A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a Canadian company which sells WAFU® Japanese Vinaigrette to see if I’m interested in sampling their dressing. The funny thing is this dressing is actually one of my husband’s favorites, so I happily accepted the offer. This review is based on our own experience and we did not get any compensation from the company other than a dozen of free samples.
WAFU Japanese Vinaigrette comes in four flavors: Original, Original Light (43% less fat than Original), Ginger Carrot, and Wasabi Edamame.
To fully enjoy these salad dressings, I prepared my typical Japanese salad: Iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs, wakame (seaweed), and kaiware daikon (Daikon radish sprouts).
We had previously tried Original flavor when my husband bought them from the Asian markets. One day, he was really craving the salad dressing Japanese restaurants in our area serve (typically on the salad with lunch and dinner specials). He was really happy he found off-the-shelf dressing that tasted similar. The Original dressing is very tasty. It’s creamy and not too tangy. If you don’t like sour dressings, you don’t have to worry about that. We actually like a little bit of sourness in our dressings, but we still enjoy this dressing very much.
Then we moved on to Ginger Carrot flavor. We never tried this flavor before so we were very excited to try this one out. The dressing has beautiful orange color from the carrot and looks very appetizing on fresh greens. We poured this over on the same Japanese salad and surprisingly the taste was also recognizable. It’s the same or similar flavor as the salad quite a few Japanese restaurants also serve. I could definitely taste the ginger flavor but it’s not too strong that it overpowers the carrot. It’s a great match from these two ingredients.
Lastly we tried Wasabi Edamame. If you are my frequent readers of my blog, you all know that my husband and I don’t like wasabi. I know, I know, I might be the only Japanese grownup who refuses to eat wasabi when I eat sushi. Am I missing it out? It’s okay, I really don’t like the taste… But the first two dressings were really delicious so I tried Wasabi Edamame. Hm… I “can” eat it, so wasabi is not as strong as eating regular wasabi. But let’s just say I rather stay out of the wasabi flavor. Edamame definitely made the wasabi taste milder, but if you don’t like wasabi, you definitely can sense it’s in the dressing.
Over all, we love the dressing very much, even the Light healthy version of the Original flavor. All these dressings are very creamy, yet they are surprisingly not heavy at all. The consistency of the cream is very thin, so the silky texture goes around the salad nicely and it’s just the right amount of tanginess and sweetness. Since we enjoyed these dressing so much, I thought I should share some of the dressing that I received from the company since I could easily buy more from my nearest Japanese and Chinese supermarkets that I go often (They’re not widely available in the US yet, but if you’re in California you can find them in Japanese and Korean stores and in the San Francisco area. Molly Stone’s will be carrying them. You can also order on amazon.com.).
YOU could win one of two sets of WAFU® Japanese Vinaigrette: one (1) set of Original (Light) & Ginger Carrot or one (1) set of Original (Light) & Wasabi Edamame.
To enter, please leave a comment on this post. This giveaway is WORLDWIDE and expires on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at 12:00 pm PST. Entries that do not meet the entry requirement will not be considered. Winners will be selected by random.org and announced in the post on Monday, March 5th.
Full disclosure: This giveaway is sponsored by yours truly.
The way you layered the salad makes it look so cute and appetizing with the red dots of tomatoes. 🙂
I’m wondering what kind of flavour is added by the edamame as it generally is fairly subtle. Hmmm.
Cheers,
Tobias
i love salad and i would definitely love ginger carrot! i would be very glad if i have the bottles for free!!! Thanks in advance! ^_^ xox0x0x
Goodluck for me!
Maya
Hi
This dressing sounds very interesting. I’ve not seen it in the local Japanese supermarkets.Would love to try these 😉 I eat a lot of salads and love Japanese salad dressings.
I frequently buy the sesame seed ones as well as yuzu.
Thank you for the giveaways
Blessings
Christine
Hi Nami,
I am glad you have done a review on these dressings, I have seen them at my local grocery store, wondered about them but haven’t tried them out yet. So I would love to win a set! We love salad and all things Japanese flavored… Thanks for your post!
Eri
I always thought when we went to a Japanese restaurant that the salad was more to suit American tastes. I didn’t know that it was a traditional salad. I guess you learn something every day. Each of those dressings sound wonderful, but I think the edammame wasabi sounds the most interesting. Although I love spicy food, wasabi isn’t my favorite. However, this dressing seems very different from all of the others. Great photos too, as always!
These vinaigrettes look delicious and perfect for using in lots of different oriental cooking 😀
Just wanted to stop by, not entering the giveaway – good luck to the winner 🙂
And you are most generous!
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Yes, please! They look delicious! (I’m a sucker for anything with ginger!)
Would love to try out the different salad dressings!(:
I don’t like wasabi either, the taste just doesn’t do it for me! But would love to try the other flavours – looks delicious 🙂
Ooh salad dressings! 🙂 healthy lifestyle better dressed!
They look really interesting. the ginger and carrot sounds like an intriguing mixture! And thank you for opening this up to worldwide Nami!
Nami, I would love to win one of those bottles. If can I love the first set, so I can make simple salad with this WAFU dressing for the kids at home.
Angeline
Would love to try it if Nami says it’s good! Usually make all my salad dressings and stopped buying though
Worldwide!!! I am entering straight away!!!
Good luck to meeeeee for the second set (love wasabi and edamame!)
Ciao
Alessandra
Love the third photo Nami… That looks so beautiful. That ginger carrot flavor sounds really interesting 🙂