Asian Salad Dressing

So I have this Asian style salad that I ALWAYS make. It's pretty much my favorite salad ever - I throw it together all the time. And I always get requests by friends and family members to make it. I make the dressing from scratch, but I've never written down a recipe for it until a few days ago. I'm not really a recipe type of person - I usually just go by what feels right and tasting as I go. But at least now that I have  finally written down the recipe, I can make my favorite salad dressing taste exactly the same every time!!!! This probably isn't something that I should be that excited about.... but honestly this is an awesome dressing. It deserves some excitement.

I love this dressing because it is a great blend of pretty much all great flavors: savory, sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. I usually make it in a salad with whatever veggies I have on hand (carrots, cucumbers, celery, bell peppers, etc..) and load up the salad with A LOT of sliced green onions and cilantro - I seriously think this is what makes this salad so good. If I have some leftover chicken, I'll throw that in too - especially when the chicken had marinated in a little soy sauce and garlic or one of my fav marinades, Trader Joe's Island Soyaki. Then sprinkle the whole thing with sesame seeds and some of the dressing. Yummm!

See??!?! Doesn't this look like an awesome salad? Too bad I forgot to take a picture of it all mixed up - it looked even better... Now on to the dressing recipe:

Asian Salad Dressing:

Ingredients:

- zest of 1 orange

- 4 cloves garlic, grated

- 1 inch knob of ginger, grated

- big pinch of red pepper flakes

- 2 tbsp Miso paste

- 5 tbsp soy sauce

- 6 tbsp rice vinegar

- 5 tbsp mirin

- juice squeezed form half an orange

- 8 tbsp sesame oil

- 8 tbsp canola oil

Directions:

1. Zest/grate first 3 ingredients into a 16 oz jar with a lid.

All the yummy grated goodies

2. Throw all of the other ingredients into the jar with the orange zest, garlic, and ginger. I ran out of red pepper flakes when I made this, so I substituted with Shichimi Togarashi (Japanese red pepper and spice blend). It was still good with Shichimi Togarashi, but I think I prefer the spicy bite that the bigger chunks or red pepper flakes add.

All of the other ingredients... 

3. Close the lid and shake up the jar!!! Its best to let it sit in the refrigerator overnight so the orange, garlic, and ginger flavors are pulled out into the liquids, but if you're short on time an hour will be ok.

Yummm!! It doesn't look very pretty, but I promise it tastes really good!

4. Drizzle over a salad then EAT! Of course, the most important step :)