This Cucumber and carrot salad is bright, colorful and bursting with Asian flavors. It's simple to make, exotic and absolutely refreshing! Perfect for springtime.
I hope you are doing well during these times. Please stay safe and healthy. Here's another simple recipe you can probably make with ingredients you have in your pantry.
This cucumber and carrot salad is a flavorful, simple vinaigrette-based salad with Asian flavors. It is refreshing, healthy, and filled with tasty ingredients. If you want to try out a new salad, this is one of the best out there.
Asian Cucumber and Carrot Salad - What Do You Need?
This Asian salad is one of my favorites. I make it whenever my family and I have a holiday party or warm weather togethers. It is always gone by the end of the party. Generally, I serve it alongside rice with chicken or my Garlic Butter Brazilian steak.
It makes for a great side dish or as a meal on its own. The main reasons that I love carrot cucumber salad is that it is refreshing and the vinaigrette-based dressing is simple but so flavorful!
I can eat the whole bowl as a main. Once you try it, you'll know exactly what I am talking about.
If you want to make this salad, you will need the following:
- Cucumbers and carrots of course (pre-shredded works just fine)
- Green onions
- Parsley or cilantro
- Sesame oil
For the dressing, you will need the following ingredients:
- Soy sauce
- Rice vinegar
- Apple cider vinegar
- Sugar
- Honey
- Sesame oil
- Sesame seeds
- Crushed red peppers
- Ground ginger
- Salt
- Pepper
Once you have all the ingredients for the salad and the dressing, you can start prepping and making it.
What’s to Love?
There are so many reasons why you'll love this salad.
- Filled with Asian flavors
- Quick Prep
- Made with vinaigrette-based dressing
- Extremely easy to make
- Very inexpensive
- Refreshing
- Carrot and cucumbers are perfect for springtime
- Flavorful
- Healthy
- Customizable
- Fun to make
- Colorful & gorgeous salad.
If you are looking for a new salad to make, something outside of the basic salad you normally eat, you should definitely try this recipe!
How to Make it
There is one step to make the dressing and that is to:
- Mixing soy sauce, rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, sugar, honey, sesame oil, sesame seeds, crushed red peppers, ground ginger, salt, and pepper into a bowl.
To make the carrot and cucumber salad, you just need to do the following:
- Slice your cucumbers and green onions
- Chop up the parsley or cilantro (this is customizable since stores don’t always have what you are looking for these days)
- Get bag of pre-shredded carrots
- Mix these 4 ingredients together and drizzle sesame oil over them.
- Toss to coat your vegetables
You have now made this delicious, healthy, and refreshing Asian salad. It really is as simple as that. You're not going to believe how amazing a simple salad with carrots and cucumbers can be!
Cook Tips to Make This Recipe Successfully
If you want to make this cucumber and carrot salad successfully, there are some tips that will help you to do that. These tips include the following:
- Remember, this recipe is customizable. If you can’t find an ingredient, you can replace it with another. For example, cilantro can be replaced with parsley or vice versa.
- Make it your own. Since this recipe is customizable, you can make it to your liking. For instance, if you don’t like soy sauce, you can leave it out.
- Taste the salad as you make it. If you do this, you can determine whether you need to add more of a certain ingredient. If you don’t think you added enough ground ginger, you can add some more.
- Cover and chill. If you want this salad to taste the best, you should cover and chill it for 20 to 30 minutes, so the flavors can marinate together, before eating it.
- Add more garnish. You can always add some chopped peanuts or more sesame seeds.
Fun Add-ins
- Veggies: broccoli, zucchini, edamame, mung beans
- Nuts & Seeds: black sesame seeds, peanuts or cashews
- Protein: shrimp would be perfect, grilled, broiled or baked chicken, or hard boiled eggs.
Cucumber and carrot salad
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 tsp low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 ½ tbsp sesame seeds
- 1/16 tsp ginger
- ½-1 tsp crushed red peppers optional
- ¼ cup finely chopped parsley Or use cilantro
- 2 tsp garlic finely minced
- ¼ cup green onions sliced
- 1 ½ cup pre-shredded carrots
- 1 english cucumber sliced into thin rounds
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- salt and pepper for taste
Instructions
- To a small bowl, add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, sugar, honey, sesame oil, sesame seeds, crushed red peppers, ground ginger, salt, and pepper into a bowl. Mix well.
- Add the cucumbers, carrots parsley or cilantro, green onions and garlic to a large bowl. Drizzle the sesame oil over the vegetables. Toss to coat.
- Pour the salad dressing over the cucumber and carrots. Mix well. Add salt and pepper for taste. Garnish with sesame seed, peanuts or green onions or use all them.
Notes
Cook Tips to Make This Recipe Successfully
If you want to make this carrot and cucumber salad successfully, there are some tips that will help you to do that. These tips include the following:- Remember, this recipe is customizable. If you can’t find an ingredient, you can replace it with another. For example, cilantro can be replaced with parsley or vice versa.
- Make it your own. Since this recipe is customizable, you can make it to your liking. For instance, if you don’t like soy sauce, you can leave it out.
- Taste the salad as you make it. If you do this, you can determine whether you need to add more of a certain ingredient. If you don’t think you added enough ground ginger, you can add some more.
- Cover and chill. If you want this salad to taste the best, you should cover and chill it for 20 to 30 minutes, so the flavors can marinate together, before eating it.
- Add more garnish. You can always add some chopped peanuts or more sesame seeds to this carrot and cucumber salad.
Nutrition
You may also like:
Bulgogi Chicken (An easy chicken marinade)
Easy Teriyaki Baked Chicken Legs
Don't forget to subscribe to my Channel. Stay safe!
Hope E Martinez
I was looking for something fresh and refreshing to serve along with some crispy salmon bowls, and this was just perfect! I opted for cilantro, which gave such a great freshness to the salad and I also decided to be fancy and julienne the cucumbers, so that all the veggies were similarly shaped. I highly recommend doing so if you have the time! Came back to bookmark this page today so I can make it again soon!
April Boller Wright
Thank you so much for trying out the recipe and for sharing your experience! The addition of cilantro and julienning the cucumbers sounds like a fantastic idea. I really appreciate your recommendation and I'm honored that you came back to bookmark the page. I hope you continue to enjoy the salad!
Sarah Martin
Yum! This sounds delicious!
Sheila Kohli
Can u tell me if u meant fermented or normal sesame oil. I used the toasted one and the colour was a bit dark
April
I believe I used normal sesame oil.