Revitalizing Daikon Salad: Easy, Healthy, and Delicious

Daikon radish salad with bean sprouts (moyashi) and spinach is a tasty way to get some more vegetables in your diet. The salad’s primary seasoning is made up of the magic combination of soy sauce, sesame seeds, vinegar, and sesame oil. Overall, the flavors are savory and the salad has plenty of interesting textures thanks to the blanched sprouts, radish, and spinach. Have you made anything like this yet? 😛

The super versatile Daikon Radish （大根）

Did you know that there are many ways to eat daikon radish?

With daikon radish you can:

• stew it
• saute or fry it
• pickle it
• grate it (for fish, meat or dressing)
• put it in soup
• or put it in a salad! (like the one we’re making today!)

This salad’s one of my favorite ways to eat this thick little root!

And this isn’t just any ordinary salad…

It’s daikon and moyashi (bean sprouts) with a little bit of spinach mixed in!

Plenty of textures and flavors to keep you enjoying this for days and days-

Daikon Salad Dressing

The dressing is similar to goma-ae (胡麻和えーsesame soy sauce dressing).

If you’ve made goma-ae before, you’ll understand the delicate balance of sweet and savory flavors it’s known for.

If you haven’t, here’s a good starter – Moyashi Goma-ae (mung bean sprouts with sweet sesame soy)

The dressing used for this salad takes that goma-ae like flavor and adds garlic, sesame oil, and vinegar for more depth and complexity.

Just thinking about it, it’s like goma-ae on steroids.

Or you could just call it what it is and not compare the two.

How about it?

Are you sold yet?

Well, if not maybe watch this video and see how easy it is to make!

Some tips – Daikon Radish Salad（大根サラダ）

There’s a couple things I wanted to tell you to ensure a delicious outcome of this salad

• Blanch your vegetables in boiling water no more than 2 minutes. If it’s your first time trying this technique, do a quick texture test by pulling out a piece of daikon or bean sprout. It should have some bite or a little crunch, if you can easily bite through, you’ve overcooked them!
• Squeeze out excess water. If you don’t squeeze it out, it’ll dilute your dressing. Boo hoo! ☝
• Toast your sesame seeds for extra flavor
• Double or triple the recipe as it tastes just as good the next day!
• If you want a spicy kick you could add some ichimi or shichimi pepper in too
• Use leftover daikon for some of my other Japanese recipes linked below!

Not sure what to serve it with?

Could go well with any Japanese themed meal….

but if you want a specific suggestion how about this –

• Japanese white rice
• miso soup with tofu
• Japanese Style Broiled Mackerel with Salt (Shioyaki)

yum! 😛

Join me live next Wednesday on Youtube @ 6pm PST!

In case you missed them, here are some of my other favorite ways to eat daikon radish –

Simmered Yellowtail with Daikon Radish (Buri Daikon)

Daikon radish and Konnyaku Miso Dengaku (miso glaze)

Japanese Radish Salad with Tuna and Radish Sprouts

Simmered Daikon Radish with Dashi Broth – Daikon Nimono coming soon! 

       

Daikon Salad with Bean Sprouts and Spinach | Easy and Healthy! 😋

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Daikon radish salad with bean sprouts (moyashi) and spinach is a tasty way to get some more vegetables in your diet. The salad’s primary seasoning is made up of the magic combination of soy sauce, sesame seeds, vinegar, and sesame oil. Overall, the flavors are savory and the salad has plenty of interesting textures thanks to the blanched sprouts, radish, and spinach. Have you made anything like this yet? 

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 minute
• Total Time: 16 minutes
• Yield: 4 people 1x
• Category: side
• Cuisine: Japanese

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Daikon Radish, Bean Sprouts, Spinach

• 6 inch piece of daikon radish (cut into matchsticks)
• 1 bunch spinach (rinsed)
• 4 cups bean sprouts (moyashi, rinsed)

Daikon Salad Dressing

• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp sesame seeds (toasted and ground)
• 1 large clove garlic (crushed)
• ichimi, shichimi, or fresh cracked pepper (optional)

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Instructions

1. Peel and cut daikon into matchsticks
2. Prepare a large pot with boiling salted water.
3. Blanch spinach, bean sprouts and daikon for about 1-2 minutes. (watch closely to avoid overcooking!)
4. Strain and shock with cold water to stop cooking. Use ice cubes to speed up the cooling. (overcooking = mushy veggies = )
5. Once cooled squeeze squeeze and squeeze all the excess water that you can. And when you think you’re done, squeeze one more time! then mix with dressing!
6. Make dressing and mix with vegetables

Notes

if you want a spicy kick you could add some ichimi or shichimi pepper in too

if you need the suribachi (tool to grind sesame seeds) it’s available on amazon