The full name of this recipe is Carrot and Cranberry Salad with Fresh Ginger Dressing and wow, is it tasty. What’s more, the dressing has no oil and the whole recipe needs only five ingredients.
Bon Appétit printed the recipe in November’s roundup of Thanksgiving side dishes, calliing it a good counterpoint to the day’s rich foods. It’s true. It’s also a great splash of color, which I always appreciate on a plate that’s mostly beige, brown and white. This is refreshing and delicious and is going into my year-round rotation.
Prep note: if you’re tempted to skip straining the dressing because it looks so smooth and emulsified, don’t. This shows what was left behind from only half the recipe. Not something we want to eat.
Carrot and Cranberry Salad
Adapted from Bon Appétit
4 cups shredded carrots*
1/2 cup/60g sweetened, dried cranberries
1 bunch scallions, 7 or 8 to a bunch, white and green parts
2 TB peeled, chopped ginger (aka ginger root)
1/2 cup/8 TB seasoned rice vinegar (see note below)
fresh-ground pepper, to taste
*I halved the recipe and weighed 2 cups of carrots after shredding them. They weighed 6 5/8 ounces or 190 grams. Rule of thumb is 1 large or 2 medium carrots will yield approximately 1 cup shredded.
Place the shredded carrots and cranberries in a large bowl and set aside.
Cut the white parts off the scallions, finely chop half of them and reserve. Slice all green parts into narrow strips then cut into pieces about 2″ long and reserve with the chopped white parts.
Put the remaining white scallion parts into a blender or food processor bowl along with the ginger and seasoned rice vinegar. Process or puree until smooth. Strain into a glass measuring cup, pressing down on the solids, until you have about 1/2 cup. Season with pepper to taste.
Add the reserved scallions to the carrots and cranberries. Toss well with enough dressing to coat. [I didn't need all of it. I used maybe 75%. ~ ella].
Serves 8
Ella’s Note: Seasoned rice vinegar, also called seasoned rice wine vinegar, is made of fermented rice, salt and sugar. I never noticed before that mine uses HFCS. To avoid that in future, if I can’t find a brand without it, I will buy unseasoned rice vinegar and add my own salt and sugar (or sucralose) with each use. Update: Tess of Tess’s Japanese Kitchen has kindly left a formula for this in the comments below. “Kind” is her middle name!
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks wonderful, and so simple to make.
It would work wonderfully on a potluck table.
Kathy G´s last blog ..I’ll Have Mine With Milk And Sugar
Kathy, it would indeed! Having eaten cold leftovers, I can also recommend it for cookouts and picnics. I see nothing odd about cranberries in summer, but raisins could be used instead.
Happy Thanksgiving, a little early.
I think dried cherries (soaked in fruit juice) would be good too. Or golden raisins.
Another point about buying the seasoned vinegar is that you can control how much sugar and/or salt you want for a recipe. Plus there are many times when I want just plain komezu. Why have two bottles when you only need one?
It’s ridiculously easy to make:
3 Tablespoons komezu (Japanese rice vinegar)
1 Tablespoons sugar, or to taste
1 teaspoon salt
Stir together and let the mixture sit for 15 to 20 minutes to dissolve sugar and salt. Or you are in a rush, you can heat the vinegar (don’t boil) and stir in s&s.
Tess´s last blog ..Golden Kimizu Sauce
Hi, Tess. Thanks for that formula! I’ll update the post to call attention to it. There is no earthly reason (except profits) to use that blasted HFCS. Next time I’m in that international megastore I’ll check theirs and I’m willing to bet the ones from other countries don’t use HFCS.
Dried cherries would be a wow!
This was so good. Made it tonight for dinner and will definately be making it again. This is going in the official family recipe box. Thanks for posting it!!
Hello, Heidi – welcome! I’m so glad it was a hit — thanks for letting me know. I did make it again for Thanksgiving and it was a perfect light touch. Bon appetit!