Last year, the internet became so enamored of content creator Logan Moffitt’s cucumber salad that there were grocery store shortages of some of the ingredients, but sometimes you just have to eat an entire cucumber.
There’s been a shift in social media vegetable obsession, though, so you might want to buy stock in carrots. Chef and content creator Cassie Yeung’s recipe has lots of devotees claiming it makes them crave their vegetables: carrot ribbon salad.
Yeung explains that she needs to use up a big pile of carrots before going out of town and proceeds to shred the carrots into thin, wide ribbons before dressing with green onions, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil and chili crisp, noting that she plans to finish the bowl before leaving the next day.
Commenters who say they’ve tried it love it, as well as Yeung’s assertion that it’s a delicious way to get glowing skin. “We’re going to eat our skin care,” she says, while munching on a carrot.
Although the recipe also appears in Yeung’s cookbook, “Bad B*tch in the Kitch,” the idea of shredded carrot salad has been around for a while, with similar dishes rooted in Korea, Morocco and France. Most of those use grated or thinly sliced carrots, though.
Yeung also dons gloves to massage the dressing into the carrots. I have a clear memory of rolling my eyes the first time I saw a recipe for massaged kale salad, but once I tried it, I understood the value of the technique — it develops flavors and breaks down some of the tougher fibers in your veggies, and it’s especially important here if your peeler cuts thicker ribbons.
It’s also OK to just toss with tongs or chopsticks, or to shake in a lidded container, as Yeung’s alternate dill and red wine vinegar version shows:
I love vegetables, but even I am surprised by how much this simple, whole food forward recipe has caught on. Even Moffitt has gotten into the action with a grated version that has a peanut butter dressing. I can’t wait to try Yeung’s take.
How does it taste?
I found I was happiest with the peeling method Yeung uses. She sets the carrot down flat on her stable cutting surface and strips the ribbons by pressing down and along the length of the carrot. I got even, wide strips that way, and I never felt like I was in danger of cutting myself. This leaves a long, unpeelable carrot remainder which Cassie eats in her video, but I diced it to use in fried rice later.
Laying your carrot flat makes it easier (and safer) to cut ribbons.Heather Martin
Yeung advises measuring the dressing ingredients with the heart, but for the record, I used 2 scallions, 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds and a few dashes of sesame oil for about a half pound of carrot ribbons. (I also added a half teaspoon of my current culinary obsession, nigella seeds.) I found it easiest to toss with chopsticks, but if you have trouble getting things to distribute well, you can always mix the ingredients separately before adding them to the carrots. (That would work especially well if you choose something like Moffitt’s peanut butter version.)
Cassie Yeung’s carrot ribbon salad is fast, easy and gorgeous.Heather Martin
After mixing, I inhaled a half pound of carrot ribbon salad standing over the sink, with all the gusto of a labrador near an unattended dinner plate. I can absolutely understand why people are calling this recipe addictive. With the fine ribbons my peeler produced, the texture is similar to pasta, although more fibrous, and it reminded me of cold sesame noodle salad. I thought it might be too soft the next day, but the carrots stood up to vinegar better than most other veggies would, and if anything, it was even more flavorful. Don’t skip the chili crisp — I think it’s the MVP here.
What about the purported health benefits?
There is scientific evidence that eating raw carrots increases the levels of beta carotene, the precursor to vitamin A — aka retinol — in the skin. What’s nice about getting it from your food is that your body won’t convert more beta carotene into the active form that it needs. If you eat too many carrots, it might turn you a bit orange (yes, really), but it reduces the risk of bothersome drying from topical treatments, or the possibly serious side effects of taking too much supplemental vitamin A.
There’s not as much evidence for the idea that carrots impact hormone balance, but they are high in fiber, and the relationship between good gut health and overall hormonal balance is more clear. Eating a wide variety of fibers and other nutrients can improve your gut bacteria profile, and that has health benefits that are more than skin-deep. (What about that old idea that carrots can help you see in the dark? Not true. While deficiency in Vitamin A can affect vision, the idea that eating extra carrots can give you super sight is largely from WW2 propaganda designed to keep the Germans from knowing the British were detecting bombers with radar!)
I know there are some carrot-haters reading this and wondering whether they have to eat carrots if they want to achieve their clear skin goals, so I’m happy to report that fiber and beta carotene are present in many fruits and vegetables, like sweet potatoes, mangoes and leafy greens. You could even try the same dressing recipe with shaved zucchini or cucumber, or julienned snow peas. Or, you could go for a completely different flavor profile with fennel and orange salad, or honeyed Brussels sprout slaw, and still reap lots of benefits, inside and out.
I strongly suspect even some carrot-haters would like Yeung’s recipe, and I encourage you to try it if you’re curious; the texture and flavor are so significantly different from cooked carrots or raw baby carrots that it might surprise you. If this trend keeps rolling, it might even rival Moffitt’s cucumber salad in popularity. I just hope Iceland doesn’t run out of carrots.