Carrot Sesame Salad (Easy Vegan Recipe) - Crowded Kitchen (2024)

This Carrot Sesame Salad is easy to make, full of flavor and the perfect way to use up excess carrots sitting in your fridge. It makes a great side dish for just about any protein, and it's easy to prep ahead of time.

🥗 Why We Love This Recipe

• Easy prep: After you're done toasting sesame seeds and julienning the carrots, the rest of the salad is just mixing ingredients together. It's super simple with a delicious result.
• Use up those carrots: Tired of looking at those carrots sitting at the bottom of your fridge? This is a great way to transform your excess produce into a delicious salad.
• Great at a BBQ: This salad is a perfect complement to grilled foods like burgers, because it's crunch, fresh, and slightly spicy. It works well as a palate cleanser.

🥕 Ingredients

Here are the key ingredients you'll need to make this carrot sesame salad:

📋 Ingredient Notes

• Carrots: if you want to add some color to this dish, you can opt for rainbow carrots. Totally optional, though – regular orange carrots are great!
• Sesame seeds: if you have an allergy in the family, you can opt for sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or even peanuts. It won't be exactly the same, but either of those two options will do a good job of replacing the sesame seeds.
• Tamari: if you're not worried about gluten, you can opt for regular soy sauce instead of tamari.
• Basil: if you can find Thai basil, this is the perfect use for it! If not (we had trouble finding some), regular basil is just fine.
• Miso: we use a milder white or brown miso in this dressing instead of red miso, which tends to be quite a bit stronger. If using red miso, you may want to use a bit less.

🔪 Step-by-step Instructions

PREP: Heat a small pan to medium, then add 1.5 tablespoon sesame seeds and toast for 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat once they’re lightly browned and fragrant.

(1 & 2) Add all of the dressing ingredients to a small blender or food processor and blend for 15-20 seconds. If you don’t have a small food processor or blender, whisk the miso and tamari together until there are no lumps left and then add the rest of the dressing ingredients and whisk until mixed well.

(3) Wash and peel carrots. Julienne the carrots and put in a large bowl. We used 1.5lbs or 680g of carrots in this recipe. Add chopped ¼ cup chopped scallions, 2 tablespoon cilantro, and 2 tablespoon basil and toss well to combine.

(4) Pour dressing over carrots and toss to coat well.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour to let flavors meld together. Serve topped with a few more toasted sesame seeds and some red pepper flakes.

💭 Expert Tips and FAQs

• If you're short on time and don't want to julienne the carrots, you can also see if your food processor comes with a julienne disk. Alternatively, you can use a vegetable peeler to make carrot shavings. You can also buy pre-shredded carrots for a super quick option!
• Be sure to keep a close on eye on the sesame seeds when you toast them, as they are notorious for burning quickly. You'll know they're done when your kitchen smells nutty and delicious.
• Storage: this is a great salad to meal prep, and you can dress the salad and then store in an airtight container for 2-3 days. You don't have to worry about storing the dressing separately, just dress and store.

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