Wasabi Powder

Known for its nasal-clearing pungency, our Wasabi Powder produces a vaporous heat that travels around the sinuses before fading. Wasabi has a delicately “green”, mustardy flavor, but is primarily used for its snappy heat. Also known as Japanese Horseradish, this root grows along cold mountain streams in its native Japan. The heat is a result of thioglucosides, a glucose that also contains organic sulphur compounds. When wasabi’s cellular walls are destroyed through grating or maceration, the thioglucosides are released, generating the spicy kick that makes wasabi so desirable. The heat in pure wasabi will dissipate rapidly once it’s grated, making commercial packaging difficult. Our Wasabi Powder is a blend, mixed with mustard powder and horseradish powder, which stabilize the chemical breakdown of the thioglucosides and help preserve its spicy properties.

Pure wasabi is also known as Japanese Horseradish. It is a member of the Brassicacea family, which also includes cabbage, horseradish, and mustard. It is notoriously difficult to grow, as it requires cold running water, shady summers, and winters that do not freeze (or temperature-protective netting). It is prone to disease when planted in large crops, so most wasabi farmers are small-scale, and its natural habitat is mountainous, so transportation is difficult. All this contributes to the enormous price of pure wasabi, which costs about $160 per kilogram—2.2 US pounds. Most wasabi consumed in US restaurants is not pure wasabi and is, instead, a Wasabi Powder.

Tips From Our Kitchen

For a wasabi paste, blend 1 tablespoon Wasabi Powder with one tablespoon water. Mix into a sesame vinaigrette for a spicy bite over a cooling cucumber salad. Stir into hummus and top with fresh scallions. Sprinkle some over avocados for bracing avocado toast. Make a slurry with Wasabi Powder and soy sauce for a kicky pepper steak. Mix into breading and turn popcorn shrimp into firecracker shrimp.

This wasabi powder is blended from horseradish powder, mustard powder, spinach powder, cornstarch, citric acid, wasabi powder and ascorbic acid. It is gluten-free.

Our Wasabi Powder is produced and packaged in the US.

This product is certified kosher.

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