100 Shiso Recipes - Cook with Confidence with This New Culinary Craze (2024)

FAQs

What is shiso used for in cooking? ›

Shiso is a member of the mint family. With its large, jagged leaves, bright color, and refreshing flavor, it can be eaten fresh, pickled, or deep-fried, and it frequently makes appearances in sushi dishes and sashimi plates. While the green leaves are suited for eating, the red leaves are used in pickling.

The herb pairs well with fatty fish like salmon, yellowtail, and tuna, and can be enjoyed by wrapping a whole leaf around a piece of sashimi and dipping it in soy sauce. Shiso also complements vegetables and fruits. Julienned shiso leaves are often mixed with salads to add a fresh, citrusy flavor.

Ways to Use Shiso

Fresh as a garnish with sushi or sashimi, and wrapped around balls of rice or meat. Try it with tofu. Surprisingly good slivered in pasta and noodle dishes. Try making shiso pesto too!

Shiso is extremely versatile.

Raw leaves are delicious tossed into salads or used wherever you might add savory green herbs. Or you can cook them up like tender spinach — steamed, sautéed or tempura-fried. Red varieties can be steeped in hot water and juiced, yielding a ruby herbal concoction with a lemony bite.

In English, it is sometimes called the "beefsteak plant", because purple-leaf varieties resemble the blood-red color of meat. Other common names include "perilla mint", "Chinese basil", and "wild basil".

What Does It Taste Like? Shiso leaves have a fresh, citrusy flavor with hints of cinnamon, cloves, and mint. They have a somewhat astringent flavor and bitter finish, particularly the red shiso leaves. The texture is similar to fresh mint leaves, while dried shiso has a more subdued flavor.

As stated earlier, the exact flavor of shiso leaves varies between the red and green varieties. Red, the more pungent of the two, is excellent as topping for rice, as part of salads, or sprinkled on a bowl of cold soba noodles. Red shiso, when dried, makes for a delicious furikake.

Shiso is in the mint family. Stick to that area and you'll be fine, even though nothing will be exactly right. Peppermint leaves, lemon basil or Thai basil will all give a nice look and a pleasant flavor, even if it won't be quite the same. A combination of mint and and Thai or Holy basil might be your best bet.

In the fridge, fresh shiso leaves typically last about one week, sometimes even up to 10 days, provided they're properly stored. If you notice the leaves wilting or losing their vibrant color, these are clear signs that they are past their prime, even if they're not technically expired yet.

Shred the shiso leaves and place them on the bottom half of a piece of paper towel. Fold over the top half of the paper towel to wrap the shiso leaves. Fold the paper towel with the shiso inside a few times, put it in a freezer bag and freeze it. The frozen shiso leaves are hard and crunchy.

What does shiso mean in Japanese? ›

Shiso is an aromatic herb commonly used in Japanese cuisine. Known as “perilla leaf” in English, shiso belongs to the same botanical family as mint and shares a similar texture and flavor.

To store the leaves, wrap the unwashed leaves in a moistened paper towel or a sealed plastic bag and keep in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator for no more than four days.

Cleaning shiso or other greens: Clip unblemished leaves (small and large) from the stems, drop them into a very large pot of cold water. Stir the leaves for a minute, then let the water calm. The suspended leaves allow sand to precipitate to the bottom. Carefully lift the leaves out to drain in a colander.

Shiso (perilla leaf) has green perilla (青紫蘇) with green leaves and red perilla (赤紫蘇) with reddish-purple leaves. Shiso is originally reddish purple in color, and green perilla is a variant of red perilla. The red color of red perilla is due to the pigment shisonin, a type of anthocyanin.

The Chef's Garden offers flavorful shiso leaves: green shiso with its curry-like flavor and touches of cumin, cilantro, parsley, mint, and cinnamon; red shiso with its sweeter start that turns into a cinnamon-mint taste; and mixed shiso that allows you to enjoy the best of both.

Shiso leaves are rich in calcium and iron, and are used in Chinese medicine to treat asthma, colds, flu and other respiratory ailments. How to Prepare: Shiso has a unique flavor: pungent and grassy, it contains strong flavors of spearmint, basil, anise and cinnamon.

The flavor of green shiso is fresh and vibrant, tasting somewhere between mint and basil. Red shiso is used as a natural coloring in pickled plums known as umeboshi, and it can also be used to make a sweet refreshing shiso summer drink.