Ground Toasted Sesame Dipping Sauce

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A thick, nutty sesame dipping sauce built the way Japanese shabu-shabu counters do it: whole white sesame seeds toasted until they pop, then ground until they release their oil and turn to paste. A spoonful of tahini adds body, soy and rice vinegar sharpen it, and dashi loosens it to a pourable, spoon-coating sauce. Use it for hot pot, steamed dumplings, cold noodles, blanched spinach, or as a dip for crisp cucumber and raw vegetables.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup raw white sesame seeds (hulled)
• 2 tablespoons tahini or Japanese neri goma (sesame paste)
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon mirin
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 small clove garlic, grated on a microplane
• 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
• 3 to 5 tablespoons cool dashi or water, plus more as needed
• kosher salt, to taste

• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced scallion greens
• 1/4 teaspoon Japanese shichimi togarashi or Korean gochugaru

• steamed dumplings, cold ramen or soba, blanched spinach, cucumber spears, or thin-sliced hot pot meats

Instructions

1. Put the sesame seeds in a dry 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Toast, stirring or shaking almost constantly, for 4 to 6 minutes, until the seeds turn light golden, smell strongly nutty, and start to pop and jump in the pan. They go from perfect to burnt in about 30 seconds, so pull them the moment the color shifts.
2. Immediately scrape the seeds onto a plate or sheet pan in a single layer so they stop cooking. Let cool 5 minutes — warm seeds grind well, hot seeds steam and clump.
3. Set aside 1 tablespoon of whole seeds for garnish. Grind the rest: in a suribachi or mortar and pestle, work in a circular motion for 3 to 5 minutes until most seeds are broken and the mixture looks like damp, oily sand and clings to the sides. Or pulse in a clean spice/coffee grinder in 5-second bursts for 30 to 45 seconds total, stopping before it packs into a solid cake.
4. Scrape the ground sesame into a medium bowl. Add the tahini and sesame oil and mash together with a spoon or small whisk into a stiff, smooth paste — this step is what keeps the finished sauce from separating.
5. Add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, mirin, sugar, grated garlic, and ginger. Whisk hard for 20 to 30 seconds. The paste will first seize and look broken, then come back together glossy and thick, like a loose nut butter.
6. Whisk in the dashi or water 1 tablespoon at a time until the sauce falls from the whisk in a ribbon and coats the back of a spoon like heavy cream — usually 3 to 4 tablespoons for dipping, 5 or more for dressing noodles or greens.
7. Taste and adjust: a pinch of salt for depth, a few drops more vinegar if it tastes flat, another 1/2 teaspoon sugar if the soy dominates. Let the sauce rest at room temperature for 15 minutes so the ground seeds hydrate and the texture tightens slightly; whisk in a splash more dashi if needed.
8. Transfer to a serving bowl and top with the reserved whole toasted seeds, scallion greens, and shichimi togarashi. Serve at room temperature alongside dumplings, cold noodles, blanched greens, or hot pot.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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