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Carrot Salad with dried cranberries, feta cheese, garbanzo beans, and a delightful peanut dressing. Serve this easy side dish alongside any main dish for a refreshing meal!
Little known fact: Carrots are one of my favorite root vegetables.
I love that they are naturally sweet, snappy, and are tasty both raw and roasted.
Well, I’m here celebrating our mutual love for carrots with this simple yet wildly flavorful raw carrot salad recipe! It’s sweet, it’s savory, it’s crunchy, it’s squishy, and it involves a magical dressing that you’ll want to use on everything!
Pair it with your grilled chicken thighs, crispy salmon, or bbq tri tip for an unforgettable meal!
My favorite part about a salad recipe like this is that the versatility is endless. With basic ingredient swaps, you can customize its flavor based on your person taste and the theme of your meal.
If you love this concept, also try my Carrot Coleslaw recipe!
Ingredient Notes:
Raw Carrots: The main ingredient here, fresh carrots are the focal point of carrot salad, making up the majority of the volume.
Garbanzo Beans: Beans add a boost of plant-based protein to the salad to make it more substantial. This ingredient is optional, but I like it for the fiber and the protein. You can also swap the chickpeas out for black beans, white beans, etc.
Dried Cranberries: A sweet and tangy punch is brought by dried cranberries. Many people love making a carrot raisin salad using raisins instead of dried cranberries.
Raw Cashews: A lovely nutty crunch comes from raw or roasted cashews. Pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds are all lovely replacements.
Feta Cheese: Creamy tangy feta goes surprisingly well with all of the other ingredients, giving the salad a richer flavor.
Green Onions: The fresh zing of green onions is the perfect amount of onion flavor.
For the Peanut Dressing:
Creamy Peanut Butter: Bringing amazing peanut flavor to this easy carrot salad, peanut butter is the main ingredient in peanut dressing.
Avocado Oil: Oil gets mixed up with the peanut butter to create a smooth consistency that is easy to stir into the salad. Olive oil works great too.
Rice Vinegar or Lime Juice: Tangy acidity complements the richness of the peanut butter for a vinaigrette flavor. Lemon juice and apple cider vinegar are great options here too.
Fresh Ginger: Carrots and ginger pair perfectly together! Fresh ginger adds a subtle bite, freshness, and that classic ginger flavor that is impossible to replicate using any other ingredient. Skip it if you aren’t a fan of ginger.
Pure Maple Syrup: A little sweetness completes the flavor profile of the dressing.
Fresh Garlic: A little garlic goes a long way to add robustness to the peanut vinaigrette.
Sea Salt: Season everything to taste using salt and black pepper.
Ways to Customize:
- Swap the peanut dressing with your favorite homemade dressing or vinaigrette. Lemon parsley dressing or cilantro lime dressing work well here!
- Add fresh herbs such as fresh cilantro, fresh mint, or fresh parsley to the salad.
How to Make Carrot Salad:
Wash the carrots well under lukewarm water. For softer texture, peel the carrots with a vegetable peeler, or for more fiber leave the peel on.
Use your favorite method for grating the carrots. I use the grating attachment on my food processor, because the grating process goes so quickly. You can also use a spiralizer, julienne peeler, spiral vegetable peeler, or a box grater. The goal is to process the carrots into thin strips or carrot ribbons so that they are easy to eat.
Transfer the grated carrots to a large bowl along with the rest of the ingredients for the salad.
Stir together the peanut dressing ingredients in a small bowl or a measuring cup.
Pour the peanut dressing into the bowl with the carrot salad and toss everything well until the ingredients are coated in dressing. Serve with your main dish and enjoy!
Storage:
- Store leftover carrot salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- This recipe keeps very well, and it also tastes even better the next day and the few days following preparation. For this reason, don’t be afraid to make it in advance!
Serving Suggestions:
Looking for main dish ideas to pair with this tasty side dish? Here are some of my top picks.
- Broiled Ribeye Steak
- Air Fryer Chicken Breasts
- Perfect Grilled Pork Tenderloin
- Chunky Tomato Basil Soup
Loving fresh salads that can be tossed together at a moment’s notice? Here are more of my favorites.
More Salad Recipes:
- Edamame Salad with Garlic Ginger Dressing
- Spring Mix Salad
- Asian Cucumber Salad
- Italian Salad
- Hawaiian Macaroni Salad
Carrot Salad Recipe
Equipment
- Food Processor or grater
Ingredients
- 1 pound carrots, grated
- 1 (15-oz) can garbanzo beans, drained
- ½ cup dried cranberries , or raisins
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ½ cup feta cheese
- ½ cup green onions, chopped
For the Peanut Dressing:
- 3 Tbsp avocado oil
- 3 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
- 3 Tbsp rice vinegar or fresh lime juice
- 1 Tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and grated
- 2 tsp pure maple syrup
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- Sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Wash the carrots well under lukewarm water. For softer texture, peel the carrots with a vegetable peeler, or for more fiber leave the peel on.
- Use your favorite method for grating the carrots. I use the grating attachment on my food processor, because the grating process goes so quickly. You can also use a spiralizer, julienne peeler, spiral vegetable peeler, or a box grater. The goal is to process the carrots into thin strips or carrot ribbons so that they are easy to eat.
- Transfer the grated carrots to a large bowl along with the rest of the ingredients for the salad.
- Stir together the peanut dressing ingredients in a small bowl or a measuring cup.
- Pour the peanut dressing into the bowl with the carrot salad and toss everything well until the ingredients are coated in dressing. Serve with your main dish and enjoy!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate and comment below!
