Asian Ginger Dressing with Napa Cabbage

A bright intense ginger dressing served over napa cabbage.

This is an Asian-inspired vinaigrette coleslaw side dish recipe, which you can serve with most East Asian main course meals.

Jump to:

• Dressing ingredients
• How to make it?
• Variations
• Serving suggestions
• 📖 Recipe

Dressing ingredients

The homemade dressing is a straightforward, Asian flavored vinaigrette style salad topping.

The recipe was inspired by my Japanese cabbage slaw salad, just that this napa slaw is more complexly flavored.

The ingredients will remind you of east Asian meals.

Ginger

The dressing is prepared with freshly chopped ginger root. It has to be fresh ginger, dried ginger won't bring it.

Nothing screams more Asian than ginger!

Rice Vinegar

Rice vinegar is an Asian vinegar variety. It's soft and not strongly flavored, making it a perfect choice for salads.

You may use other vinegar but mix it with a small quantity of water if the vinegar is too strongly flavored.

Soy Sauce

I use the most common soy sauce in the world, regular Kikkoman or the healthy boy brand soy sauce.

Both are a thin soy sauce variation.

Sesame Oil

Not every sesame oil tastes the same!

There are different variations such as toasted sesame oil.

Just use one that you enjoy.

Canola Oil

I think canola oil is great for salads! It's not that heavy and it blends well with the other ingredients in this recipe.

As a substitute, you may use sunflower oil too or any other salad oil of your choice.

Brown Sugar

Sugar helps to balance the flavors in the dressing. It's necessary so that all the Asian flavors come out.

I use brown sugar because it tastes better in my opinion but you are free to use any regular white sugar too.

How to make it?

To prepare this refreshing bright sesame ginger dressing with cabbage is rather easy. I have outlined the steps.

The complete recipe with all the ingredients and step details to print out is located at the bottom of this post.

Step 1

Prepare your cabbage. Rinse and discard wilted leaves.

Chop cabbage into bite-sized pieces and keep it in a mixing bowl at the side.

Step 2

Peel and chop ginger.

Prepare the dressing. Combine all ingredients in a salad shaker, small bottle or in a bowl.

Step 3

Pour salad dressing over cabbage and garnish.

Serve cold as a side dish.

Variations

This recipe can be enhanced by adding any of the following ingredients to the dressing or salad.

Pep up your dressing by adding:

• chopped fresh garlic
• dash of peanut oil
• carrot puree (hibachi copycat) or pumpkin puree or mango pulp
• dash of a hot sauce such as sriracha, tabasco, franks hot sauce or mango habanero hot sauce or any other of your choice

Add the following salad ingredients shredded or cut into two:

• carrot
• cocktail or cherry tomato
• cucumber

More garnish ideas:

• bonito flakes
• crushed nori seaweeds
• spring onion greens chopped

Serving suggestions

Serve your Asian napa cabbage salad with east Asian main course meals.

I like it with Chinese noodles such as chicken chow mein or a fried rice dish, as in hibachi fried rice.

Japanese meals such as teriyaki chicken, miso soup (as a light meal), or sushi work great with this salad too.

Thai, Vietnamese and other east Asian foods can be served with this salad too.

The Asian salad dressing can be served without the cabbage too with seafood such as with raw oysters and smoked salmon or tuna.

Another idea is to switch the ginger dressing with a Japanese Wafu dressing.

📖 Recipe