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Make a fresh and tasty salad with carrots, cranberries, pecans, and feta tossed with a tangy honey lime dressing.

I’ve been looking for carrot recipes. I received seven pounds of carrots in a produce box and while I like carrots, that’s a lot to eat.

I often eat cut with Ranch dip. That’s my favorite way to do it. I also like roasted carrots in the oven but one can only eat so many roasted carrots so I was on the hunt for something new and exciting.

I found a recipe for a cold carrot salad. It sounded interesting and was filled with dates, almonds, and feta. I didn’t have dates or almonds but I had dried cranberries and pecans so I gave it a try.

Ingredients:

Carrots
Cilantro
Olive oil
Honey
Salt
Pepper
Lime
Feta cheese
Pecans
Dried cranberries

To Make the Carrots: Wash your carrots and peel them. Using a peeler make long ribbons of carrots and place them in a bowl of ice water. Let them soak for 15 minutes then remove from the water and pat dry.

To Make the Dressing: To make the dressing whisk together the olive oil, honey, and lime juice. Add in the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cilantro and mix well.

The first thing you do to make this salad is to use a vegetable peeler and cut the carrots into ribbons. The ribbons are then placed in ice water and they are supposed to curl. I did this and followed the instructions but my carrots never curled.

I do think that the ice water helped crisp up my carrots so I would probably soak them again just to get the crispness of the carrots. I’d love to find a way to get the carrots to actually curl but I don’t know how to do that. The salad was still good, it just didn’t look as pretty.

After cutting the carrots the rest of this salad is a snap. I basically tossed all the ingredients together then whipped up the honey lime dressing. Use more or less honey depending on your preferred taste. I went a little lighter on the honey because I didn’t want anything too sweet.

Can I grate the carrots to save time?

You can grate the carrots and toss them into the salad that way. This will give them a different texture and definitely won’t look as pretty but if it’s easier for you to do then go for it. However, do NOT use already grated carrots that you buy at the store.

Can I make this salad ahead of time?

You can make the salad up to 24 hours in advance and the dressing up to 24 hours in advance. However, don’t toss the salad with the dressing until you are ready to serve it or else it gets soggy. Store both the salad and the dressing in the refrigerator.

Can I use a different cheese?

You certainly can use another cheese in this recipe. I would use something similar in texture to feta though. A few examples would be goat cheese, cotija, or or even paneer.

Can I use a different dressing?

You could certainly use anything you’d like but I recommend using this one. If you’d like to substitute orange juice or lemon juice in place of the lime juice I think that would work well. Also, if you don’t have honey you can use a tablespoon of sugar in it’s place. Add in any herbs or spices you’d like.

Do I have to soak the carrots?

Honestly, if your carrots are fresh and crisp you can probably skip this step without too much difficulty. The carrots should still be crisp enough for the salad and it’s one less step for you.

I tossed the carrots and other ingredients with the dressing and served immediately. I liked how crunchy the carrots were. They paired so well with the sweet and tart honey lime dressing.

The pecans added a nice nutty flavor and the cranberries added a chewy texture. The feta gave the salad a nice creaminess and added some saltiness.

It was a lot of different flavors combined in such a simple salad but I really enjoyed it! I was glad that I gave it a try and will have it again in the future.

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