Name: Summer Vegetable Salad with Sesame-Shiso Dressing
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 2 tomatoes (medium (about 150g per tomato), diced); 1 Japanese or Persian cucumbers (about 100g per cucumber); salt; 50 g edamame (thawed if using frozen, boiled if using fresh); 4 tbsp canned sweet corn; 5 perilla leaves (shiso) (shredded); 1 ½ tbsp toasted sesame oil; 1 tbsp rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar); ½ tbsp Japanese soy sauce (koikuchi shoyu); 5 perilla leaves (shiso); 1 tsp ground sesame seeds; ½ tsp sugar

What if your new go-to summer side dish took only 15 minutes start to finish?

This colorful Japanese vegetable salad combines the season’s best produce coated with a bright, herbaceous dressing that will invigorate the senses even in the height of summer!

a bowl filled with summer vegetable salad and shiso dressing with a wooden spoon

Perfect for potlucks, barbecues, or a weekday lunch, let’s make something everyone will remember.

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Visual Walkthrough & Tips

Here are my step-by-step instructions for how to make Summer Vegetable Salad at home. For ingredient quantities and simplified instructions, scroll down for the Printable Recipe Card below.

This section aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the cooking steps and techniques with visuals. It also includes more in-depth tips and tricks and explains why I do what I do.

STEP

Prepare the Tomatoes & Cucumber

Start by dicing your tomatoes into bite-sized pieces.

roughly cut tomato on a wooden cutting board with a vegetable knife

Sprinkle them generously with salt. Let them rest in a bowl or lounge in a colander for about 10 minutes, just enough for their juices to drip and flavors to concentrate.

Meanwhile, thinly slice cucumbers (aim for 2mm thickness).

sliced cucumber on a wooden cutting board with vegetable knife

Then, give them their own salt rub. Massage gently, then set aside to sweat out excess water.

a hand massaging salted cucumber in a steel mixing bowl

STEP

Create the Shiso-Sesame Dressing

While we wait, combine the sliced shiso, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, toasted sesame oil, and ground sesame seeds in a small food processor.

shiso leaves and condiments in a blender jug side view

Pulse until the mixture forms a smooth, emerald-green dressing with tiny flecks of shiso throughout.

The toasted sesame oil adds a rich, nutty depth that balances the bright acidity of the rice vinegar.

STEP

Drain and Dry the Vegetables

After 10 minutes, you’ll see pools of liquid around your salted vegetables. Discard all the liquid that has accumulated. For the cucumbers, take this step further: gather them in a clean kitchen towel and gently squeeze to remove every last bit of moisture.

salted cucumber and tomatoes in separate bowls

STEP

Assemble and Dress the Salad

Combine the prepared tomatoes and cucumbers with any additional fresh summer vegetables (I used sweet corn kernels, edamame, and shredded shiso leaves) in a serving bowl.

summer shiso salad made with cucumber, tomatoes, edamame, corn and shredded shiso in an off-white mottled bowl

Just before serving, drizzle the shiso-sesame dressing over the vegetables and toss gently to coat.

pouring shiso dressing over summer vegetable salad

Serve immediately and enjoy!

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I hope you enjoy this Summer Salad recipe! If you try it out, I’d really appreciate it if you could spare a moment to let me know what you thought by giving a review and star rating in the comments below. It’s also helpful to share any adjustments you made to the recipe with our other readers. Thank you!