Try my simple and refreshing Japanese-style vinaigrette called Wafu Dressing. It’s a versatile and delicious homemade Japanese salad dressing that pairs well with any type of salad combo. You can make it at home in just 10 minutes!
Today, I’m sharing a reader recipe request for my Japanese salad dressing called Wafu Dressing. Wafu (和風) means Japanese-style. You might have heard another Japanese food term that starts with “wa” and that is wagyu (和牛), which means Japanese beef. Washoku (和食) means a Japanese meal and wagashi (和菓子) means a Japanese confectionery.
Table of Contents
What is Wafu Dressing?
Generally, wafu dressing (和風ドレッシング) is a Japanese-style salad dressing made with vegetable oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Japanese home cooks each have their own recipe for it. I add grated onion to my version to make it extra flavorful.
I drizzle this vinaigrette on a simple wafu salad of hand-torn iceberg lettuce topped with tomatoes, boiled egg, wakame (seaweed), cucumbers, and red radishes. You also could try it on any cooked or raw salad, a noodle salad with soba noodles, or your favorite mix of lettuces.
There are so many kinds of wafu dressing choices available in Japanese supermarkets. In my opinion, dressing made from scratch is superior because it has no MSG or preservatives. Also, I love that you can adjust the taste as you wish. The ingredients and condiments are very typical for a Japanese kitchen, so I hope you will give this recipe a try!
Ingredients You’ll Need
This Japanese dressing comes together in just 10 minutes. Simply combine the ingredients in a bowl or mason jar and whisk:
- grated onion — my special ingredient for extra flavor!
- neutral oil — for a variation, you can replace with olive oil or your favorite type; replace some of it with sesame oil to make Chinese-style dressing called chuka dressing (中華ドレッシング)
- Japanese soy sauce
- Japanese rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- sugar — I use granulated sugar; feel free to experiment with other sweeteners like brown sugar
- freshly ground black pepper
- toasted white sesame seeds
This versatile salad dressing keeps for 7–10 days in the refrigerator. Make a big batch in a blender and use it in your menu throughout the week!
More Homemade Salad Dressings You’ll Love
- 4 Japanese Salad Dressings
- Sesame Dressing
- Carrot Ginger Dressing
- Miso Dressing
- A Million-Dollar Japanese Onion Dressing
Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
Wafu Dressing (Japanese Salad Dressing)
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp grated onion (I use a ceramic grater)
- 3 Tbsp neutral oil
- 3 Tbsp soy sauce
- 3 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp toasted white sesame seeds
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients in a bowl or mason jar and whisk everything together. Drizzle on top of a simple salad. Here, I prepared hand-torn iceberg lettuce topped with tomatoes, boiled egg, wakame, cucumber, and red radish.
To Store
- Keep the dressing in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for 7–10 days.
Nutrition
Update: The post was originally published on October 14, 2011. The photos are updated in November 2013.
Holy moly! That was not only pretty simple but most delicious. I hope you will make videos for all of your recipes. Also please consider a function on your blog pages where I can click a button to be brought right to the recipe. And maybe a function that will allow me to see the recipe directions without photos. Maybe it’s my old, slow PC and old printer that make these qualities desired. My PC takes forever to scroll down pages and for some reason my printer won’t print the recipes out when I hit print so I have to copy-paste the recipes and remove the pictures so the recipes will fit on a page or two. Usually I keep a video playlist list of my favorite Japanese recipes but sometimes you don’t make videos for all the recipes here yet. Thank you for teaching me how to cook! <3
Hi Lily! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe, and thanks so much for your kind feedback.
I do have shortcut for you. Right under the recipe title, do you see “Print Recipe” and “Jump to Recipe” pink buttons? That will be your shortcut. Hope they are helpful. 🙂 Also, you can print the recipe from clicking the “Print” button inside the recipe. 🙂
Oh I didn’t even notice the “Jump to Recipe” button on your pages! Now I see it! Wonderful! Yeah I saw the print button but when I go to print it doesn’t print. Maybe it’s my old PC and old printer (in Firefox) that has problems. I can print if I copy-paste to word and then print though. Thank you so much!
No worries! 🙂 Sorry you have issue with print out. 🙁 Should be easy to print…
美味しそう！ I love your blog ❤️
Thank you Victoria!
Could another kind of oil be used? Such has canola or grape seed?
Hi Selina! Sure, canola oil is good! 🙂
Hello Namiko Chen,
I had an excess of overly salty fermented onions so I was looking for a good onion dressing recipe to use them. A slightly edited version of yours was perfect. Several other recipes of yours have been very helpful as well. Thank you for the wonderful work you do.
Hello Julian! Salty fermented onions! I’ve never tried that before and I’m curious to try! I’m glad to hear you enjoy my recipes. Thank you for your kind feedback! 🙂
I like to add finely minced green onion!
I keep trying to remember all the things my mother cooked. Some of your posts help me to remember. Thanks!!
Hi Chieko! I’m happy to hear that. Thanks so much for reading my blog! 🙂
I have a stupid question…about the grated onion juice, I should using raw onion or cooked onion?
Can I use it as a dip sauce with Grilled vegetable beef roll?
Hi Carol! It’s a raw onion. It gives nice texture to the dressing instead of just a liquid mixture. If you don’t like onion, you can omit it. If you don’t have extra step, you can also soak grated onion in water (over sieve so it’s easier to drain) to get rid of bitterness. For me, that tiny bitterness adds another dimension to the dressing. My kids don’t seem to notice the onion taste. Try both ways! Sure you can use it as a dip sauce (you can even heat up). I’d include onion if you use for meat dish. It gives very refreshing flavor. Hope you enjoy! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this, I’ve made it and cannot get enough of it. It is so delicious and ridiculously simple
Hi Maria! So happy to hear you enjoyed this dressing! It’s one of my favorite too – very simple and delicious! Glad you liked it too. 🙂 Thank you for writing!
I’m so happy I found your blog:-)! I’ve been making this salad dressing w/addition of a little sesame oil. The salad (greens & toppings) are julienned & placed over somen noodles. Its refreshing when the temperature outside is just unbearable. Toppings I use are: kamaboku, plain egg omelet, carrots, negi.
You have made all of my favorite foods-hijiki,agedashi tofu,(although I can eat tofu as is), kimpira& nimono just to mention a few.
BT W, do you make your own dashi or is it OK to use pre-pkg dashi no moto ?
Hi Helene! I’m glad you found my blog, and thank you for your comments! It seems like you like oso-zai dishes. I’m glad you like those traditional Japanese dishes. 🙂
I make my own dashi once in a while depending on dishes I make. I usually use Dashi Packet method and don’t use dashi no moto. Dashi packet can be hard, but it’s much easier to find dashi no moto.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to/how-to-make-dashi-jiru/
Sorry such a latecomer here. This salad looks wonderful. I’m about to attempt to reproduce it this afternoon for lunch. With all the ingredients you mentioned to put in the salad, it sounds very very hearty and will satiate til dinner without having to snack on stuff. However, I am not familiar with the Wakame Brown Seaweed and what it looks like while purchasing it at my local Asian market. Is it in the cold section? Is it wet or is it dry? Please help. Thanks.
Hi Kazy! Oh please don’t feel sorry at all, and I’m so glad you are here! 🙂 It’s in dry food section, in a package like this.
https://www.justonecookbook.com/pantry/wakame-dried-seaweed/
If you are shopping in a Japanese / Asian supermarket, it’s near nori seaweed, rice seasoning, all the dried food ingredient area.
Hope this helps and enjoy the recipe! 🙂
This is so fantastic. Did not have vegetable oil so used peanut and it was still so yummy. I have been eating salads like a rabbit since discovering this dressing. Cannot wait to try your other dishes
Hi Maria! HAHAHAH “like a rabbit”!!! But I understand what you mean. When I like dressing, I feel like I can eat tons of salad too. Hope you enjoy other recipes from my blog. 🙂 Thank you so much for your feedback!
Thank you so much for sharing this, it’s delicious and my four year old son, who refuses go eat salad, had FOUR helpings of salad with this dressing.
Hi Linda! I’m so happy to hear your 4-year old son liked this! My kids love this dressing too. And it’s great as it’s homemade and we can make it anytime. Thank you very much for your feedback. xo 🙂
I finally made the wafu dressing last night, I tried this morning it was sooo good.
The only one thing really brothers me is hard to make grated onion juice.
This recipe saves a lot of my money.
I spent $7 CA dollar on one small bottle of wafu dressing.
Now, I can make as much as I want, and it costs me so little.
Hi Charri! I’m really happy to hear you liked it! Regarding onion juice, it depends on how much water is inside the onion and what kind of grater you use. Do your best. You could just omit it too, but I like the texture the grated onion create in the dressing. Hope this helps. 🙂
Hello Nami,
Thanks for the salad dressing recipe. Can I sub light olive oil for canola oil? Also if it’s a must, can I use agave nectar instead of sugar?
Tq!
Hi Nic! Yes you can substitute with olive oil and agave nectar if you like. Olive oil has stronger taste than vegetable/canola oil, so please adjust according to your liking. 🙂 Enjoy!
Hi Nami…My friend and I tried this recipe last week. We changed vegetable oil with olive oil and rice vinegar with apple cider vinegar. My friend said it taste okay first after she combined all except onion, although the taste was different with she had tasted in japanese restaurant before. But after we put onion in, it tasted bitter. Why my onion taste bitter? My friend said maybe the onion not ripe yet, but i am not so sure.
Thank you.
ps:
Because today is the last day of the year, I wish you will have a good new year ( よいお年をお迎えください).
Hi Nonik!
Most Japanese dressing uses no fragrance light oil and olive oil might be too heavy. Also apple cider is a bit too strong for this type of dressing. I think the right kind of oil and vinegar is very important for Japanese style dressing.
As for the onion, you can soak in cold water to remove the bitterness (for maybe 10 minutes), then squeeze the water out to add into the dressing if bitterness is too strong. Each onion is different so it’s hard to say, but if you enjoy the onion in general, it definitely adds nice texture and flavor to the dressing.
Hope this helps. 🙂
どうもありがとう！明けましておめでとうございます！ 🙂
Hi, I just came across this salad dressing from google search, and I tried making it right away. It tasted awesome! I will never again turn to those commercial ready salad dressing. Thanks very much for sharing this recipe 🙂
Oh and, I think I’m not meant to, but I added some grated leftover daikon to the mix, it’s so yummmm…..
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for finding my blog and giving this recipe a try. Grated daikon sounds wonderful! 🙂