This delicious and fresh Shaved Carrot Salad is crunchy and sweet with it’s citrus orange dressing, making it a great fun salad option to help mix things up in the world of vegetable salads.
Just like this Creamy Cucumber and Tomato Salad, and my sweeter Shredded Carrot Raisin and Pineapple Salad, these dishes are a fantastic way to use up fresh ingredients right out of your garden.
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What’s to love about this carrot salad recipe
This salad uses shaved carrots that are much easier to prepare for your salad than julienned carrots, helping to save time and letting you get more carrots into your salad without the hassle. The other vegetables and mint in the salad help to balance out the flavor and take the refreshing coolness of this salad up a notch.
It’s an added bonus that you can tell the kids this is a “fancy ribbon salad”, which makes things even more palatable for them!
How to make this salad with carrots and orange dressing
What you need for the salad:
- Carrots – feel free to use baby carrots for this recipe. The ribbons might be a bit shorter, or you could even dice up the carrots.
- Radish
- Oranges
- Celery
- Mint
What you need for the dressing:
- Orange juice
- Honey
- Lemon juice
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
This salad is incredibly easy to make. To prepare the carrots you can shave them with a vegetable peeler or spiralizer.
This will make it easy and fun to put thin crunchy ribboned carrots into your salad. Making them into ribbons is a fun presentation but that said, if you want to use any other methods other than shaving that’s totally fine as well. The flavor will still be the same.
Chop up your radish, orange, celery, and mint.
Mix everything together until evenly distributed.
The dressing is very easy to make and is best to make ahead of time if you can. Simply mix together your ingredients and chill in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it. The ingredients in this dressing will separate as it sits so don’t be alarmed thinking something is wrong with it.
You just need to give a quick shake to mix it back together when you are ready to drizzle over the carrot and veggie salad.
Fun Variations For This Salad With Carrot Ribbons
Level up this salad by adding some of your other favorite vegetables. Baby spinach goes great with sweet salads like this one and can be a great way to bulk it up with more nutrition.
If you want to sweeten it up a bit more try adding cranberries, blueberries, or diced apples. Up the protein with this one by adding a handful of candied nuts or some thinly sliced grilled chicken.
Adding fresh sugar snap peas would be fantastic with all the other ingredients and the dressing. To bulk up the salad a bit more, toss everything with a bagged spring mix or crispy veggie salad sold in the stores.
Salty Pot Tips and Serving Suggestions
This salad is a great first course to help make your meals more filling. By serving a salad before the meal you help to encourage your body to feel fuller while increasing your nutrient intake.
It can make a wonderful lunch on its own with some added protein such as leftover rotisserie or shredded chicken.
This sweet carrot and orange salad makes a great side dish as well for tropical-inspired meals and savory chicken recipes.
A great meal idea is to pair this salad with some Coconut Shrimp. Pair that meal with a tropical cocktail like this Tropical Mermaid, Tropical Pina Colada, or this scrumptious Watermelon Vodka Punch. Make this menu and then just sit back and relax on a hot summer day with all the fresh flavors.
What to do with leftovers
The leftovers from this salad will last for up to 3 days in the refrigerator in an air-tight container. The flavors will blend a bit and the colors may bleed into each other over time, but the flavor will still be perfect. Be sure to store the salad dressing separately when storing leftover salad to prevent making the vegetables soft.
Super easy. If you have a carrot peeler like this type, simply just peel the carrots like you’re taking the skin off, but keep going. Each swipe of the peeler will make pretty long carrot ribbons.
Not a problem. There are a few things you can do. You can always blanch the sliced radishes for a few minutes and then plunge them into an ice bath to immediately cool them. This will take most of the peppery flavor out. Second, you could replace the red radish with thinly sliced daikon radish, or for a very neutral flavor, try water chestnuts. Lastly, you can leave them out of the recipe but the added crunch that the radishes bring to the dish is wonderful!
When you make this recipe I’d love to hear what you served it with! Leave me some ideas below and I hope you have a fantastic day!
~Joanne
Shaved Carrot Salad with Sweet Orange Dressing
This delicious and fresh Shaved Carrot Salad with it's sweet orange dressing is a tasty option for a fun salad to go with any meal! And best of all, you can use the veggies straight out of your garden.
Ingredients
- For the Salad -
- 4 carrots, shaved
- 4 radish, shaved
- 2 stalks celery, sliced thin
- 1 small orange, sliced
- Mint leaves
- For the Dressing -
- 3 tablespoons orange juice
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon honey
- Sea salt & cracked black pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk all the dressing ingredients together and then set aside.
- On a pretty platter or large shallow bowl, arrange all the salad ingredients. Arrange the orange segments and mint last for a pretty presentation.
- Slowly drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving.
Notes
Never dress the salad too far ahead of serving. It may weigh down the ingredients and make them wilt.
To make this salad ahead, make up the dressing and keep in a container with a tight lid. This can be done the day or two before.
The salad ingredients can be kept in an air tight container with some clean paper towel on the bottom to absorb any extra mositure.
Keep the mint separate until serving, and don't cut the orange (or use the segments) until ready to serve.
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