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Carrot Ginger Dressing is inspired by the dressing you’d get at a Japanese restaurant. It’s bright and flavorful, and very easy to make at home without any specialty ingredients.
What is Japanese Salad Dressing Made of?
This carrot ginger dressing requires just a few basic ingredients.
- Carrots
- Ginger
- Onion (or shallot)
- Honey (or maple syrup, for vegans)
- Toasted sesame oil
- Apple cider vinegar (or rice vinegar, if you have it)
- Olive oil
I’ve left out the miso and soy sauce that can sometimes be used in this dressing, because I don’t always have them on hand. The flavor is still fantastic!
How to Make It
Just toss everything in the blender, and you’ll have a flavorful sauce that you’ll want to pour on everything. I could even just drink it straight from the blender!
What I love about this carrot ginger dressing, is that you can taste as you go. If you think it’s too sweet, add an extra splash of vinegar, or a pinch of salt.
If it’s not sweet enough, you can add an extra squeeze of honey, or a touch of maple syrup. The flavor is totally up to you!
I make this in my Vitamix blender, which has a narrow base and is great for making small batches of dressing. You can probably also make this in a smaller single-serving blender.
I have not tested making this in a food processor yet, but I imagine you’d need a larger quantity in that case, to get everything blended.
How to Use Carrot Ginger Dressing
The recipe below is the smallest batch I can make in my blender, since you’ll need a minimum amount to get everything blending smoothly. So, here’s how you can use the leftovers if you need some ideas.
- Drizzle it on a buddha bowl, loaded with grains and crunchy veggies.
- Pour it over roasted cauliflower.
- Use it on a side salad, served with a bowl of Miso Soup.
- Serve it with a Vegan Sushi Bowl.
- Use it as a dip for Garden Vegetable Rolls.
However you use it up, I hope you’ll enjoy this Carrot Ginger dressing as much as I do!
Ingredients
- 1 cup chopped carrots (about 2 medium carrots; 175 grams)
- 2 inches fresh ginger
- 1/2 cup chopped onion or shallot (57 grams; about 1/4 of an onion)
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (43 grams)
- 2 tablespoons honey (38 grams)
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil (7 grams)
- 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients in a blender, and blend until completely smooth. Taste and adjust any of the flavors to your liking.
- You can serve this dressing right away, or store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Notes
- If you don't have fresh ginger on hand, I'd start with 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger, and add more to taste.
- To make this recipe vegan, use 2 to 3 tablespoons of maple syrup instead of the honey.
- Nutrition information is for roughly 3 tablespoons of dressing. This information is automatically calculated, and is just an estimate, not a guarantee.
Nutrition
More Healthy Salad Dressing Recipes
If you need more salad dressing inspiration, try one of my other favorites below!
- Lemon Tahini Dressing (oil-free)
- Apple Cider Vinaigrette
- Italian Dressing
- Tahini Dill Dressing
- Easy Greek Salad Dressing
- Lemon Poppy Seed Dressing
- Balsamic Dressing
If you try this Carrot Ginger dressing recipe, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. And if you make any modifications, I’d love to hear about those, too! We can all benefit from your experience.
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Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite salad dressing?
This recipe reminds me a the carrot dressing at Souen a now closed macrobiotic restaurant in NYC. I reduced the vinegar (used rice wine vinegar), sweetner and shallots. Added less oil and added tamari. Very tasty. Next time I’ll add cucumber and Umbeshi vinegar and omit the sweetner and ACV.
This was really good on a cabbage salad. Bonus– it’s low histamine!
How long will this last in the fridge?
One of my favorite salad dressing recipes of all time. So good.
I can’t believe how good this dressing is. I accidentally left out the ginger and it was still delicious, for those who can’t do ginger. It does taste like that yummy Japanese restaurant dressing. This will be a part of my rotation from now on. Thank you!
So healthy juice recipe this is!