When the taste buds say “Yes!” but the blood pressure cuff says “No!” you probably should be listening to the cuff. Which means that enjoying a nice platter of sashimi requires some rethinking. The typical accompaniment of soy sauce and wasabi is not a good idea. Sodium: bad.

“Sashimi and shoyu just seems to go so well together, but I was trying to cut down on my shoyu consumption for elevated blood pressure reasons,” John Barclay wrote. “I was wondering if you’d know of another type of dipping sauce, other than shoyu, that I can use for my sashimi cravings.”

An interesting challenge, and in the public good. We could all do with less sodium in our lives.

So I called Hiroshi Fukui, chef at Hiroshi Eurasion Tapas and my adviser in all things Japanese. We pondered the options.

His first suggestion was goma dare, or sesame sauce, often served with white-fleshed fish (soy sauce is for red fish; betcha didn’t know that). Goma dare is made with sesame paste, sugar, mirin and — unfortunately — a hefty amount of soy sauce. We thought significantly reducing the amount of soy sauce could work.

It was awful. I’m warning you, don’t try it.

Next option: a citrus-ginger sauce with some chili-pepper spiciness, which Fukui said can trick the brain into thinking it’s getting salt. I tried a few combinations and found a mixture of vinegar and lemon juice to produce a nice, refreshing soy sauce alternative.

The recipe below contains just 5 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon, compared with 900 mg in a tablespoon of straight soy sauce. The recommended daily allowance of sodium is just 2,400 mg, so you can see how much this could contribute to your sodium intake.

If you’re OK with a little salt, this sauce is improved with a teaspoon or so of soy sauce. That would increase the sodium in a tablespoon to around 80 mg.

LOW-SODIUM SASHIMI DIPPING SAUCE

2 tablespoons vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon mirin

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon grated ginger, with juice

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce or paste (such as Tabasco or Thai chili paste), or more to taste

1 teaspoon soy sauce, optional

Combine ingredients except soy sauce. Taste with a piece of sashimi and adjust seasonings. If some sodium is OK in your diet, add soy sauce to taste, starting with 1 teaspoon. Makes a little more than 1/4 cup. Easily doubled.

Approximate nutritional analysis, per tablespoon (using Tabasco and not including optional soy sauce): 10 calories, no fat or cholesterol, 5 mg sodium, 2 g carbohydrate, no fiber or protein, 1 g sugar

Next week: ‘Slow Ono’

My monthly slow-cooker recipe, usually presented on the first Wednesday of the month, is delayed by a week. Check out this space Nov. 9 for slow-cooker side dishes for Thanksgiving.

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Nutritional analysis by Joannie Dobbs, Ph.D., C.N.S. Write “By Request,” Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813. Reach her at bshimabukuro@staradvertiser.com.