Bacon is one of the most satisfying tastes and flavours in the world, but vegetarians have had to subsist on poor imitations – until now.

A team of researchers at Oregon State University in the US have created a new strain of seaweed with “a pretty strong bacon flavour”.

• Tomic arrested after wild party
• What makes us happy? It’s not what you’d think
• Afraid? Paranoid? Google knows what terrifies us

The red marine algae called ‘dulse’ grows quickly, is dense in protein and mimics everyones favourite porky treat when cooked, according to the Oregon State University website.

Dulse grows along the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines and when harvested is sold dried for up to $90 a pound. The bacon sea weed looks like translucent red lettuce and has numerous minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.

Because of that varieties of the algae have been marketed as a superfood for a while but scientists hope this new strain will take off commercially.

“Dulse is a super-food, with twice the nutritional value of kale,” OSU staff member Chuck Toombs said. “And OSU had developed this variety that can be farmed, with the potential for a new industry for Oregon.”

Lead researcher for the vego-bacon scheme told News Corp he can’t believe how great the product mimics bacon and that all you need to make it is seawater and some sunshine.

“There hasn’t been a lot of interest in using it in a fresh form. But this stuff is pretty amazing. When you fry it, which I have done, it tastes like bacon, not seaweed. And it’s a pretty strong bacon flavour.”

OSU have distributed their creation to chefs in the Portland area to test the new fresh strain of the algae.