Creamy and nutty, this homemade Japanese Sesame Dressing is made from ground roasted sesame seeds, mayo, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. It’s easy and so delicious with your green salad!
I love a salad dressing that has unlimited potential. And this Japanese Sesame Dressing (胡麻ドレッシング) has it all: it’s creamy, full of umami, nutty, and mildly sweet with a tang. You can use it on any combination of greens and switch up the variations as you feel like. Best of all, it’s so, so easy.
If you eat salads year-round, you want to keep a bottle of this homemade dressing in your fridge at all times!
Popular Japanese Salad Dressing
Japanese home cooks often serve a side of salad when we prepare Yoshoku, Japanese-western influenced dishes for dinner. This sesame dressing is a favorite choice because it’s creamy and full of flavor.
Not only it pairs beautifully with simple green salads, but it’s also delicious on cold noodles, or as a sauce for grilled meat, grilled bok choy, and tofu.
For my typical style salad, I have iceberg lettuce, sweet corn kernels, tomato wedges, and wakame. Sometimes I top the combo with half a hard-boiled egg for extra protein before I serve over the dressing.
Ingredients You’ll Need:
To make this sesame dressing, you’ll only need simple pantry ingredients that are common in Japanese kitchen:
- Toasted sesame seeds – I usually give the pre-toasted sesame seeds another quick toasting in a frying pan to bring out a more aromatic and nutty flavor.
- Mayonnaise – I recommend using Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie Mayo) as it has a richer flavor. This is my homemade recipe if you can’t find the storebought one.
- Rice vinegar – Unlike other kinds of vinegar, rice vinegar has a mellow yet refreshing aroma. You can sub it with apple cider vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice but dilute with some water.
- Soy sauce – Soy sauce lends savoriness to the dressing. Tamari or gluten-free soy sauce works fine too.
- Sugar – I use granulated sugar, but you can use other types of sugar such as turbinado or raw cane sugar.
- Mirin – Add a bit more water if you can’t find mirin.
- Toasted sesame oil – It binds everything together with its irreplaceable nutty fragrance.
My husband likes the dressing to be on the tangy side, so I use a bit more rice vinegar. But always feel free to adjust the ratio of ingredients to suit your taste!
What to Serve with Sesame Dressing
If you plan on using the sesame dressing over a simple salad, here’s what I suggest serving it with:
But don’t let this stop you from trying the dressing on other dishes. Because it is so much more dynamic than you think!
Other Popular Japanese Salad Dressings:
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Japanese Sesame Dressing
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
- 2 Tbsp Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- 1 ½ Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp mirin
- ½ tsp toasted sesame oil
Instructions
- Put sesame seeds in a frying pan and toast them on low heat. When 2-3 sesame seeds start popping, remove from the heat.
- Grind the toasted sesame seeds with a mortar and pestle until smooth.
- Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk everything together.
- Drizzle on top of a simple salad of iceberg lettuce topped with tomatoes, boiled eggs, wakame, and corn.
To Store
- You can keep the dressing in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Nutrition
Update: Photos updated in November 2013
Hi Nami, I’m out of white sesame seeds and I was wondering if I could substitute them with Tahin?
Hi Idrissa, Thank you for trying Nami’s recipe!
The Tahin doesn’t have much texture as grounded sesame seeds, but yes! you can definitely use it as a substitute.
We hope you enjoy homemade Dressing!
Thank you for the fast reply Naomi 😊
I made the dressing with Tahin today and it was amazing!
But I definitely have to try it with grounded sesame seeds next 🙌🏽
Awesome! We are glad to hear you enjoyed the Dressing!🥰
Made this dressing tonight for a cabbage salad to go along with chicken Katsu. It is excellent! Highly recommend
Hi Mitchell! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind feedback! 🥰
Might be a silly question. I ran out of white sesame but I have a ton of black sesame. Can I sub it for that? Other than appearance will it affect flavor ?
Hi Haidee! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Black sesame has more strong sesame flavor than white sesame, but if you love sesame flavor, it’s a good alternative.
We hope this helps!
Can you sub in seasoned rice vinegar? or white vinegar?
Hi Judy! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe!
Yes, you can use white vinegar, but you might want to add a bit of sugar to ease the strong vinegar flavor and taste.
We hope this helps!
If you’re reading this, please do yourself a favour and make this dressing! I made it for dinner last night and have been craving it so bad I had a salad for breakfast just so I could have it again. I really can’t stress enough what a big difference the kewpie mayo makes with this too if you can get it!
Hi Sinéad! Thank you very much for trying Nami’s recipe and for your kind support!
We are so happy to know that you enjoyed this Sesame Dressing!🥰
Best dressing recipe that I’ve ever tried. How can this be less than 5 stars. Nice sesame flavor without being overbearing. Just the right sweetness. Nice texture. Full body flavor without being too rich. Perfect! Easy to make too. I used Best Foods Mayo by the way.
Hi Susan! Aww🥰 We are so happy to hear you enjoyed Nami’s Japanese Sesame Dressing recipe.
Thank you very much for trying her recipe and for your kind feedback!
This is great. It is so good on all types of veggies!
Hi Erica, Thank you very much for trying this recipe! We are so glad to hear you enjoyed it with many types of veggies!
Hello Nami san ! Konnichiwa from Guam! I love your all your dressings specially my favorite is sesame . I was wondering if you could tell me how much carb , fats and protein in each dressings or I wish you can do a Nutritional value chart for all your recipes? Looking forward to hear from you! Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu!
Hi Dyesebel, Thank you very much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback! We are sorry that we cannot provide the chart at this moment. The good news is that we have planned to add the Nutritional value chart for each recipe this year! We hope we can answer your question soon! 🙂
Love it !!!
Hi Michael! So glad you like the recipe! Thanks for your kind feedback!
is Japanese mayonnaise different than American mayo (Hellman’s, etc)?
Hi Pat! Yes, they are different. 🙂 A lot of people are converted to use solely Japanese mayo and no moe American mayo. Only the negative part is that it does include MSG (but it’s one of the ingredients that I don’t mind a bit of MSG – but I avoid it usually).
https://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-mayonnaise/
I love this dressing, I even pour it on rice!
This is the best dressing ever!! So good with poke bowls.
Hi Claudia! I’m so glad to hear you liked this dressing! Thank you for your kind feedback. 🙂