Yuzu Deserves To Be The Star Of Your Next Salad Dressing

Salad dressings need acidity — whether it's vinegar or citrus, the acid plays the role of balancing fats and enhancing flavor. Lemon is the most commonly used citrus in dressings, but yuzu is another unique citrus that can amplify a dressing recipe. Grown in Asia and important in Japanese cuisine, yuzu is a small, yellow citrus fruit that has a floral flavor like grapefruit, minus the bitterness. It's slightly sweet and sour, and provides brightness to any dish it's added to, including salad. If you've ever dipped sashimi or dumplings into ponzu sauce, the citrus flavor you're tasting likely comes from yuzu. 

If you're a creature of habit and always end up making the same salad dressings, using yuzu as the citrus component can elevate a basic recipe. While it's not always easy to find fresh due to importation regulations, yuzu juice or concentrate can be found bottled in some Asian grocers or specialty food shops. Yuzu is grown in California, and like other citrus fruit, the season for yuzu is wintertime, so keep an eye out for the fresh fruit when the opportunity presents itself.

Compared to a lemon, yuzu is less intense and slightly more sweet. It could be incorporated into any salad dressing recipe that calls for lemon; both the yuzu juice and rind can be used just as you would use a lemon. A classic lemon vinaigrette could become a yuzu vinaigrette, or you could try a creamy tahini yuzu dressing for a fusion of Asian and Middle Eastern flavors. With this substitution, the classic lemon flavor would be toned down and replaced with a sweet, floral, and slightly more mild citrus flavor.

Another option is to incorporate yuzu into dressings to be drizzled on top of Asian-style salads. Yuzu would shine in a crunchy bok choy salad or as the citrus component in an Asian slaw with a sweet crunch. With these recipes, replace the vinegar or the citrus with yuzu, or do a half-and-half mix of the two. Although yuzu is a more mild citrus, too much acid can throw off the balance of your salad. If you add too much yuzu or vinegar, you can always fix the acidity of the dressing with an addition of more fat, like oil, tahini, or yogurt.