French Grated Carrot Salad With Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes Dressing

Salade De Carottes Râpées

This delicious grated carrot salad recipe is the perfect addition to any meal as a side salad or to serve as a starter. The Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes Dressing with tarragon, chives, and other tasty herbs is delightful. The color of this dish will add a pleasing effect to your meal or appetizer table and make a perfect staple to your recipe collection to use over and over!

If you have an abundance of carrots, serve this bright salad with my Glazed Carrots Recipe or an easy artichoke recipe alongside your main dish!

Jump to:

• Salade De Carottes Râpées
• ❤️About This Recipe
• 📸Salad Ingredient Shot
• 📝Salad Ingredient List
• Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes Dressing Recipe
• 📸Vinaigrette Ingredient Shot
• 📝Vinaigrette Ingredient List
• 🔢Vinaigrette Instructions
• 🔢How To Prepare The Salad
• Top Tip
• 🔄Substitutions & Additions
• ❄️Storage
• 🙌Variations
• Kitchen Tools
• ❔FAQ
• More Great French Salads
• 📖 Recipe

❤️About This Recipe

It can be served as part of your starters or hors d'oeuvres along with a Cucumber Salad, Mesclun Salad, or Refreshing Red Tomato Salad to make an ultimate colorful array of the best salads for your table. Like this salad, they have one main vegetable as the star ingredient.

This beautiful vegetable is in the Apiaceae family along with celery, celeriac, parsley, angelica, caraway, and parsnips. Try my Celery Soup Recipe it is surprisingly delicious, and make these tasty Parsnip Recipes. Also, you may be interested in delving into French Herbs.

Your family and friends will delight in the visual beauty and healthy selection of this tasty buffet item.

The Complete Salad Handbook will further explain how to make vegetable salads and more.

📸Salad Ingredient Shot

📝Salad Ingredient List

• carrots provide the sweet crunch base of this salad.
• chives add a mild oniony flavor.
• salt and ground black pepper for seasoning to enhance flavor.
• unsalted shelled sunflower seeds adds nutty taste that blends well with the carrots.
• chickpeas (optional) add nutty flavor and texture variation.
• Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes Dressing Recipe (recipe below)

Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes Dressing Recipe

📸Vinaigrette Ingredient Shot

📝Vinaigrette Ingredient List

• cider or wine vinegar, but not balsamic, brightens the flavor.
• salt and ground black pepper more seasoning.
• tasteless oil such as avocado oil, adds smooth texture to dressing without unneeded taste.

The following Fines Herbes

• tarragon has a slight licorice flavor.
• chives add a slight onion flavor.
• fennel also has a mild anise or licorice flavor.
• chervil again offering a slight licorice taste or parsley fresh, earthy herbaceous taste.
• marjoram has a sweeter but stronger, similar taste to thyme.

🔢Vinaigrette Instructions

1. Mix the Vinaigrette Aux Fines Herbes dressing first as it needs to stand for 10 minutes before serving to allow the flavors to meld together before serving.
2. Place the salt and pepper in a bowl, add the vinegar, and stir with a whisk until the salt is dissolved.
3. Stir in the oil, a little at a time and whisk briskly until the mixture is cloudy.
4. Mix in the finely chopped herbs.
5. Allow to stand for about 10 minutes, then whisk briskly again just before use.

🔢How To Prepare The Salad

1. Peel and grate the carrots into slivers, which I like best. Or, if you prefer (and have lots of patience) julienne strips or do what the chefs favor in the World Central Kitchen Cookbook, use a potato peeler to shave the carrots into ribbons. I agree with them the ribbons create a lovely look. You can also use a food processor, mandolin, or coarse grater, or as the French say, use a "Moulinex Hachoir".

2. Place carrots in a bowl and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. Add the chives, and shelled sunflower seeds. Mix well.

4. Drizzle vinaigrette dressing over the ingredients and stir in intervals until the carrots are well covered, but don't let the dressing pool in the bottom of the bowl.

5. Garnish with a sprig of fresh parsley, or a pretty flower like the two edible orange nasturtians blossoms and their leaves from my garden.

🔄Substitutions & Additions

• Chickpeas are a tasty substitute or addition to the sunflower seeds.
• Raisins are also a popular ingredient in a carrot salad adding complimentary sweetness.
• Nuts like broken pecans or slivered almonds pair nicely with the raisins too, or on their own.

❄️Storage

You can make the dressing and prepare the carrots up to 7 days ahead of serving. Keep them separate and well-wrapped in the fridge. Then add the other ingredients to the carrots, stir, and combine with dressing just before serving.

This salad will last for a couple of days in a sealed container in the fridge after mixing, but it is at its best the day it is made. The carrots may become slightly soggy if stored with dressing. If you do keep it overnight give it a good stir before serving.

🙌Variations

• If you were to visit one of the many open markets in France you would likely find carrot salad is a popular item. One of the main differences to this one is that the carrots would be grated very finely in julienne strings instead of pieces like the way I have done it here. You would find that the dressing used is often a Honey Mustard Dressing or Lemon Vinaigrette.
• Do you love carrots any old way? Try my Glazed Carrots Recipe Vichy Style made with sweet Chantenay carrots or baby carrots which are more plentiful in most supermarkets. Then whip up my recipe for Creamy Carrot Soup Recipe, so smooth and scrumptious!

❔FAQ

More Great French Salads

• A delicious Artichoke Salad is so easy to make and sure to impress your family and friends.
• Salade Niçoise also called Provençal Salad, Or Salade Nice is a classic French salad.
• Bacon Salad is a great way to combine fresh salad leaves with delicious crispy bacon, a really tasty meal for all your family and friends.

📖 Recipe