This is just one of the Japanese foods I recreate at home. For more, check out our list of Japanese recipes to make at home.

Japanese Cabbage Salad Recipe

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Japanese Cabbage Salad Ingredients:

You can get the full list of ingredients with measurements in the recipe card below.

• Cabbage – Half a head of green cabbage works in this recipe. The fresher it is, the crunchier the salad will be.
• Neutral oil – Most Japanese recipes call for a neutral oil because it doesn’t add any unnecessary flavor. We prefer canola oil, but you can use another neutral oil, like vegetable oil or avocado oil. Olive oil has too strong of a taste, so we don’t recommend that.
• Mirin – This sweet Japanese cooking wine balances out the tart vinegar and salty soy sauce in the dressing.
• Rice wine vinegar – This is milder than a white or apple cider vinegar. We don’t suggest substituting those in this recipe. It will change the flavor of the dressing too much.
• Sesame oil – This has a lot of flavor and a little bit goes a long way.
• Soy sauce – This adds a little salt and seasoning. If you notice, there aren’t any dry seasonings in this so the soy sauce is really doing a lot of heavy lifting.

How To Make Japanese Cabbage Salad:

Shred the cabbage.

Last time I was in Japan, I picked up a cabbage peeler at Daiso. It shreds cabbage so incredibly easily.

But, quick note: Shredding the cabbage this way adds so much volume, so that’s why we only use half a head of cabbage. You could use the whole thing, but you would need a gigantic bowl for it and you’d be eating leftovers all week.

You could also use a mandolin to shred it, but a head of cabbage is usually a little bit bigger than a mandolin, so that’s a little difficult.

Also, you could also finely chop the cabbage with a sharp knife, but I find that creates too much of a uniform cut and it makes the salad really flat. You lose the textural elements that make this recipe so craveable.

Put the shredded cabbage into a large bowl.

Pour cold water on top and let the cabbage rest for about 20 minutes.

If you don’t have that much time, just let it rest as long as you can.

Letting it rest in the cold water helps mellow some of the cabbage’s bitterness. It will also help the cabbage to retain its crunchy texture. So don’t skip this step.

Drain the cabbage and pat it dry.

In a small bowl, add the neutral oil, mirin, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce.

Whisk the ingredients together until they’re combined.

This may take a little bit of vigorous whisking on your part because the oil wants to stay separate from the other liquids.

We have a tiny whisk that we use when we make dressings and vinaigrettes. That works better than a regular spoon because the spoon just pushes the ingredients around the bowl and doesn’t combine them.

Pour the dressing on top of the cabbage.

Use a pair of tongs to toss the cabbage in the dressing until everything is coated.

Serve on the side of tonkatsu, chicken cutlets, or any type of breaded, fried meat.

We actually use this as a topping for crabcake sandwiches. It would be great on top of pulled pork sandwiches as well.

More Cabbage Recipes:

Since this recipe only uses half a head of cabbage, you have to figure out a way to use the other half. We really love Egg Roll In A Bowl, which has cabbage as the base. You could also make our coleslaw recipe, which is mostly shredded cabbage.