Sesame Seed Dressing

One of the most requested recipes I’m asked for is a good Sesame Dressing for salad, chicken or seafood. If you do a quick search on the Internet for “sesame dressing”, you will find hundreds of variations for this simple asian staple. Which one you decide on using may depend on your own personal tastes.

You can increase the amounts of individual ingredients to give this dressing more sweetness or some extra tanginess. This is basic recipe for sesame dressing that can be adapted to your own personal tastes.

Create Your Own Favorite Sesame Dressing Recipe

Start with this and then play around with it by making it a little hotter or try adding some other ingredients to see how what they do to improve or take away from the overall flavor.

As I say in many of the recipes on my web site at www.reluctantgourmet.com, use these recipes as starting points and develop your own recipes by adjusting the flavors. This is what is meant by “to taste”.

Basic Sesame Dressing Recipe

Ingredients

3 tablespoons of good quality soy sauce
3 teaspoons sesame paste (available in Asian markets and most supermarkets these days)
1/2 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1/2 tablespoon sugar
a dash or two of hot chili sauce, to taste
1 teaspoon rice wine (I like mirin, a Japanese sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon of boiling water (good chance you’ll be cooking noodles with this dressing, so here’s your source)
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds (optional)

How to Make A Basic Sesame Dressing

In a small bowl, whisk the soy sauce, sesame paste, hoisin sauce, sugar, chili hot sauce and rice wine together. Add the hot water and continue whisking until the sugar is completely dissolved. If you are opting for toasted sesame seeds, stir them in now.

Taste and adjust seasonings to your personal likings.

This dressing tastes better when chilled. Cover the bowl or transfer the dressing into a glass jar and refrigerate until you are ready to use it

Alternative Ingredient Suggestions

As I mentioned above, there are lots of variations you can make to this recipe or create your own from scratch. Here are some of the ingredients I found on the Internet that can be added to or substituted with that will change the final flavor of your sesame dressing:

honey soy sauce
dark soy sauce
fresh ginger
scallions
wasabi paste
hot or sweet mustard
Asian sesame oil
honey
Mayonnaise to make it creamy

Post Your Favorite Recipe for Sesame Dressing

I’m sure you have your own list of ingredients you like to use when preparing sesame dressing and I invite you to share your favorites in the REPLY section below.