Grated carrot salad has to be one of the easiest dishes in the world to prepare, as well as being pretty kid-friendly and good for you!
The trick is to start with the best carrots you can find. Here is where buying organic or from a farmer’s market really makes a difference in taste.
Carrots, being root vegetables, are not only tastier when they are grown in compost-rich soil, but they are more nutrient-rich as well.
The proportions of this recipe are flexible, depending on what you have on hand. Many traditional carrot salad recipes also call for crushed pineapple, but I think with the apples, raisins, and carrots, it’s sweet enough.
By the way, Trader Joe’s often carries “rainbow crunch” carrots of different colors—deep red, bright orange, and bold yellow— that are pretty and taste great.
Classic Carrot Salad Recipe
PrintIngredients
- 3-4 cups freshly grated carrots (4 to 6 medium sized carrots)
- 1/2-1 cup raisins (regular, golden, craisins or a mix)
- 1 large apple, (peeled or not, your preference) cored and chopped
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup mayonnaise
Method
Gently combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Classic Carrot Salad
I used a store bought coleslaw dressing which had more vinegar in it which I thought was good.
Just made this for the first time. It is wonderful! I added pineapple tidbits and used golden raisins and craisins. Used Greek yogurt and honey for the dressing. So I “borrowed” ideas from others comments! Thanks to all of you!
I use vanilla Greek yogurt with great results. The Greek is preferable to the regular yogurt because it is quite a bit thicker. For 6 big carrots I used 2 cups of yogurt. I prefer to use the pineapple tidbits instead of the crushed. The crushed is just too runny. I then do a little bit of chopping on the tidbits and the size is perfect.
I grew up on carrot raisin salad but my mom didnt like mayo so she never used it. Does anyone know of a recipe without it? I didnt get the recipe before she passed away.
I have a carrot and beet salad with raisins and no mayo (you could just use all carrots and skip the beets): http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/moroccan_grated_carrot_and_beet_salad/
Great! Could you post that recipe?
Click on the link, it will take you to the posted recipe
I’m not a mayo fan either. I use it very rarely in any of my cooking. But I do often replace it with plain or vanilla organic Greek Yogurt as someone else mentioned. The _vanilla_ yogurt will be sweetened generally, so you may want to add a splash of lemon juice or cider vinegar if that’s not to your taste, or use _plain_ (unsweetened) yogurt which has a nice tang.
In a salad bowl, combine the dijon mustard, lemon juice, honey, vegetable oil, olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the carrots, fresh parsley and scallions (or shallots) and toss well. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
I make a simply carrot salad. It is just carrots and sultana’s I grate the carrots and then just add sultana’s to taste. I find this is juicy enough from the carrot juice. If you find it to dry you could just drizzle some lemon juice over it
Try with fresh squeezed orange juice instead of the mayo…….and a few orange segments too.
Not a fan of raisins, would dried cranberries work?
Sure! Dried cranberries would work fine.