Wakame is an edible brown seaweed (Undaria pinnatifida) prized in Japanese and Korean cooking for its silky, slippery texture and mild, faintly sweet sea flavour. Sold mostly salted or dried, it swells back to a deep green ribbon when soaked and is best known floating in miso soup, dressed cold into goma-wae and sunomono salads, and simmered in the Korean seaweed soup miyeok-guk.