French Carrot Salad
13 Comments
Updated Jul 11, 2023
This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy.
This bistro-style French carrot salad will make eating carrots exciting again! The combination of grated carrots with a honey Dijon mustard dressing is surprising magical.
Initially, I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted this carrot salad to turn out. I had a bundle of carrots, lots of herbs, and the cravings for a simple, healthy, vegetable-heavy salad. But then I remembered this bistro-style carottes râpées (grated carrot salad) I had at a cafe back in France years ago.
I mean, I’ve had grated carrot salads before. But the dressing in this one really stood out to me. The combination of lemon, honey, Dijon mustard, and especially cumin made this so delicious – to the point where I couldn’t stop at just one serving!
So today, I’ve recreated my favorite French carrot salad recipe for you to try in your own kitchen. This recipe is truly simplicity at its finest.
French Carrot Salad Recipe Ingredients
Luckily, you don’t need much for this French carrot salad. Just a few vegetables (namely, carrots!) and dressing ingredients that you probably already have on hand.
- Vegetables: Grab a big bunch of the best-looking carrots and some green onions.
- Fresh Herbs: Finely chopped herbs compliment the carrots so well. I’m using fresh parsley, but you could use cilantro as well.
- Salad Dressing: A simple blend of olive oil, lemon juice, honey, Dijon mustard, salt, cumin, and a pinch of black pepper makes for the perfect dressing.
Find the printable recipe with measurements below.
How to Grate Carrots For a Salad
There are two ways to grate carrots for this salad. You can use the grater attachment on your food processor (which is how I’ve done it today), or you can use a standard box grater. The food processor is faster and produces longer pieces, and the box grater produce smaller and shorter pieces. But either way works!
Once all the ingredients are prepped, toss together everything in a bowl – and that’s it, you’re done!
Helpful tip: You can save time by grating the carrots a day or two in advance. Just store them in a sealed bag or container in the fridge, making sure to squeeze out all the air.
Storage Tips
This French carrot salad will last about 3 to 4 days in the fridge. But I recommend eating it sooner rather than later to avoid a super soggy salad.
Helpful tip: Make this carrot salad 1 to 2 hours in advance. This will allow the carrots to soak up all that delicious dressing!
More Healthy Carrot Recipes
There are so many health benefits to carrots. They’re fibrous, loaded with nutrients, a great source of beta-carotene, and so on. So give these other delicious carrot recipes a try!
- Roasted Carrot Hummus
- Apple Carrot Beet Smoothie
- Carrot Ginger Soup
- Honey Glazed Carrots
- Grilled Fish Tacos with Citrus Carrot Slaw
- Carrot and Zucchini Pasta
Whenever you need a quick side salad to complete your meal, this French carrot salad is a winner. When you make it, let me know how it turns out in a comment below!
French Carrot Salad
Description
Ingredients
- 1 pound carrots, peeled
- ¼ cup roughly chopped parsley or cilantro
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced on a diagonal
Carrot salad Dressing
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Grate the carrots. Using either a box grater or the grater attachment on a food processor, grate the carrots. Place in a large mixing bowl.
- Add greens. Add the green onions and parsley to the mixing bowl.
- Make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, mustard, honey, salt, and pepper.
- Stir it all up. Pour the dressing on top of the carrot salad and stir to combine.
Nutrition
©Downshiftology. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Did you use the fine or medium grater attachment? Thank you
You can use either, it’s personal preference.
I have Salad Shooter which is great for doing just one carrot for just me. And I will make a batch of dressing but just use a bit of it for my single serving. Love this salad.
That’s a great idea, Ann! My mom loves her salad shooter as well, haha.
added a bit more lemon pepper and mustard, a bit less oil, turned out awesome
Thank you Lisa, it looks & reads delicious! Do you think the spiraliser would work?
I think the spiralizer might create thicker pieces, which is not ideal for this salad. A grater is best!
I usually dislike most salad dressings but this one is amazing! It’s so versatile and I use it for everything.
Glad you’re loving the dressing in this salad!
Delicious love getting my veggies in
This looks so delish! Can you please offer some suggestions on what to serve this with as a side dish? Can’t wait to get the book, congrats!
You can serve this with any meat or seafood really! Maybe a more simple flavoring though such as my baked salmon or any cooked chicken.
This recipe is perfect!
I love the carrot salad that you can buy in French supermarket but have never been able to get the dressing right.
I left out the onions and parsley to just have a pure carrot salad and it tastes just how I love it 💕