Whenever I order a salad at a Japanese restaurant, I fall in love with ginger salad dressing all over again. It’s tangy, flavorful and loaded with fresh ginger flavor. Lightly added to fresh lettuce leaves and other greens, it makes the perfect start (or end!) to a meal. An added bonus: Ginger is great for digestion and loaded with antioxidants.
If you don’t already have them, the ingredients for our Japanese-style ginger salad dressing make great additions to your pantry. Soy sauce or tamari, rice wine vinegar and ginger are the base of this dressing, but they are also integral to many of our favorite Japanese and Chinese recipes.
Homemade salad dressing recipes are quite flexible, and it can be fun to experiment with swapping ingredients in and out of them. Check out our tips section below for hints on using this homemade ginger dressing in various delicious ways.
Ingredients for Ginger Salad Dressing
- Rice vinegar: Rice vinegar is an essential Japanese ingredient. It seasons sushi rice, makes marinades for dishes like General Tso’s chicken and perks up soups like shoyu ramen. Don’t confuse it with mirin, which is a sweetened rice wine.
- Onion: This is a time to use white or yellow onion, not red onion.
- Fresh ginger: Ginger root is the zesty-flavored rhizome of a tropical plant. Like its relative, turmeric, ginger is a nutritional powerhouse. Contrary to popular belief, peeling the skin before using ginger is unnecessary! If you don’t enjoy mincing, you can grate what you need using a microplane.
- Soy sauce: The salty condiment brings lots of umami flavor to this recipe. If you want yours to be gluten-free, you can use tamari instead of soy.
- Honey: A little hint of honey balances out the dressing’s salty, acidic and fiery elements. If you can get it, the best type of honey is unfiltered raw honey, which will have a more nuanced flavor than heat-treated and filtered honey. If the bees are local to you, that’s a bonus!
- Black pepper: As always, use freshly ground pepper if you have a grinder.
- Oil: The recipe calls for olive oil or peanut oil, but blending in some toasted sesame oil, as a portion of the 3/4 cup of oil the recipe calls for, would bring a wonderful flavor to the table.
Directions
Step 1: Blend the dressing
In a blender, combine the first six ingredients. Cover and process until blended. While processing, gradually add the oil in a steady stream. Chill until serving.
Editor’s Tip: You can still make this dressing if you don’t own a blender. Put the dressing ingredients in a jar and combine them with an immersion or stick blender. If you have a food processor, use that to make the dressing. If you don’t have any of those tools, simply whisk all the ingredients together or shake them up in a jar (just know that the dressing will have a chunkier texture than the blended versions).
Recipe Variations
- Mix in miso: Miso is a salty fermented soy paste used in Japanese cuisine for its deep savory flavor and benefits to gut health. You can use it instead of soy sauce in this recipe. Fun fact: Tamari is a byproduct of the miso-making process.
- Add shredded carrot: Carrots give the dressing a nice color and add sweetness. Use shredded carrots or grate them yourself.
- Change the allium: Try green onions, scallions or chives instead of white onion. Grated raw garlic would be a great swap if you prefer a sharper flavor.
- Add mustard: Japanese mustard is spicier than American mustard, but it isn’t always easy to find. However, a little dollop of your favorite Dijon or English-style mustard will help to emulsify the dressing, making it seem extra rich.
- Whisk in some mayo: If you like a creamy dressing, whisk in some mayo after everything is blended. The most popular Japanese brand, Kewpie, is less tangy and more egg-y than American mayonnaise, but your favorite mayo brand will work too.
- Give it crunch: After blending the dressing, add some toasted sesame seeds or a few sprinkles of shichimi togarashi spice. You can also simply garnish your salad with either one.
How long does ginger salad dressing last?
Because of its level of acidity, this dressing will be good for a week in the refrigerator. Store your dressing in a jar with a screw-top lid or in a handy squeeze bottle with a cap.
Ginger Salad Dressing Tips
How do you use ginger salad dressing?
This ginger dressing recipe is great for simple green salads or cucumber salads, which go well alongside things like air-fryer tonkatsu, aka breaded Japanese-style pork chops, or California sushi rolls. You can also use the dressing for Asian-style noodle salads made with rice noodles, ramen, soba or udon. It’s a good marinade for meats or fish, especially tuna and salmon. Making a stir-fry? Toss in some of this dressing just before serving.
How do you store extra ginger?
Ginger comes in big chunks called “hands,” and conveniently, it keeps for a long time. Here’s the scoop on how to store ginger.
