Spoonful of Sugar Free

Registered Dietitian

Easy Ginger-Miso Dressing

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I have been hoarding this recipe for a long time…

It is my absolute favorite homemade salad dressing! I have been searching and searching for my favorite salad dressing served at Japanese Steakhouses, and when I made this dressing I realized it tastes just like it!

Ginger-Miso Dressing served atop fresh kale, red peppers, grapes, cucumbers, and avocado

Easy Ginger Miso Dressing

~This salad dressing is gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free, and, of course, sugar-free!

Serves 1

  • 1 Tablespoon minced ginger
  • 1 teaspoon miso
  • teaspoons of lemon juice or water

In a small bowl, mix the ginger and miso together. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice (or water), and whisk. Add more lemon juice (or water) in teaspoonfuls until desired consistency is reached.

I like my dressing thick, but thin enough to pour. Feel free to double or triple the dressing as needed depending on the size of your salad and the number of people you are serving this to.

Health Benefits

  • Ginger: Ginger is best known for helping digestion. Ginger can help when you feel nauseated or cramped. It can also minimize the symptoms from colds, allergies, and respiratory conditions.
  • Miso: Made from soy, miso is high in iron, copper, manganese, vitamin B12, and vitamin K. It naturally contains probiotics that help the digestive system. Studies have also shown that consuming miso reduces the chances of getting Breast Cancer for women.
  • Lemon Juice: Helps stimulate and aid in the digestive system, and helps to get rid of toxins in the body. It can help the skin stay healthy and clean while decreasing the amount of phlegm in the body.

Compare all of these wonderful benefits of the Ginger-Miso dressing America’s most popular salad dressing, Ranch.

2 tablespoons of Hidden Valley ranch dressing has 140 calories, 14g fat, 2.5g saturated fat, 260mg sodium, 1g sugar, 1g protein.

Ingredients:Β Vegetable oil, egg yolk, sugar, salt, buttermilk, spices, garlic, onion, vinegar, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, modified food starch, MSG, artificial flavors, disodium phosphate, sorbic acid, calcium disodium EDTA, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate.

Not only is the ranch made mostly of oil, but it is full of unhealthy preservatives. It also contains harmful MSG. I think I’ll stick to my ginger-miso recipe.

Thought-provoking, mind-prodding question of the day:

What is your favorite salad dressing? Do you like making your own, or is there a certain store-bought variety you like?

Usually I just drizzle some balsamic vinegar and olive oil on my salads, but I fell in love with this Ginger-Miso recipe as soon as I created it!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. This recipe is great! I have a tub of miso sitting in my fridge and I’m running out of ideas for using it. Usually, I use a homemade dressing consisting of mustard, ginger, garlic, apple cider vinegar and black pepper. I think it’s delicious, but it has a lot of strong flavors going on so not everyone’s a fan.

  2. I’m not really a dressing person. I usually eat my salads without dressing…I like the taste of vegetables. πŸ™‚ Am I the only person who likes it that way? hehe

    • Yeah, it is a soy paste. It is usually found in the soy section of the refrigerated area of your grocery. (Next to the tofu πŸ˜‰ ). You can use soy sauce, but it won’t be the same taste and it won’t be as thick. I’m sure it will taste great, though!

  4. Yum! Sounds delicious and oh so simple and healthy! I pretty much never have store bought salad dressing and haven’t for about 3 years. My favorite homemade is a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, honey, and beau monde seasoing.

  5. I must try this. except I am out of miso.

    now I need to go shopping but thanks this sounds great!

  6. That sounds so good, Alex! I love ginger. I usually just drizzle balsamic vinegar and olive oil on my salads too. That’s actually the only dressing I’ve ever really liked.

    P.S. I love that you have so many sugar-free recipes! I’ve been experimenting with sugar-free, vegan cookies lately, and your recipes are definitely my inspiration. πŸ™‚

  8. We make our own French and Ranch dressings (recipes from Heavenly Homemakers). I can’t believe how easy it is- why didn’t I do it before?!

  10. I love that ginger dressing also. Thank you for posting it. I like olive oil with lemon. Some people make a dressing with olive oil and some of that Bragg’s amino liquid from the health food store, but I never liked the taste of it. If you want to get fancy, you can always get some balsamic vinegar and boil it down to one of those expensive syrups. It’s sweet enough on it’s own. Great with greens and strawberries, maybe some kind of cheese you might like, mild feta and some kind of nut, like slivered blanched almonds or walnuts probably better. Can also make sliced pears, salad, nuts and balsamic, cranberries and/or raisins. Figs if you don’t mind all the little crunchy seeds. Dried blueberries, whatever you like.

  13. I have to pass this on to my mother – she’s a HUGE ginger dressing fan! I’ll go with a good honey mustard any day – I can’t remember the last time I ordered a different dressing for a salad!

  14. I’m kind of bizarre and like just plain vinegar, whether red wine or balsamic… SOmetimes a combination of the two! But yours looks fabulous. πŸ™‚ I love miso, and I love ginger, so I’m not sure it coudl go wrong! πŸ˜‰

    I love your blog by the way!

  15. I tend to top my salads with hummus or cottage cheese, but I do love me some Trader Joe’s Balsamic Vinaigrette! Sometimes I get on dressing kicks, I just try to look for the ones with the fewest ingredients! Like you though, I do like balsamic and oil…heck you could put balsamic vinegar on just about anything and I’d eat it!

  18. Great recipe! I do not like salad dressing very much. I like to thin a Tbsp. of hummus with a little water and make that my dressing! Haha!

  19. I love making my own because I actually know what is going in my salads and its easier to control calories that way. Also I make sure that my salad dressing sweetness is always from a nature source of sweetness (honey, strawberries, mango)

    Great post, So happy to have come across your topic of salad dressing. Its a huge calorie killer at so many places we need to start getting on restaurants about the unnecessary calories in their dressings!