We don’t go out to eat often, but when we do, I love Japanese food. It’s relatively easy to find wheat-free dishes, and the salads and stir fry dishes are wonderful! There is even a local restaurant that cooks in coconut oil!
One of my favorite things at our local Japanese restaurant is their ginger salad dressing (which probably has questionable ingredients, but I’ve avoided asking). Either way, my bank account and my health would both have problems if I headed to the restaurant every time I had a craving for their food. So I’ve been experimenting with an at-home version with nourishing ingredients and I am really happy with the final result.
Japanese Restaurant-Style Asian Ginger Vinaigrette
I’m a big fan of making my own salad dressings. I like know what’s going into them and making them fresh when I need them.
This Asian ginger dressing is a vinaigrette flavored with ginger, garlic, coconut aminos, onion, and a little tomato paste. I give it a whirl in a blender or food processor to make it smooth, and it’s done in under five minutes!
I now keep a bottle of this pre-made Asian vinaigrette in the fridge for lunch time (or breakfast time… I’m a little obsessed) salads. It goes great with my Asian Color Burst Salad, but is also great drizzled on stir frys, burgers, chicken, or even fish. It also makes a great dipping sauce for meatball shish kabobs.
Asian Ginger Dressing Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup unrefined sesame oil (or peanut oil)
- 1 inch fresh ginger (peeled and roughly chopped)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 TBSP coconut aminos
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1/3 cup onion (chopped)
- 2 TBSP honey (or maple syrup)
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
- 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
- 1 TBSP tomato paste (or unsweetened ketchup, optional)
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a blender or high speed food processor and blend until smooth.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
More Homemade Salad Dressings
If you’re like me and enjoy the fresh flavor the comes from making your own salad dressings and vinaigrettes you might like to try some of these. And if you’re new to salad dressing making, give it a shot! It’s super quick and easy to do and completely worth it to know what is in the food you’re eating.
- Zesty Italian dressing and marinade
- A raspberry vinaigrette that uses fresh or frozen raspberries
- This recipe for BLT salad with avocado comes with instructions for a lemon mustard vinaigrette that’s delicious!
- Balsamic vinaigrette – great drizzled on roasted vegetables
- French dressing
- Homemade creamy Caesar dressing
- Healthy real-food ranch dressing
- A chili lime vinaigrette on a taco salad
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Do you make your own salad dressings? Gonna try this one?
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I love taylor farms asian salads (various cabages,cilantro, almonds, etc) would this dressing work well over that . I love cabbage and want to eat more raw foods. do you have a recipe for cabbage slaw?? haven’t run across one yet!
This is absolutely delicious! It makes my salad so much tastier that I wouldn’t mind having it everyday. Thank you for the recipe.
thank you thank you so much for this dressing. i always bought store ones and was looking for a homemade one, but didn’t like the recipes I found on-line. I found yours by browsing the recipe section and immediately liked your ingredients. I made this dressing yesterday and couldn’t believe how amazing it taste better than the store ones. this dressing is a huge hit. Thank you so much for sharing it
I was wondering if you would use toasted or normal sesame oil for this.
This vinaigrette was an absolute delight! We had a simple potato-bell pepper salad for dinner yesterday and it went really well with the salad. I’m thinking this will work for any kind of salad, actually.
@ Dorothee Bouissieres: You could try buying coconuts from an ethnic store such as an Indian grocery store; not only will you get fresh produce (sicne coconuts there are always fast moving), you can even ask them to grind the coconut flesh for you (some shops do so).
Is there a substitute for the sesame oil?
olive oil works…
Hi this looks delicious i can t wait to try it. I have a question about the coconut milk, which kind do you use? because the one i m thinking of is the kind u keep in the fridge but the list of ingredients is pretty bad. where can u find coconut milk that is only coconut milk but all ready to go not from a coconut? i m slightly traumatized from buying coconuts. T
he last 5 times they were rotten:(
There are a couple good brands of canned ones without BPA or you can make your own… Water actually works too, it just makes a thinner dressing….
This sounds wonderful! I love asian foods! We also rarely go out to eat but when we do it’s usually Japanese or Korean! I’m off to search and see if I have everything I need to make this now, before dinner tonight!