Homemade Japanese sesame salad dressing

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When you think of “Japanese salad dressing,” most of us in the U.S. would think of that orange, tangy, gingery salad dressings that are served at the “Japanese” restaurants and steakhouses.  Interestingly enough, you really don’t see that salad dressing in Japan.  Sesame salad dressing is one of the most popular salad dressings in Japan, sold in so many different brands.

You can buy these Japanese sesame salad dressings in the bottle in the U.S., usually available at the Japanese or Asian stores.  But the homemade version of course tastes so much fresher and richer.  Plus you can adjust the ingredients to make it fit your exact taste and dietary needs!

This versatile sesame salad dressing can also be used to make:

• coleslaw
• pasta salad
• Asian noodle salad
• use as marinade

As matter of fact, salads in Japan are often made with shredded cabbage instead of, or in addition to, the leafy green lettuce.  Add this Japanese sesame salad dressing to a coleslaw mix and canned chicken or tuna, you get a quick and delicious side dish to die for!

Where do you find ground sesame?

For some reason, I thought that ground sesame would be easy to find – at least online.  Apparently, not a lot of cuisines use ground sesame – only the Mediterranean and Middle-eastern cuisines use it in the form of tahini and in Japanese dishes.

I did not want to use tahini for this since I wanted a more of the rich nutty flavor of sesame to come through.  Tahini is a paste made from ground toasted sesame seeds.  In tahini, sesame seeds are usually finely ground then mixed with some type of oil to take it into a pasty consistency. 

Here are some options on where to get the ground sesame to make this salad dressing:

Amazon currently has a very few options:

If you absolutely LOVE sesame in general, (like, you’d drink that sesame oil straight out of the bottle if you didn’t think it was bad for your health!), ground sesame is a great way to get more of the sesame flavors out of the sesame seeds.  You then may want to purchase a bag of hulled toasted sesame seeds.

Then invest in one of these tools, and load toasted sesame seeds into the tool and freshly grind the sesame as you go:

• You can put the ground sesame on any dish. You’ll find those small hand-held sesame seed grinders in ramen shops in Japan. And the customers add ground sesame over their ramen to their liking. 
• Visit the local Japanese or Asian grocery store and look for “Suri goma” or white ground sesame.
• You can even go old-school Japanese style and get these mortar and pestle sets that are specially made for grinding sesame seeds:

Pro tip: Once opened, store your ground sesame seeds package in the freezer to make it last longer!

Substitutions/Modifications

The recipe below is a well-balanced salad dressing.  But you can always use it as a starting point and adjust some of the ingredients to your taste.  For example:

• Reduce or eliminate the sesame oil altogether to make it a very healthy (but thicker) salad dressing.
• Substitute the sesame oil with canola or vegetable oil to make it slightly lighter/less creamy. 
• Use low fat mayo instead of regular or Japanese mayo.

Shop Related Products:

Japanese Sesame Salad Dressing Recipe

Leave comments below

Do you know of any non-Japanese recipes that use ground sesame? Or used this sesame salad dressing to make another dish you loved?  We’d love to know about it!

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