Chinese enoki mushroom salad close up

If you’re looking for a light, refreshing, and umami-packed appetizer or side dish, this enoki mushroom salad is a must-try. This cold dish is quick to prepare and offers a vibrant contrast to heavier main courses. Featuring tender blanched enoki mushrooms dressed in a savory, garlicky sauce, it’s a popular item in Chinese home cooking and often appears on restaurant cold dish menus as well.

What Are Enoki Mushrooms?

Enoki mushrooms (金针菇, jin zhen gu) are also called golden needle mushrooms in Chinese. They are long, thin white mushrooms with tiny caps and a slightly crunchy texture. They’re mild in flavor and cook very quickly, making them ideal for soups, stir-fries, hot pots, and cold salads. They add a fun texture to your dish, and basically soak up whatever flavors are in the sauce. You can usually find them in Asian grocery stores, sold in plastic-wrapped bundles.

Why You’ll Love This Dish

  • Fast and Easy: Blanching enoki mushrooms takes only 30 seconds.
  • Flavorful: The dressing combines soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and sesame oil for the perfect balance of salty, sour, and nutty.
  • Versatile: Enjoy it as a side dish, appetizer, or as part of a larger spread.
Chinese enoki mushroom salad

Ingredients

You only need a few ingredients to make enoki mushroom salad:

  • Enoki mushrooms
  • Persian cucumber: English cucumber also works.
  • Red pepper (or hot pepper): I like to use red pepper to add color. You can use your choice of chili pepper for some heat.
  • Sauce: A combo of light soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar, sugar, salt, garlic and sesame oil for a balanced taste. 

The key to success

The key to making a great tasting enoki mushroom dish is to slice the vegetables into thin, even pieces for the best texture. For cucumber, I prefer to slice it into 2” (5-cm) long 1/8” (3-mm) thick sticks. For the pepper, I take off both ends and slice it into 1/8” (3-mm) thick pieces.

Ingredients for making enoki mushroom salad

How to make enoki mushroom salad

  1. Blanch the enoki mushrooms. This step happens very quickly, and you should have a colander ready to drain the mushrooms once they’re cooked. If you overcook the mushrooms, they will turn quite mushy and soft.
Blanching mushrooms
  1. Combine the mushrooms with the cucumber, pepper and garlic in a bowl. Mix everything with the sauce.
Mixing the enoki mushroom salad

That’s it! Now you have a refreshing salad with a savory sauce that’s slightly tangy and nutty. I really like the texture of the dish, which features crunchy tender mushrooms and crispy vegetables. It’s a great dish to add color and nutrition to your meal.

凉拌金针菇

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Chinese enoki mushroom salad is a quick and easy appetizer packed with colorful vegetables and a savory sauce that’s full of fragrance. {Vegetarian, Gluten-Free Adaptable}

Enoki Mushroom Salad (凉拌金针菇)

By Maggie Zhu
5 from 7 votes
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 4 servings
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Chinese enoki mushroom salad is a quick and easy appetizer packed with colorful vegetables and a savory sauce that’s full of fragrance. {Vegetarian, Gluten-Free Adaptable}

Ingredients 

  • 1 stalk enoki mushrooms , tough ends removed
  • 2 persian cucumbers , julienned (or 4” of English cucumber)
  • 1/4 red pepper , julienned (Optional, or use chili pepper for heat)

For the sauce

Instructions

  • Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil. Add golden needle mushrooms and cook for 20 to 30 seconds, until the mushrooms are just cooked through. Immediately drain the mushrooms in a colander and run cold tap water over them to stop cooking. Drain thoroughly, pat dry with paper towels, and transfer to a medium-sized bowl. Add the cucumber, and red pepper.
  • Mix light soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt, garlic, and sesame oil together in a small bowl.
  • Right before serving (*footnote 1), pour sauce over the salad, add the toasted sesame seeds, and mix well. Serve at room temperature as a side or an appetizer.

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Notes

  1. Once you add the sauce, the salt in the sauce will start to pull moisture from the vegetables and this dilutes the dressing. That’s why I prefer to mix the salad right before serving. That being said, you can totally pre-mix the salad if you plan to bring it to a party. The salad will hold up well for a couple of hours in the fridge.
  2. To make the dish gluten-free: Use tamari to replace the soy sauce, and use rice vinegar to replace Chinkiang vinegar.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 62kcal, Carbohydrates: 10.1g, Protein: 2.3g, Fat: 0.8g, Saturated Fat: 0.1g, Sodium: 303mg, Potassium: 320mg, Fiber: 3.2g, Sugar: 1.7g, Calcium: 5mg, Iron: 1mg

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