Hibachi-Style Carrot & Sesame-Ginger Dressing

This homemade Carrot & Sesame-Ginger Dressing comes together in minutes with a handful of simple ingredients and a blender.

You know that bright orange ginger dressing that comes on the little salad at a hibachi restaurant? The one that somehow makes a bowl of lettuce feel like one of the best parts of the meal?

You can make it at home and it’s ridiculously easy.

This carrot, apple and ginger dressing is fresh, tangy, slightly sweet and packed with flavor from fresh produce rather than a long list of complicated ingredients. Everything goes straight into the blender, and a few minutes later you have a jar of dressing ready for salads, grain bowls, vegetables, spring rolls and just about anything else that could use a bright, gingery kick.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• It’s incredibly easy. There’s no cooking involved. Roughly chop everything, add it to the blender and let the blender do the work.

  It’s fresh and veggie-forward. Carrots, apple, shallot and plenty of fresh ginger make up the base of the dressing.

  It’s sweet, tangy and gingery. Rice vinegar provides the acidity, maple syrup adds just enough sweetness and toasted sesame oil brings a little richness and depth.

  You can adjust it to your taste. Love ginger? Add more. Want a thinner dressing? Add a splash of water. Prefer a little more sweetness or acidity? This is an easy recipe to tweak as you go.

  It’s not just for salad. I love it as a dressing, but it also makes a great dipping sauce for fresh spring rolls or a drizzle for grain bowls and roasted or fresh vegetables.

Ingredients You’ll Need

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Yield: Approximately 2 cups

• 1 medium apple, cored and cut into chunks

• 2 large carrots or 3 medium carrots, peeled if desired and cut into chunks

• 1 small shallot, peeled and cut into chunks

• 3 tablespoons fresh ginger paste or finely grated fresh ginger, plus more to taste

• ½ cup rice vinegar

• ¼ cup olive oil

• 1 tablespoon soy sauce

• 2–3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

• 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

• Dash of salt

• Water, as needed for thinning

Apple: Use a naturally sweet, crisp apple. The apple helps balance the acidity of the rice vinegar while adding body to the dressing.

Fresh ginger: Three tablespoons gives this plenty of ginger flavor, but this is absolutely an ingredient you can measure with your heart. Add more if you like a stronger ginger bite.

Olive oil: I used olive oil because it’s what I had on hand, and it works perfectly well here. You can also use another neutral oil, such as grapeseed oil, if you prefer.

Toasted sesame oil: Make sure you’re using toasted sesame oil rather than regular sesame oil. A little goes a long way and gives the dressing that deeper, nutty flavor.

Maple syrup: Maple syrup keeps the recipe completely plant-based while balancing the vinegar and ginger.

How to Make It

1. Prep the produce.

Core the apple and cut it into chunks. Cut the carrots into smaller chunks and peel and roughly chop the shallot. You don’t need to worry about making anything particularly pretty or uniform, it’s all headed for the blender.

2. Add everything to the blender.

Add the apple, carrots, shallot, ginger, rice vinegar, olive oil, toasted sesame oil, maple syrup and salt to a high-speed blender.

3. Pulse first.

Give the mixture several pulses to begin breaking down the apple, carrots and shallot. This helps everything start moving before you let the blender run continuously.

4. Blend, but don’t liquify.

Blend until everything is thoroughly incorporated, stopping to scrape down the sides if necessary.

The important thing here is texture.

You’re not looking for a completely smooth, emulsified dressing. The finished dressing should still have some body and visible texture from the carrot, apple and ginger. That slightly fibrous, almost pulpy consistency is exactly what we want.

Think blended, not liquified.

5. Adjust the consistency and flavor.

Taste the dressing and adjust as needed.

Add more ginger for extra bite, a little more maple syrup if you prefer it sweeter or another splash of rice vinegar if you want more tang.

If the dressing is thicker than you’d like, add water 1 tablespoon at a time, blending briefly between additions, until it reaches your preferred consistency.

Serving Suggestions

Obviously, the first order of business is pouring it over a crisp salad for the full hibachi-restaurant-at-home experience. Iceberg or romaine lettuce, cucumber, shredded carrot and this dressing? Done.

But don’t stop there. Try it:

• As a dipping sauce for fresh vegetable spring rolls

• Drizzled over a grain or rice bowl

• With raw or lightly steamed vegetables

• Spoon it over crispy tofu

• Tossed with shredded cabbage for a quick slaw

For dipping, I actually like leaving the dressing a little thicker. For salads, add a splash or two of water until it’s loose enough to easily toss with your greens.

Final Thoughts

There are certain little things we order at restaurants over and over again without realizing how simple they are to make ourselves.

This ginger dressing is one of them.

It takes a handful of fresh ingredients, a few pantry staples and a blender, and suddenly you have a jar in the refrigerator ready to make an ordinary Tuesday salad considerably more interesting.

And that’s exactly what inspired this series: Things You Love at Restaurants That You Should Be Making at Home.

Because so often, it’s the little things that make restaurant food feel special—the dressing you want to put on everything, the sauce you mop up with the last piece of bread, the garnish that somehow makes the whole dish better.

But, a lot of what you love at restaurants aren’t nearly as complicated as they seem. So we’re bringing some of those restaurant favorites home, one very doable recipe at a time. Stay tyned!

Love, Light, and Lentils, my friends.

Sarah