This easy-to-make Miso Tahini Dressing combines the umami taste of miso with the nutty flavor of tahini. It’s the perfect dressing for salads, grilled vegetables, grain bowls and can be used as a marinade too.

A rectangular button with the Google Icon and add as a Google preferred source.

A white hand is drizzling a spoonful of miso tahini dressing over a green leaf salad in a large white bowl.

Key Ingredients

This tahini miso dressing only requires a handful of ingredients that can all be found at your local supermarket. Depending on where you live the one exception to that may be the white miso. If they don’t stock this, it can be found at an Asian grocery store.

All the ingredients needed to make miso tahini dressing are laid out across a table in small bowls.

Shiro miso – a sweet white miso paste that adds a mildly umami flavor to the dressing.
Good quality tahini – the base ingredient that adds a mild nuttiness and a bit of sweetness to this delicious sauce/dressing.
Fresh lemon juice – tahini is very thick so this is adding a bit of tang to the dressing but also helps to make it pourable.
Fresh Ginger – this provides a hint of warmth and spice to the dressing. A perfect match for the miso and tahini.
Fresh Garlic – adds pungency and balances the other ingredients.
Maple syrup – contributes some sweetness to lighten the flavor profile.
Sesame oil – adds rich, deep, and earthy tastes.

A small amount of water is also added but just enough to get the consistency you’re after in the dressing. It should be thick but pourable and really stick to whatever you’re adding it to. You don’t want to completely water down the taste so add it sparingly.

Substitutions And Variations

Yellow miso can replace the shiro in need. It has a similarly sweet taste.

This is a great salad dressing for meal prep. Double the recipe and keep it in the fridge to use on salads, a grain bowl, or roast veg and meats.

How To Make A Miso Tahini Dressing

This delicious recipe takes minutes to make and can be mixed by hand, or with an immersion blender if preferred. Both are fine, but the stick blender will give you a smoother, creamier dressing overall.

A white hand is mixing together ingredients in a white bowl containing miso, tahini, ginger and garlic.

A white hand is pouring a small bowl of lemon juice into another bowl with miso and tahini.

A white hand is pouring a small jar of water into a bowl with miso tahini dressing.

A white hand is is mixing a white bowl full of miso tahini dressing with a silver spoon.

Add the miso, tahini, garlic and ginger to a small mixing bowl then mix to combine.
Next add in the lemon juice, maple syrup, sesame oil, some water and salt, and whisk until your desired consistency is reached. The dressing should be slightly thick but pourable. If you’d prefer a thinner consistency, add more water (just a little at a time) until it reaches the consistency you’re after.

Serving: This is the perfect creamy dressing for buddha bowls and salads. It’s also delicious poured over a bowl of brown rice and baked vegetables or meats.

A white bowl full of miso tahini dressing with a drizzle of sesame oil sits on a grey background.

Tips For Success With This Recipe

Hulled tahini is the best choice for this recipe. This variety has had the hull (or husk/outer shell) removed from the seed before grinding. As a result it’s lighter, creamier and much less bitter. In contrast, unhulled tahini still has the hull intact, making it quite bitter in flavour and darker in colour.

Storing And Freezing

Keep any leftover dressing in a glass jar or airtight container in the fridge for a week or two.

This is a great make-ahead recipe as the flavours have more time to meld together. If the dressing thickens up too much in the fridge simply add a little more water or lemon juice to thin it out.

This recipe is not suitable for freezing.