Creamy Mellow Miso Salad Dressing + 10 Salad Making Tips

Today I am sharing one of my favorite salad dressings. Creamy and thick mellow miso salad dressing to go with your every-day raw vegetable fix. To make it easy to get that veggie dose, I’m including tips for prepping all the ingredients so you’re ready to put together daily salads in a jiffy.

All-in-one lick tart, this easy-to-make mellow miso salad dressing is sweet, salty and umami. Simply whir white miso with rice vinegar, honey, oil, and a smidgen of green onion in a blender.

Click here to PIN Mellow Miso Salad Dressing. 

Mellow, defined in dictionaries as smooth, rich, deep, expansive and mature. Yup. Miso, as in traditional Japanese fermented soybean paste with live probiotics, salty pale yellow white miso, the lightest of a variety of misos.

At our house dinner always includes a tossed green salad–lettuce or mixed greens, along with whatever veggies we have in the fridge crisper drawer. This way we insure we get some healthy raw, fresh nutritious veggies every day, no matter what else we eat that same day.

I usually cook the main course and Robbie makes the salad. It’s a nice routine that naturally fell into place in our home cook life. We didn’t talk about it, but we agree that it works.

From pulling the workings from the fridge, to done, on the dining table, Robbie has salad making down to ten minutes. I’m not exaggerating. The trick is to prep ahead of time, right after shopping, which sets us up for several nights of weekday salads. Here are some tips to get you in the daily salad routine.

Guidelines for prepping salad ingredients:

• Fill a sink with cold water and wash the lettuce. Spin the excess water away in a lettuce spinner, until it is practically dry. (see notes) Wrap the lettuce in a kitchen towel, then slip the wrapped greens into a plastic bag. Store in the fridge until it’s weekday salad fixing time.
• I prefer the taste and crunch of romaine lettuce and that it doesn’t easily spoil. Robbie likes the tubs of mixed greens. Either choice, both get a fresh rinse, even the pre-washed greens.
• If beets made it into your grocery cart, when you get home give them a quick scrub and roast them in the oven. Leave the skins on–they will be easy to slip off when it’s time to cut into slices or wedges. Refrigerate the cooked beets in a jar or plastic container. Pop the celery, leafy end up, in a jar with an inch or so of water and cover loosely with a plastic bag.
• We keep a bag of organic carrots and a jicama in the produce drawer, ready and waiting for weekday salads. Sometimes we have cucumbers and bell peppers too. Tomatoes in season, absolutely. Avocado slices if you wish.

Dinnertime is showtime:

• It goes without saying to make sure you have salad dressing on hand. Like today’s easy mellow miso salad dressing. You might also enjoy another delicious vinaigrette, like this herb vinaigrette or this red chile dressing.
• Pull out the salad bowl. Or individual bowls. Get out your washed lettuce, and some colorful veggies.Maybe a carrot, a stalk of celery, the jicama and a roasted beet. And/or cucumber and bell pepper.
• Wash and peel and trim the veggies. Slip the skin from the beet. Be efficient. Whichever vegetables you choose, prep them before slicing and dicing into julienne, cubes, rounds, or wedges–any shape your cooking heart desires.
• Tear the lettuce into bite size pieces. Arrange the chopped veggies over the lettuce.
• For protein, keep pecans, pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds nearby. Consider that garbanzo or black beans can make it a main course salad.
• We always dress our salad at the table, just in case there is some leftover–nice for lunch the next day.
• Eat up. You’ve just gotten a lot closer to the recommended 5 to 9 fresh fruits and vegetables a day and you did it quickly.

Mellow Miso Salad Dressing recipe notes:

• A lettuce spinner is essential to a salad-ready kitchen. When we travel and don’t have room for our lettuce spinner, we spin our greens the old-fashioned way, in a mesh laundry bag. Be sure to swing the bag outdoors so water doesn’t spray all over your kitchen!

Years ago I found this basic recipe on a tub of Westbrae mellow white miso. Been making it on occasion ever since! This is an update from a 2015 recipe post.

If you make this salad dressing and take to heart the salad making tips, please consider leaving a blog post comment. Your comments help other readers learn more about the recipe.

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