The best healthy low sodium seasoning is the one you make yourself! Gomasio is used as a condiment and alternative to table salt. It has a nutty taste and adds extra nutrition to meals when sprinkled over foods like salads, soups and main meals. It adds flavour and a lighter, salty taste. When you switch to cooking your own meals you have a lot more control over how much salt you add to what you eat. Like most prepared, ready made meals, ready made seasonings, condiments and sauces come with fats that have been heavily refined and therefore lost most of their healthy qualities. They also tend to have a much higher salt and sugar content then necessary.

When you cook for yourself you can add your favourite herbs to your meals instead by adding flavour and also add new flavours like with this gomasio. Flavour greatly reduces the necessity of adding too much salt or sugar. Using an alternative like gomasio you reduce your salt intake significantly which makes this a healthy low sodium seasoning alternative to salt. You can also try making condiments like gomasio by using sunflower, flax or pumpkin seeds instead of sesame seeds.

Ingredients:

1 part sea salt

12 parts of sesame seeds

Preparation time: 5 minutes

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C.

2. Spread the sesame seeds out on a baking tray.

3. toast the seeds for a few minutes allowing them to slightly brown. You might want to toss them halfway through to ensure all seeds are evenly toasted.

4. Let the seeds cool off before you add the salt ad grind them with a mortar and pestle or using a suribachi (see photo above). The gomasio is done when 80% of the sesame seeds are ground.