Carrot Salad

This easy carrot salad is a refreshing, crunchy, and versatile recipe you can serve as a holiday side dish or bring to picnics and potlucks.

For more easy carrot recipes, try our hot honey carrots, moroccan carrot salad, and carrot soup with ginger.

Our raw carrot salad recipe is inspired by a classic French carrot salad recipe called carottes râpées.

Unlike our lentil carrot salad where we cook the carrots, here we use crunchy, raw, freshly grated carrots and a simple but flavor-packed, creamy mustard dressing.

It’s the same dressing you loved in our green bean salad, cauliflower lentil salad, and chickpea salad.

Overall, the recipe will remind you of our creamy coleslaw and broccoli salad because of the crunchy texture of the raw vegetables.

The beauty of this shredded carrot salad is that the carrots absorb the dressing’s flavor and become juicy, sweet, and tasty while retaining a nice crunch.

You’ll love this recipe because it uses simple ingredients without mayonnaise and can be customized to your taste by adding your favorite add-ins.

Our tip? Add something sweet, like apples, raisins, or even better pineapple pieces.

This carrot salad recipe makes a delicious side dish for a weeknight dinner with the whole family, potlucks, or barbeque.

You can also serve it next to a special holiday main, such as roasted butternut squash, lentil loaf, or mushroom Wellington.

It’s the perfect side to add color, flavor, and crunch!

Quantities are in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

Carrots

Get fresh whole orange carrots to shred at home; they are crunchier and juicier than pre-shredded carrots in a plastic bag.

There are several ways of shredding carrots.

Some use a julienne peeler or a knife to cut the carrot into julienne strips.

That’s fine; however, julienned carrots, while looking beautiful, are a little too stiff for this carrot salad recipe and don’t absorb the flavor of the dressing as much as freshly grated carrots.

We recommend finely shredding the carrots with the fine-grating cone attachment of an electric salad shredder.

You can also use a food processor with a shredding disc with small holes.

Shallots

They add a nice tang to the salad. They should be finely chopped.

Substitute red onion or green onions for shallots.

Fresh parsley

Fresh parsley adds freshness and a light, herby flavor.

Substitute fresh cilantro for parsley.

Mustard Dressing

• Olive oil: extra virgin olive oil is best, but regular olive oil works too.
  
• Lemon juice: freshly squeezed. Substitute red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or orange juice for lemon juice.
  
• Ground cumin: it’s a key ingredient and should not be replaced. If you don’t like cumin, you can omit it, but we recommend trying at least a small amount.
  
• Maple syrup: substitute honey, agave syrup, or sugar.
  
• Mustard: we tried it with Dijon mustard and American mustard; both were delicious.
  
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper.

The dressing is tangy, slightly sweet, and aromatic. The ground cumin is a perfect flavor match for the carrots, so try to add it. It makes this grated carrot salad very special.

We tested it with all the add-in variations we recommend here, and it fits in with every single one.

Pick one or more from:

• Chopped pineapple – to add sweetness and juiciness (this is our favorite)
• Cucumber – for crunch and freshness.
• Chopped apples – for tartness, sweetness, and crunch.
• Raisins or dried cranberries – for sweetness. You can use regular or golden raisins.
• Chickpeas – to add protein and overall nutrition. You can substitute canned lentils for chickpeas.
• Toasted walnuts, pecan nuts, slivered or shaved almonds, pumpkin seeds, and pine nuts for crunch, nutty flavor, and healthy fats.
• Greek yogurt or plant-based yogurt: we use yogurt instead of mayo to add creaminess and freshness. Our favorite is unsweetened soy yogurt.
• Crumbled feta
• Mixed seeds

We tried all the add-ins listed above, and we can guarantee they’ll taste delicious with your raw carrot salad recipe.

Please share in the comments below if you come up with more, and we’ll make sure to try them!

US cups + grams measurements in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

1. Prep the vegetables

Peel the carrots with a vegetable peeler.

Grate the carrots with:

• A food processor with a shredding disc with small holes.
• A box grater.
• The fine grinding cone attachment of an electric salad shredder.
• A julienne peeler.

Add the shredded carrots to a large bowl.

Finely chop the shallot and the parsley.

Tip: If you add one or more of our recommended add-ins, you can prep those too. This is how we like to cut them.

2. Make the dressing

Carrot salad with raisins and walnuts

This is a classic variation made by adding a handful (1/4 cup) of raisins to our basic carrot salad recipe.

To jazz it up, we also like to add crushed walnuts; they taste delicious with carrots and raisins and remind us of our delicious carrot cake recipe.

If you want to try this carrot and raisin salad with a different dressing, you can replace the lemon juice with orange juice.

The salad will be sweeter and very aromatic.

This is also delicious, with Greek yogurt or non-dairy yogurt stirred into it to make it more like an old-fashioned grandma salad.

Carrot and chickpea salad

Carrot and chickpea salad has a Mediterranean twist thanks to the chickpeas.

We use a 15-oz can of chickpeas (230 grams drained), a couple of tablespoons of toasted almonds, and a handful of raisins.

We love to have this as a quick and healthy lunch or even for a brunch buffet with our tofu scramble and avocado spread with some crusty focaccia bread.

Make ahead: For the best flavor and texture, we recommend making this salad up to 2 hours before serving it. It lasts longer than that in the fridge, but the texture degrades after a couple of hours.

Refrigerator: Keep carrot salad leftovers in an airtight container for two days.

Freezer: This recipe is not suitable for freezing.

More Carrot Recipes