Easy Japanese ginger salad dressing recipe (+ #1 store bought tip)
Most Japanese restaurants usually serve a salad dressing alongside any other normal meal.
In this post, we shall highlight a few Japanese ginger salad dressings, all of which will make your dishes interesting.
Now, I love making it fresh myself but I know not all of you will want to take the time to make it.
I’ve tried a few over the years and if you want to go the route of getting a store-bought dressing with ginger, this award-winning Wafu dressing is the way to go:
Here are different variations of Japanese Ginger Salad Dressing:
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Japanese ginger salad dressing recipes
Japanese salad dressings, such as ginger, carrot, and onion are very unique, as they usually involve a puree of veggies, as well as other ingredients in order to have an extremely flavorful and fresh dressing.
Mostly, they are known as wafu dressing, which can be translated to “Japanese-style dressing.”
The Japanese salad dressing consists of two common bases, which include tomato paste based dressing and soy sauce-based dressing.
When you compare the two dressing, the soy sauce-based salad dressing is a bit lighter than the tomato paste based dressing—and the latter tends to thicken the dressing naturally, and add a layer of richness that lacks in the soy sauce-based dressings.
Japanese Ginger, Onion, And Carrot Salad Dressing
Equipment
- Food processor
Ingredients
- ¼ cup yellow onion chopped
- ¼ cup carrots (or 1 small carrot) chopped
- ½ tsp ginger minced or grated
- 2 tbsp tomato paste or ketchup
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- ½ cup canola oil
- ¼ cup rice vinegar
- ½ tsp salt to taste
- 1 dash black ground pepper to taste
- ½ tsp granulated white sugar optional
Instructions
- Gather all your ingredients together
- Then add the carrot and yellow onion in a food processor—you can also use a blender.
- Peel and ginger and mince, and then add to the rest of the ingredients in the food processor (you can also mince the ginger).
- Add tomato paste or ketchup canola oil, soy sauce, salt, and rice vinegar to the food processor, and blend or pulse until the mixture is smooth and pureed.
- You can now taste the dressing, and add a dash of black pepper—if desired, as well as a touch of white sugar.
- If you want to achieve the best results, you can chill the dressing for around 1 – 2 hours before serving.
- You can also use the dressing as a marinade.
Video
So, why do you need to make a carrot salad dressing?
Hare a 7 reasons why this recipe should be on your list.
1. It is a creamy dressing that can be prepared without dairy. Yes, that’s very right—this recipe is 100% dairy-free, which makes it vegan, whole30, and paleo.
2. The carrots will give you the right amount of sweetness without the need of adding extra sugar—thus making it sugar-free.
3. It’s very easy to make—you only need to put a few ingredients in your blender, turn it on, and you will have the salad dressing in a matter of seconds.
4. The recipe is very versatile—while it will turn into a salad with carrot ginger dressing, you can also use it as a dipping sauce for spring rolls, as a sandwich spread, as well as a sauce for salmon.
5. You don’t have to worry about preparing a special Asian salad—this salad dressing is very delicious on different kinds of green salad.
6. It’s very addictive—the salad dressing tastes light and refreshing, and somehow a little bit tangy. So, what’s the reason you don’t want to prepare it today?
7. This will be just putting veggies on top of other veggies, which is pretty awesome, refreshing, and super healthy.
Tips
- You will need special ingredients when preparing the salad dressing. The equipment includes min food processor, processor, or a blender.
- The recipe for this particular Japanese onion, carrot, and ginger salad dressing is tomato-based. However, we have substituted it with ketchup rather than the tomato paste. In case you have tomato paste in your kitchen, consider giving it a try, and then you will have something to choose in between. However, you should note that tomato paste has some extra acidity, which gives the dressing some more tartness.
- For the oil, you can consider using oil with mild flavors like vegetable, coconut, or canola oil, but you are free to experiment with other favorites.
- The pureed raw onion gives the salad dressing some nice spiciness, but the flavors of the ginger and carrot mellow it. So, you should consider chilling it first before using it.
- You can also use the salad dressing as a marinade for fish and other meats.
Also read: 3 Japanese sushi sauces you have to try
Garlic Ginger Salad Dressing
Ingredients
- Yellow onion – ½ (roughly chopped)
- Peanut oil – 1/3 cup
- Rice vinegar – ½ cup
- Water – 3 tablespoons
- Fresh ginger – 4 tablespoons (minced)
- Celery stalks – 2 (roughly chopped)
- Ketchup – 2 tablespoons
- Granulated sugar – 1 tablespoon
- Soy sauce – 1 tablespoon (you can also add 1 or 2 extra spoons)
- Lemon juice – ½ lemon
- Garlic – 5 cloves (minced)
- Lemongrass paste – 1 tablespoon
- Salt – ½ teaspoon
Directions
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a large food processor or high-speed blender and process until smooth and creamy. Season with salt and pepper to taste, along with any other additions you feel necessary (rice vinegar, soy sauce or sugar). Serve over a bowl of fresh greens for a light and healthy meal or side salad.
Nutrition Facts
Amount per Serving
- Calories 838 Calories from Fat 648
% Daily Value*
- Fat – 72g (111%)
- Saturated Fat – 12g60%
- Cholesterol – 0mg0%
- Sodium – 2518mg105%
- Potassium – 633mg18%
- Carbohydrates – 40g13%
- Fiber – 3g12%
- Sugar – 23g26%
- Protein – 5g10%
- Vitamin A – 515IU10%
- Vitamin C – 19.6mg24%
- Calcium – 72mg7%
- Iron – 1.1mg6%
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
The Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and specific brands of ingredients used.
Japanese Hibachi Style Ginger Salad Dressing
Ingredients
- Chopped carrots – ¼ cup
- Minced onions – ¼ cup
- Fresh ginger – 1 tablespoon (minced)
- Sesame oil – 3 tablespoons (you can also use olive oil, but it will slightly change the taste in the end)
- Garlic – 1 tbsp. (minced)
- Celery – 1 tbsp. (minced)
- Rice vinegar – 3 tbsp.
- Water – 2 tbsp.
- Tomato paste – 1 tbsp.
- Soy sauce – 1 tbsp.
- Sugar – 1 ½ tsp
- Lemon juice – 1 tsp
- A pinch of salt
Directions
1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor, and then pulse at intervals of 5 seconds until smooth.
2. Refrigerate for not less than 4 hours before serving.
3. You can serve with shredded carrots and chopped iceberg lettuce.
Japanese Restaurant-Style Carrot Ginger Dressing
Ingredients
- Shredded carrots – 1 cup (around 2 medium carrots)
- Fresh ginger – 2 tbsp. (chopped)
- Onion – ½ cup (chopped)
- Raw coconut vinegar – 3 tbsp.
- Raw honey – 2 tbsp.
- Toasted sesame oil – 1 tbsp.
- Extra-virgin oil – ½ cup
- Water – 2 tbsp.
- Salt – ¾ tsp.
Directions
1. Mix all the ingredients in a blender, and then blend until you get a smooth mixture. If you are using a high-powered blender, you don’t need to shred the carrots.
2. Like any other dressing, the flavor will become better with time. Therefore, you can chill it in a fridge for around 2 hours before serving.
Read more: how to make a stir fry sauce without broth with this recipe
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Joost Nusselder, the founder of Bite My Bun is a content marketer, dad and loves trying out new food with Japanese food at the heart of his passion, and together with his team he's been creating in-depth blog articles since 2016 to help loyal readers with recipes and cooking tips.
