Are you looking for carrot salad recipes?
We’ve rounded up 13 of our favorite grated carrot salads that you can make at home.
When considering a side salad option, I find that I typically gravitate towards something with lettuce or greens.
Although I do know fruit salad is by definition, well, a salad.
Or is it?
Wait a minute!
What about potato salad?
An online dictionary defined salad as, “a cold dish of various mixtures of raw or cooked vegetables, usually seasoned with oil, vinegar, or other dressing and sometimes accompanied by meat, fish, or other ingredients.”
Whew!
That’s a mouthful!
I guess those are both salads, the first due to its dressing and the second due to the raw vegetables.
So, perhaps that line of thinking applies as well to the topic we are looking at today, carrot salad recipes.
No idea really, but I would guess that most of us have been served a carrot salad at some point in time in our lives.
Carrot salad recipes will sometimes call for the carrots to be grated and sometimes shredded.
The difference between the two is that shredding results in thin strips which grating cuts the carrots into tiny pieces.
Some have raisins, others pineapple, some mayo, others yogurt or sour cream.
Let’s launch into thirteen carrot salad recipes and see how they stack up in the salad world!
I never would have imagined there were more than a couple of carrot salad recipes in the world.
Boy was I wrong!
Carrots are just the beginning of this salad.
It can be made ahead of time as well.
This recipe has a tropical twist using pineapple and coconut yogurts with a choice of nuts, golden raisins, and cut green grapes.
Amazing presentation and taste!
This grated carrot salad recipe has tons of fun add-ins while keeping the salad light and refreshing.
It has a honey vinaigrette dressing that soaks into the carrots as it chills.
The carrots can be grated easily with a box grater or in a food processor.
This lovely side dish includes red onion, parsley, cranberries, raisins, nuts along with carrots.
The recipe for the dressing will need some lemon juice.
The ingredient pictures and procedure pictures are outstanding!
No mayo is used in this shredded carrot salad recipe.
Greek yogurt cream cheese (or regular cream cheese) and rainbow-colored carrots are on this unique ingredient list.
It also has regular carrots too along with raisins, walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, and honey.
Nothing fancy about the prep or the mixing.
Just mix and well, it’s ready!
Gotta love that!
A carrot salad with raisins can be so amazingly satisfying because of the crunch of the carrots and the sweet surprise from the raisins.
This one has a dressing made of sour cream, mayo, lemon juice, and sugar which has a sweet and tangy taste.
It also includes pineapple tidbits for a tropical sweet touch.
If you like sour cream this recipe may just become your favorite!
Upgrading a salad to a slaw sounds serious, but this sweet carrot salad does exactly that!
Just look at this ingredient line-up: carrots, apples, dried cranberries, salty feta cheese all topped with an amazing creamy dressing!
This might just be heaven on earth!
I kid you not!
The matchstick cutting for the carrots, a Honeycrisp apple, and a Granny Smith apple just look stunning together.
After the dressing is added along with the dried cranberries and feta cheese, this blissful salad is ready to hang out in the refrigerator for a while before serving!
Grandma’s old-fashioned carrot salad is next up!
Grandma knows how to please everyone!
Her recipe calls for pecans but walnuts or almonds could be used.
It also calls for pineapple but mandarin oranges or apples would be great also.
Not a huge fan of regular raisins, then try some golden ones!
Just so ya know, this one does have mayo because, in this instance, Grandma insists!
Here is where our list of carrot salad recipes takes a sharp turn into something new and different!
This Moroccan recipe includes cinnamon, cumin, mint, and cilantro!
I told you it was different!
Different and delicious!
The salad part combines the carrots with oranges along with the cilantro and mint.
The dressing is made of olive oil, orange juice (from the oranges used earlier), cinnamon, cumin, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.
Now we are getting into nuanced differences between sweet carrot salad recipes.
This lovely salad is another variation equally delicious depending on your taste preferences.
Carrots, Granny Smith apples, raisins, mayo, sour cream, sugar, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper make up the ingredient list for this recipe.
The carrots and apples are thinly sliced and the chewiness factor is perfect!
Back in the day, a fast-food restaurant named Chick-Fil-A served a delicious shredded carrot salad as a side option.
I do not know if some still carry it, but the ones around me do not.
So, one could say that this is now a “classic” copycat recipe!
The author claims the recipe came straight from the franchise so that is as authentic as it can get.
I think the taste is replicated well and although it has the same ingredients we have seen over and over on this list, I believe it all comes down to the amounts of the ingredients that result in a very specific taste!
This is most definitely a scaled back, bare bones, classic carrot salad with raisins recipe.
No glitz, no glam, just predictable deliciousness.
Carrots, pineapple, raisins, sugar, and mayo.
Several of the recipes on this list recommend soaking the raisins in warm water to plump them back up before adding them into the salad so there is a new tip for ya!
Cute video too!
Another sweet carrot salad version here has you make a dressing of rice wine vinegar, honey, salt, and pineapple juice from the canned pineapple.
Then the carrots, pineapple bits, plumped up raisins are mixed together with the dressing.
Keep in mind the hour in the fridge after making the carrot raisin salad is important as it sets the taste and gives the flavors time to incorporate.
Stir once more before serving.
Old fashioned copper pennies carrot salad is a vintage recipe and looks very different from the others on this list.
Here the carrots are simply sliced into ¼ inch circles and cooked until barely tender to which thinly sliced onions and bell peppers are added.
Then they are covered in a marinade of tomato soup, white vinegar, sugar, oil,
Worcestershire sauce and salt for a few hours or even overnight.
When serving, simply dish up using a slotted spoon so the marinade is left behind.
Lots of substitution options if this is almost what you might like.
Asian flavors are coming through loud and clear in this most unique of our carrot salad recipes!
Think bell peppers, peanuts or cashews, cilantro and scallions included in the salad.
The dressing is made up of oil, soy sauce or Tamari, lime juice, brown sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes.
Garnish with sesame seeds and this carrot salad is sure to amaze your family or friends!
The Bottom Line
Carrot salad recipes are fun to make and share.
And listen, if you do not have time or inclination to shred the carrots yourself, feel free to drop that guilt and buy a bag of pre-shredded carrots.
I certainly will not tell anyone!
It’ll be our little secret.
The dressings may not soak up quite as much but hey, is anyone really gonna notice?
I don’t think so because they will be too busy asking you where you got the recipe from!
13 Carrot Salad Recipes
We've rounded up 13 of our favorite grated carrot salads that you can make at home.
Ingredients
- Pina Colada Carrot Salad
- Grated Carrot Salad
- Sweet and Creamy Carrot Salad
- Carrot Raisin Salad
- Carrot Apple Slaw
- Carrot Salad Recipe with Raisins and Pecans
- Moroccan Carrot and Orange Salad
- Carrot Apple Salad
- Chick-Fil-A's "Authentic" Carrot & Raisin Salad
- A Classic Picnic Raisin Salad
- Carrot Raisin Salad (No Mayo)
- Old Fashioned Copper Pennies Marinated Carrot Salad
- Sesame Ginger Carrot Salad
Instructions
- Choose one or more options from our list of carrot salad recipes here!
- Create your new favorite side dish.
- Pat yourself on the back for making food at home for you to enjoy!
- Share and comment! Did you make any tweaks, so it’s all your own?