At its heart, a traditional French carrot salad is little more than a freshly~squeezed lemon atop grated carrots…but I can’t just leave well enough alone.

❤︎

I’ll start by saying that my dear friend Kimberly asked me how to make this quick salad, and I promised to post it for her, even though I really only have the bare bones of a recipe. Usually, I just grate some carrots, making sure to taste things a lot as I go along, adding a bit more of this and that here and there, and eventually just calling it good.

I can’t remember when I first tried Carottes Rapées, but I was immediately smitten. It became staple of my summer salad repertoire, and as I made it more and more often, I was always astounded by how many things it went perfectly with! And, as I made it more and more often, I tweaked it more and more, until I could make it by rote, and eat it any time, day or night.

The following is a small recipe, scaled for two to three people (as a good-sized side dish) with no leftovers. The salad is best on the day it’s made, after giving it just a little time to marinate. However, it develops a delicious sweetness the longer it sits, so I’ve served the occasional leftovers with a nice omelette the next morning, or just eaten them straight from the bowl in front of the fridge.

• juice of 1 lemon (~50ml)
• zest of ~½ a lemon (optional)
• ~1 tsp. Dijon mustard
• ~½ tsp. good honey
• splash of olive oil (~1 Tbs.)
• 2 grated carrots (~250 grams)
• pinch of salt

Okay, first of all, you’ll probably note that all amounts are approximations, and I apologize for that, but this is a recipe which must be made by taste. Our two main ingredients should be as fresh as possible, and thus the flavor can vary throughout the year, and from place to place. So…sorry not sorry?

Is it a little too sour from the lemons for your liking? Add a wee bit more salt and honey. Not lemon~y enough? Put in more lemon juice or add the optional lemon zest.

However you tweak this recipe to your tastes, tho, please remember that we have a marinating time built into it for a reason: carrots are sweeter than most people think they are, and the acid in the lemon helps to pull that out the longer the finished salad sits. So, do taste it by all means, get it to your liking, and set it aside for 10~15 minutes before serving it…but please taste it, and adjust it again as needed.

0. Begin by peeling and grating two carrots equalling roughly 250 grams—tho the exact amount can vary w/out too much worry—and setting them aside.

1. In a medium to large bowl, add the juice of one lemon, the zest of half a lemon (if using), 1 tsp. of Dijon mustard, and a heaping ½ tsp. of good honey, then briefly whisk them together.

We’re making a simple vinaigrette here, and each of the components has a purpose. Corrupting the traditional carrot salad by adding mustard and honey helps the dressing to become a suspension, which in turn helps everything to be coated evenly. It also tastes yummy.

2. Add 1 Tbs. of olive oil to the bowl, and whisk it well, until you can see that everything has come together. As a side note, it won’t hurt the recipe too much if you omit the olive oil because you’re being über health conscious…but then again, a single Tablespoon of olive oil ain’t going to hurt you too much either!

Now taste the vinaigrette and see what you think. If you’ve added the optional lemon zest, keep the honey close by, as you may want to add a bit more. You may want to add more mustard. Who knows? The world (and this carrot salad) is yours!

3. Add the two grated carrots to the bowl and a nice pinch of salt. Toss everything together until the carrots are happily coated in their yummy dressing, taste and adjust the recipe as needed (and as noted above), and set the bowl aside for the marinade to marinate.

4. You can serve it after 10~15 minutes, tho I usually just make the salad while I’m doing other things, and serve it once everything else is done…however long that takes!

Either way, mix up the salad well, taste and adjust the flavor again (if needed), and then it’s ready to serve. Bam です!

That’s all there is to it, Kim and other friends! You can top it w/ a little chopped parsley if you’re feeling fancy, or a small sprinkling of roasted sunflower seeds or chopped pistachios to mix things up, but why mess with perfection?

Oh yeah…that’s right…uhh…never mind!

I hope you enjoy this recipes, and like me, you find a reason to make and eat it often. It’s full of good things like beta carotene and (when I can get ahold of it) delicious Oregon meadowfoam honey.

Let me know in the comments below if you have any questions at all, and please also let me know if you’ve made this recipe. Feedback is not only helpful in the event I missed something in the recipe or wasn’t clear, but comments—which you don’t even have to sign up to leave!—really help keep me going. And I especially like likes!

Mwah!