How To Make Carrot Ribbon Salad

When I was a child, carrot-raisin salad was as common as potato salad or coleslaw at family cookouts, or if fried chicken was on the menu for dinner. Creamy, slightly sweet, and a little crunchy from the grated carrots, I always made sure to add a big spoonful of the side dish to my plate. A salad with raisins (and mayonnaise, for that matter) is definitely polarizing, but when you grow up eating this dish, it just makes sense. 

If you cannot bear the idea of raisins, but still like the idea of a raw carrot salad, we created a fancied-up version of the dish that you need to try.

A Grown-Up Carrot Salad

Our Carrot Ribbon Salad takes all of the elements of carrot salad—minus the raisins—and turns them into a beautiful dish that has a surprising depth of flavor, with very little effort. Although there’s no dried fruit to be found, fresh mango adds a subtle sweetness to the dressing, which is made in a blender, along with lime juice, mint, Dijon mustard, and ginger. When combined with the carrots, diced yellow bell pepper, and chopped avocado, the dressing adds a spicy, tangy note that brings everything together.

Test Kitchen Professional Renu Dhar, who created the recipe, calls the salad “tropical and luxurious,” saying: “This dish really lets the carrots shine, in a different way than you’d expect. The ribbons trap the fruity dressing but aren’t overly saturated. The mint brings a cool freshness that balances the mango dressing perfectly.”

How To Make Carrot Ribbons

The carrots in this salad are shaved with a vegetable peeler into thin ribbons instead of shredded with a box grater. (The recipe calls for rainbow carrots to add an extra pop of color, but regular ones will work just as well.) While you can shave strips from raw carrots and toss them right into the salad, they will be a bit stiff and hard to eat. We recommend briefly blanching the whole carrots in boiling water, then transferring them to an ice bath (Step 1) so that they become tender-crisp. When they are cool, simply hold each carrot flat against a cutting board and peel into ribbons using a vegetable peeler.