Asian Carrot & Sesame Salad ♥

Today's easy grated carrot salad: A simple carrot slaw, really, bound together with a dressing of rice vinegar and sesame oil spiked with ginger, garlic and cilantro. It pairs beautifully with other Asian-style dishes or you know, just a meal prep salad when all that's left in the fridge is a bag of carrots. Just delightful!

Real Food, Fast & Casual. Not Just Easy, Summer Easy. Budget Friendly. Low Carb. Low Fat. Weight Watchers Friendly. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real. Naturally Gluten Free.

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What's in the Fridge? What's in the Cupboard?

I'm a complete sucker for simple vegetable salads made with everyday ingredients 95% likely to be already on hand. Here? Carrot, check. Rice vinegar, check, although any other vinegar would be fine. Sesame oil, just a touch but an important flavor element. A bit of ginger and ginger? Check. A bit of green, cilantro works well but again, what's on hand, use that. Sesame seeds? Totally optional.

One of my fellow food bloggers calls this carrot slaw with Asian flavors an "actually tasty carrot salad" and her description made it a shoe-in here. She was right. It is, indeed, actually tasty. Very tasty. And perfect for adding to a lunch- or light supper- salad plate.

Ingredients to Make Asian Carrot & Sesame Salad

Like all my recipes, every ingredient serves a purpose. Each one matters. Each one contributes to the overall dish. It's not that an ingredient can't be substituted by something else but when choosing the substitute, it's important to understand why the original ingredient was present in the first place.

CARROTS Duh. But really, other dense, firm vegetables would work too. What about daikon or kohlrabi ir jicama or radish or or or? You get the idea.
SESAME OIL & SESAME SEEDS The sesame oil is essential, it's what give the salad one of its distinctive flavors. It's not that you couldn't use another oil, but it's the combination of sesame oil, ginger, garlic and cilantro which gives the carrots an Asian-style twist. But sesame seeds themselves? Optional.
GARLIC & GINGER From a jar or squeeze bottle? Heck yeah for a simple salad like this. Naturally, freshly grated or minced garlic and ginger will work too.
CILANTRO Let me go out on a limb and say that 99.99% of salads are just better with a small measure of green freshness. Cilantro is wonderful here but another fresh herb could work well, so would arugula, something with a little bite.

Summer Salads in Print!

This recipe is one of three published in my story about summer salads in the July 2007 issue of Sauce Magazine, St. Louis' wonderful food and restaurant magazine. The others are Jicama Slaw and Spring & Summer Sliced Salad.

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RECIPE for ASIAN CARROT & SESAME SALAD

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 30 minutes
Makes 3-3/4 cups

DRESSING
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (or another light, gentle vinegar)
1 tablespoon sesame oil (this is key, don't skip)
1/2 tablespoon grated or finely minced fresh ginger
1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
Salt & pepper to taste

SALAD
1 pound carrots, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons sesame seeds (optional but nice texture contrast, black sesame seeds are especially dramatic)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or another fresh herb

DRESSING Whisk together the dressing ingredients.

SALAD Stir in the grated carrot and sesame seeds. If there's time, let the salad rest at room temperature for 15 - 30 minutes, long enough for the carrots to soak up some of the dressing. Stir in the cilantro and serve.

MAKE-AHEAD This salad is great right away but definitely could be made early in the day for serving in the evening. It's also a salad that's to have on hand, a sort of carrot pickle relish to slip into a ham sandwich or eat for lunch with cottage cheese.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
ADD-INS Sesame seeds make sense, given the sesame oil. At the same time, there's no reason why you can't use sunflower seeds or toasted pecans or even something completely different like edamame or bits of cucumber. I even use poppy seeds, just to add a little visual interest.
DRAG OUT THE FOOD PROCESSOR? For a single batch of this salad, I grate the carrots on the large holes of a standing cheese grater. (I've had the same four-sided one for years but like this looks of how this two-sided cheese grater (affiliate link) folds flat for storage. Handy!) But for a double batch? I'd definitely pull out the food processor to grate the carrots.
GRATING vs JULIENNE, ETC Grating is the easiest way to achieve the small bits of carrot that can easily soak up the vinegar-y dressing, almost pickling the carrots. Could you use a julienne tool? Sure. I suppose you could also slice the carrots crossways to form thin rounds or thin half moons.

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Half Cup: 37 Calories; 2g Tot Fat; 0g Sat Fat; 0mg Cholesterol; 33mg Sodium; 5g Carb; 1g Fiber; 2g Sugar; 0g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 1 & PointsPlus 1 & SmartPoints 1 & Freestyle 1 & myWW green 1 & blue 1 & purple 1

TODAY'S VEGETABLE RECIPE INSPIRATION Adapted from one of our crew of our original food bloggers, Michelle from Je Mange la Ville, who's still blogging but with a new blog name, Fennel Twist.

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More Favorite Carrot Salad Recipes

~ Light Red Cabbage & Carrot Salad ~
~ Carrot & Chickpea Salad with Tahini-Lemon Dressing ~
~ Egyptian Kamut Salad with Roasted Carrot & Pomegranate ~
~ more carrot recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Celebration Salad (Maple-Roasted Carrots with Arugula, Dill, Cranberry Vinaigrette, Pomegranate and Glazed Pecans) ~
~ New-Fashioned Sauerkraut Salad ~
~ Holy Slaw! ~
~ more carrot recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade, my food column

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Looking for healthy new ways to cook vegetables? A Veggie Venture is home to hundreds of super-organized quick, easy and healthful vegetable recipes and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables. Join "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg to explore the exciting world of common and not-so-common vegetables, seasonal to staples, savory to sweet, salads to sides, soups to supper, simple to special.

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