Carrot Ginger Salad

It’s summer! It’s hot!

We’re all trying to lighten up, eat more veggies, make a few more salads, enjoy the produce available in abundance right now.

Although I’m still highly addicted to this awesome Broccoli Slaw, I decided to take a break and experiment with carrot salad.

And since Carrot Ginger Soup is one of my favorites, I thought why not make it  into a crunchy salad?

Here’s what you need:

Carrots, Celery, Fresh Parsley, Limes, Ginger, Olive Oil, Mayonnaise, Honey, Sesame Oil, Salt & Pepper.

Click HERE for a Carrot Ginger Salad Shopping List

Begin by peeling and grating 1 pound  of carrots (about 8).

You actually don’t even need to peel the carrots if they are super fresh.

Finely dice 2 stalks of celery….

and about 1/2 cup of fresh, flat leaf parsley.

Grab a knobby piece of ginger root and trim or scrape away the brown outer skin.

Using a Microplane or other small grater, grate the ginger root directly into the bowl.

Don’t forget the ginger on the back of the grater.

Grating the ginger is essential. Grating produces a bit of Ginger Juice to add to the salad and also keeps you from biting into a whole piece of  raw ginger which can be quite unpleasant.

Speaking of raw ginger….I’m using about a 1/2 inch long piece of ginger (about 2 Tablespoons) and my salad was VERY gingery. If you are at all in doubt, use less (even half as much) then give it a taste. You can always add more ginger later.

Also, it’s VERY IMPORTANT to know that as this salad sits, the ginger flavor gets MUCH stronger. This makes 4 good sized servings so if you’re planning to save some salad for the next day, know that the ginger flavor will get even stronger.

I love the peppery, fresh flavor of raw ginger but want you to be aware that you can easily control the flavors of this salad to suit your own taste.

Onward…

Season the salad with salt and pepper….

and grate in the zest of 1 lime. Remember that when you’re zesting, you only want the outer green parts and not the pithy white part underneath.

Speaking of limes….look at this.

The lime on the left came from my little lime tree. The lime on the right came from the store. Both are Persian Limes but they don’t even look like the same fruit.

My limes rock.

For the dressing, juice 2 limes into a measuring cup or bowl. 2 limes should be about 1/4 cup of juice.

Add 2 -3 Tablespoons of honey…more if you like it a little sweeter…

and 1 Tablespoon of Mayo. The mayo does not make this into a creamy dressing by any stretch, but rather gives it a little sticking powder to adhere to the carrots.

Add 1/4 cup light flavored Olive Oil (not extra virgin)…

and just a tiny bit – about 1 teaspoon – of sesame oil.

Sesame oil is strong so you don’t want to overdo it. If you don’t have sesame oil on hand, you can also skip it and the salad will still taste great.

Whisk the dressing all together.

Then add about 1/2 of the dressing to the salad and stir to combine.

Add more dressing if you need to as the salad comes together. I don’t like my salads swimming in dressing so I usually have just a bit leftover.

This salad is tangy, zippy, crunchy, fresh and just a little weird.

I like it.

Here’s the recipe:

Carrot Ginger Salad