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, I want to make this recipe as I love the sesame salad dressing that a local Japanese restaurant serves but would like to make my own so I know exactly what is in it. Do you have nutritional information for this recipe?
Hi Suzanne! I’m so sorry but I don’t have the nutritional information at this time. It’s on our to-do list for the blog. 🙂
Thanks so much for this recipe! My husband and I love it with Napa Cabbage salad, perfect for weekdays or meal prep. Keep on the awesome job, I love how your website makes me feel like Japanese cuisine is at my reach <3
Hi Morgane! Aww thank you so much! I’m glad you and your husband enjoyed the recipe. I really appreciate your kind words. 🙂
This dressing is THE BEST! I make it almost every sunday, so I have a batch for my lunchsalads for the week. Thank you Nami!!
Hi Ina! Thank you! We make this dressing often too! So glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant where the starter was a house salad. The dressing was light, not creamy and the base was sesame oil and they did not use soy sauce.
I can not find a recipe that is not creamy or made with soy sauce.
Any ideas.
Hi Debbie! There are so many ways to make sesame dressing. I’d need a picture of the dressing or more description of flavors or ingredients so I can give some suggestions… 🙂
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Dear Nami,
it’s eight o’ clock in the evening and as your site was the inspiration of this Sunday Japanese cooking marathon, here is a quick recount of all the dishes I prepared – please forgive me if I didn’t follow exactly your recipes, but I like to improvise:
– Sesame Chicken salad: I mixed a cubed roasted chicken breast with a can of corn, a jar of homemade mixed tsukemono of daikon, carrots, red radishes and cucumber, a generous amount of chopped chives, sesame seeds and used your sesame mayo recipe to dress it;
– Miso Fried fish: I used the recipe of your miso cod to marinate some very bland white fish fillets for one and a half day – then dredged them with panko bread crumbs (omitting the flour and the egg steps) and deep fried them;
– Daikon no Nimono: I quickly boiled the daikon wedges first in rice water then slowly stewed them in homemade kombu dashi and served them with a bit of soy sauce and some sesame mayonese;
– Onigiri: the stuffing consisted in finely chopped sautéd daikon greens mixed with one can of salmon and Japanese mayonese;
– Choi sum with fried tofu: stir fried the greens with chopped ginger and garlic, then simmered with dashi plus o tablespoon of oyster sauce and shoyu each, adding cubed fried tofu at the very end;
– Kuushinsai with oyster mushrooms: sautéd the greens with just some finely chopped garlic, then I coarsely shredded the oyster mushrooms by hand and added them to the wok, finishing it off with a little bit of dashi and let it simmer five more minutes.
Needless to say, I’m exhausted, but very satisfied with the end results, as everything turned out delicious – plus we have food in the refrigerator for at least three days, so I don’t have to cook for a while!!!
Thanks again for your wonderful website: you’re definitely my on-line Japanese Cooking Sensei!!!
Rolanda
Hi Rolanda! I definitely want to live in your house! Wow what a wonderful meal!!! Everything looks so delicious! I’m so happy to hear you think my blog as an inspirational source. It means so much to me! xoxo
[…] Okonomiyaki, Karaage, Japanese Potato Salad, or Creamy Sesame Dressing…there is one thing common in these dishes and that is Japanese […]
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[…] that I can eat half of the cabbage myself. We eat the shredded cabbage with dressings such as Sesame Dressing, Wafu Dressing, […]
Hi Naomi, is there a version we can make without adding mayo so that it is suitable for vegans?
Hi JY! I’m not too familiar with vegan substitute. What do you usually use to replace mayo? You can make it without mayo but it won’t be creamy… mayo has a specific taste to it besides creaminess that is a big part of the dressing. Can you make vegan mayo by replacing the egg in this recipe? https://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-mayonnaise/
Can I use tahini paste instead of the sesame seeds for a creamier dressing?
Hi Tammy! You can definitely use it, but if I was using it, maybe I’ll do partially to give some nice textures from the actual seeds. But if sesame seeds are not easy to find, you could try without it and see how it goes. If sesame seeds that you’re using is not toasted yet (raw), toast in a frying pan (no oil in the pan) – it gives amazing aroma. 🙂
How long can this dressing last?
You can keep the dressing in the refrigerator for up to a week. 🙂
As usual, worked brilliantly, thank you so much Nami!
Hi Ming! Yay, so happy to hear that. 🙂 Thank you for your kind feedback! xo