Japanese Dressing (にんじんドレッシング) – Ginger Carrot Dressing

At the sushi restaurant you get a small salad of iceberg lettuce and cucumber before the meal, with an orange dressing on top. The dressing is made of carrot, onion and fresh ginger, which you chop in the blender with rice vinegar, soy sauce and light miso paste. Oil binds the mixture into a chunky sauce. In Japan you find similar mixes on supermarket shelves as ninjin dressing.

By Laura Chen · November 4, 2026

15 Mintotal

8servings

110kcal

JapaneseCuisine ›

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Do not blend the carrots to a purée. Small bits give the dressing bite and its typical color. Then let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes, which takes the sharpness out of the raw onion. In a screw-top jar it keeps 5 days.

For the second variation in the recipe, you stir sesame paste, mayonnaise and rice vinegar into a creamy goma dressing. You may know sesame as a seasoning for vegetables from Goma-ae. Also good as sides with sushi are the wakame salad and the cucumber salad Sunomono with sweet and sour vinegar.

Image: AI-generated.

Japanese Dressing (にんじんドレッシング) – Ginger Carrot Dressing

Name: Japanese Dressing (にんじんドレッシング) – Ginger Carrot Dressing
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: Japanese
Ingredients: 200 g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped; 50 g onion, roughly diced; 20 g fresh ginger, peeled; 1 tbsp light miso paste (shiro miso); 60 ml rice vinegar; 40 ml soy sauce; 1 tbsp sugar; 2 tbsp water; 80 ml neutral vegetable oil; 1 tsp toasted sesame oil; Iceberg lettuce and cucumber, as you like

Laura Chen

Servings

Prep time

15 minutes

Cook time

0 minutes

Calories

110

Cuisine

Japanese

Ingredients

For the dressing:

200 g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
50 g onion, roughly diced
20 g fresh ginger, peeled
1 tbsp light miso paste (shiro miso)
60 ml rice vinegar
40 ml soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp water
80 ml neutral vegetable oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

To serve:

Iceberg lettuce and cucumber, as you like

Instructions

Put the carrots, onion and ginger in a countertop blender or food processor. Chop them finely with 8 to 10 short pulses.
Add the miso paste, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and water and blend everything for 20 seconds.
With the motor running, pour in the vegetable oil in a thin stream, then the sesame oil.
Stop the blender as soon as a chunky sauce with small carrot pieces forms. If you keep blending, the dressing turns smooth and pale.
Taste and adjust with rice vinegar or sugar. The dressing should taste salty and tangy, with a little sweetness at the end.
Pour it into a screw-top jar and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Shake the jar before serving and spoon 2 tbsp dressing over each portion of iceberg lettuce with cucumber.

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Japanese Dressing (にんじんドレッシング) – Ginger Carrot Dressing

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Japanese Dressing (にんじんドレッシング) – Ginger Carrot Dressing

Ingredients

For the dressing:

To serve:

Instructions

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