Yuzu Dressing Recipe: 4 Ways to Cook With Yuzu

Yuzu (Citrus junos) is a citrus fruit used extensively in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean cuisine. Yuzus are a hybrid of mandarin orange and Ichang papeda (an aromatic, slow-growing citrus plant native to East Asia). The fruit resembles small, wrinkly grapefruits, which ripen from a green to a deep, golden yellow-orange color. The yuzu fruit is commonly used to make sauces, salad dressings, pie fillings, and cocktails like sparkling yuzu gimlets.

Most of the world’s yuzu is grown in Japan, but some producers have made efforts to cultivate it outside of Asia, in places like California. Depending on where you live, you can sometimes find fresh yuzu at Asian grocery stores, which also stock bottles of yuzu juice and concentrate.

While yuzu isn’t eaten on its own like some of its fellow citrus fruits, you can utilize both its peel and juice in your cooking. Here are a few ways to use the citrus fruit:

1. 1. Use the rind as a garnish. Fresh yuzu peel, and yuzu zest, are used as a fragrant garnish on many Japanese dishes, like ramen, chawanmushi egg custards, or traditional ozōni, a savory mochi soup eaten on New Year’s Day. You can also candy yuzu peels for a sweet garnish.
2. 2. Use it as a condiment. Yuzu’s aromatics are a powerful addition to many indispensable condiments, like yuzu kosho, a spicy paste made by fermenting fresh green or red chilies and salt with the fruit’s zest and juice, and ponzu sauce, a dipping sauce made with shoyu (soy sauce), mirin, dashi, and a blend of citrus fruits including yuzu and sudachi, a Japanese cross between a yuzu and a mandarin orange. In Korea, yuzu is made into a yuja-cheong, a marmalade.
3. 3. Add it to sauces, dressings, and marinades. Yuzu vinegar (a combination of rice vinegar and yuzu juice) is an easy way to add complex acidity to any dish where you’d typically use vinegar, like marinades, salad dressings, or a mignonette.
4. 4. Add it to beverages. Yuzu juice is a fantastic addition to cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks. Swap yuzu juice for lemon juice in a classic sour cocktail (like the Boston Sour), mix it with tonic water, or make yuzu hachimitsu, a combination of yuzu juice and honey, to use in tea.