, before adding liquid. This one step turns a basic pasta sauce or chili from fine to rich. If you cook a lot of noodles, our pasta recipes lean on this move often.

3. Reach for fermented seasonings

A teaspoon of miso, a splash of soy sauce or a few drops of fish sauce adds savory depth without announcing itself. Start small. If you are unsure about miso, our guide to what miso is gives tested ratios, and our piece on tamari versus soy sauce swaps shows how to season without overdoing the salt.

4. Use dried ingredients

Soak dried shiitake and use both the mushrooms and the soaking liquid. Drop a piece of kombu into a pot of water and warm it gently. Keep a Parmesan rind in the freezer and add it to soups, beans and braises.

5. Build a real broth

Long simmering with bones, aromatics and charred vegetables extracts glutamate and nucleotides together. Our tonkotsu ramen broth and pho broth method are two of the best demonstrations of this: parboiling for clarity, charring for depth, then a long, gentle simmer. If your soup ends up too thin, see how to thicken soup with pantry staples.

6. Stack glutamate and nucleotides

This is the pro move. Combine something rich in glutamate with something rich in nucleotides, and the result is more than the sum. Some everyday pairings:

• Tomato sauce with ground beef or pork
• Miso with bonito or dried shiitake in soup
• Parmesan with sautéed mushrooms
• Soy sauce with seared chicken or beef
• Anchovy with garlic and tomato

A quick fix chart

Add miso at the end and keep it below a boil, so the aroma stays bright.

Putting it together in one bowl

A fast way to taste umami working is a bowl of ramen. The broth brings glutamate, the miso brings fermented depth, butter rounds it and a few toppings add browned, roasted notes. Our 20 minute ramen with miso garlic butter broth is the weeknight route, and the charred corn version adds a roasted sweetness against the savory base.

For something with a bolder profile, our mapo tofu builds on fermented doubanjiang, and our beef pho shows how a clear broth can be deeply savory without being heavy. For a comfort-food example, the creamy chicken noodle soup with lemon and dill uses rotisserie chicken and a bright finish so the savory notes stay balanced.

Our perspective on umami

We think umami is the most useful concept a home cook can learn, because it turns vague advice (“season to taste”) into something you can act on. When a dish disappoints, the cause is usually not too little salt or too little acid. It is that nothing in the pot is doing the work of depth.

We develop every recipe from scratch and test it in our own kitchen, and umami shows up in the same places again and again: a pan that was hot enough, tomato paste that was cooked until dark, a broth given time. None of these needs special equipment or expensive ingredients. A can of tomato paste, a jar of miso and a block of Parmesan cost far less than a restaurant meal, and together they do much of the work.

We also try to be honest about effort. A 20 minute ramen gets its savory base from miso and butter, and it is easy. A tonkotsu broth gets it from hours of simmering, and it is a project. Both are worth making, for different evenings, and each recipe’s difficulty rating tells you which one you are signing up for.

Our advice: taste as you go, add one savory element at a time and notice what changes. That habit will teach you more than any list.

— Oloru

Cook with it this week

If you want to practice, start with the full recipe collection and pick one dish built on a savory base: a miso soup, a pasta with a tomato paste sauce, a pan of browned mushrooms. Every recipe we publish is original, tested and given an honest difficulty rating, so you know what you are getting into. When you are ready for a longer project, browse our advanced recipes for broths and ferments that reward patience.

FAQ

What is the definition of umami taste?

Umami is the fifth basic taste, after sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It is described as savory, meaty or brothy, and it is triggered mostly by free glutamate and nucleotides. It tends to last longer on the tongue than salt does and makes other flavors taste fuller.

Is matcha umami?

Yes. Matcha is listed among glutamate-containing foods, at roughly 490 to 700 mg of glutamate per 100 g in the Umami Information Center’s table. Its savory, brothy quality is part of why high-grade matcha tastes so smooth.

Do olives have umami flavor?

A little, but they are not a standout source. Olives are mostly briny and salty. If you want dependable umami in a dish, use tomato paste, anchovies, mushrooms or aged cheese, and let olives add their own character on top.

What is MSG?

MSG is monosodium glutamate, the sodium salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid found naturally in many foods. It is made today by fermenting starch or sugar sources. The FDA considers it generally recognized as safe, though people who feel unwell after eating should speak with their doctor.

How do I add umami without adding a lot of salt?

Use ingredients whose savory depth does not rely on sodium alone: browned mushrooms, cooked-down tomato paste, kombu, dried shiitake or a Parmesan rind. Then season with a little salt and taste. You will often need less than you expected.

Sources

• Umami the Fifth Basic Taste: History of Studies on Receptor Mechanisms (Kurihara, 2015)
• Umami and Food Palatability, The Journal of Nutrition
• Molecular insights into human taste perception and umami (2022)
• Taste and Smell, OpenStax Biology
• UMAMI in Foods, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics evidence paper
• Science of Meat: Smell the Maillard Reaction, Exploratorium
• Umami Information by Food, Umami Information Center
• What Is Umami? The Fifth Basic Taste, WebMD
• Umami’s an old flavor but still a new concept for many, Associated Press
• Questions and Answers on Monosodium glutamate (MSG), FDA

Recommended

• Pan Sauce Recipe: Use Plain Water and Trust Your Nose
• Home Cooks: What Is Miso? Chef Tested Ratios (1–2 tbsp per cup)
• 3 Tested Tamari vs Soy Sauce Swaps to Avoid Overseasoning
• What Is Gochujang? A Simple Guide for Home Cooks