Carrot Cucumber Daikon Salad with Cilantro Citrus Dressing

Delicate carrot, cucumber, and daikon radish ribbons make a salad that is tossed in a nutty, citrusy, cilantro dressing, emulsified with olive oil and red onion, and garnished with feta and pine nuts!

Recently I came across colored daikon radishes at a farmer’s market. While most recipes for using daikon involve slices, chunks, or matchsticks (common in Southeast Asian cooking), I wanted to take advantage of the length of the daikon radish and peel it into ribbons. Carrots and cucumbers are similarly long and commonly paired, so the three could make a perfect trio of vegetables, and this salad was born.

In addition, many carrot and cucumber or daikon and carrot salad recipes are Southeast Asian-based with sesame and vinegar dressings, more like a pickled salad. But, in this case, I was inspired by pesto. Cilantro and dill create the herby base, orange and lemon bring the tang, and pine nuts add the nuttiness like pesto (I’ve left the salty cheese pesto component for a garnish). The other inspiration for this salad is the desire to serve it arranged by color to highlight the gorgeous vegetables. Peeling the vegetables into long ribbons is a fun and delicious way to allow for the showstopping presentation I hoped for.

Why this recipe works

This recipe has a satisfying flavor from crunchy, mild, thin ribbons of vegetables. The pesto “adjacent” (haha I love this new buzzword) flavor of the dressing is taken up a notch from the rich fatty flavor of pesto to a lighter more tangy flavor that gives the salad some pep without overpowering the flavors. The recipe makes more than enough dressing so that some is left to drizzle on top, use the next day to enhance leftovers, or on another salad.

What I also love about this salad is how it works as an alternative to the popular “rainbow salads”. It’s not quite as over the top as most rainbow salads (with so many ingredients) but you are getting the hit of multiple vegetables, a nuttiness from the pine nuts, great crunch in many colors, and a slurpable dressing that tastes herby, creamy and tangy but not oily.

Ingredient notes

• Vegetable ribbons- the trio of carrot, cucumber, and daikon radish can all be peeled into long ribbons for this salad. Scrub well to clean the skin before using a vegetable peeler (or mandoline) to turn the entire vegetable into a pile of ribbons. There aren’t any substitutions for the vegetables.
• Dressing- the emulsified dressing comes together easily in a food processor, blender, or immersion blender. You can sub parsley for cilantro and/or you can use more dill and less cilantro, depending on what herbs you love the most. The pine nuts can be used raw or toasted. I prefer their raw flavor (less bitter). This dressing focuses on orange over lemon, for a sweeter, milder citrus flavor. The smaller amount of lemon juice is still important to give the dressing enough tang, without overpowering.

Step-by-step instructions

The first thing to do is wash and scrub the carrots, cucumber, and daikon since you will eat the outer layers (you will eat the entire vegetable). Then use a vegetable peeler to turn all of the vegetables into a pile of ribbons. Set them aside (on paper towels to absorb extra water) and keep them separate for now.

Next, you will want to prep some of the dressing ingredients by zesting and juicing the orange and 1/4 lemon, chopping the onion and chopping the fresh herbs (after washing).

Then place all of the dressing ingredients in the food processor and blend for 10-20 seconds or so until the dressing is emulsified and the ingredients are smooth. I find the larger the batch, the smoother the dressing gets, so this recipe makes more than enough for one salad.

Tips for serving and storing leftovers

• My favorite way to serve this salad is to arrange the three vegetable ribbons by color on a shallow platter, then drizzle the dressing across the vegetables and garnish with herbs, crumbled feta, and pine nuts.

• The salad also looks pretty as shown below, tossed into a beautiful mess with some dressing then drizzled with more and garnished with feta, herbs, and pine nuts.
• Leftovers can be stored and served the next day (but probably not after the 2nd day), as the water in the vegetables and juice in the dressing will create too much moisture to maintain the fresh, crunchy flavor.
• As mentioned above, there is leftover dressing which can last several days and be used on other salads or as a dip.

Other recipes

If you like daikon radishes, try a new way to eat them- blanched and pureed into a bean dip by making my White Bean, Artichoke & Radish Dip with Crispy Topping and if you like making multi-colored recipes that use multiple veggies, try my yummy Healthy Vegetable Bhaji (a.k.a. spiced vegan fritters)