Ludo Lefebvre’s Roasted-Carrot Salad Recipe (2024)

If you're looking to spend 30 minutes making this instead of 2 hours, here's my shortcut version. Roast the carrots with salt, pepper, and thyme (dried is fine). For the vinaigrette, just combine a little juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt/pepper. The recipe amounts make way too much. For the creme fraiche, just squeeze in some lemon juice and sprinkle in some cumin and salt. No need to supreme the blood oranges - slices are fine. For herbs, basil and parsley work really well.

You can't possibly "discard the aromatics"! Pop the garlic out of the pods and store it in leftover vinaigrette and some more olive oil. Great on the next salad.

The roasted carrots (and yukon gold potatoes) alone were delicious... I pared this recipe down using only I tablespoon olive oil with the recommended herbs, spices and garlic. I added a 1/4 teaspoon of aleppo pepper flakes and tossed 1/2 carrots and 1/2 diced yukon gold potatoes in the oil mixture and roasted as directed. I served the mix warm from the oven to rave reveiws.

Made as directed minus chervil(unavailable). Delicious but a lot of work. Increase the amount of carrots to at least 2 1/2 lb. Keep other ingredient amounts the same. Decrease roasting time 5 minutes. Use the blood oranges for the vinaigrette, but skip the "supreming" and either peel them very well and slice them into rounds, or better still, slice some cara cara's or Ruby red grapefruit into rounds. Less drama but more taste and much less work. Room temperature worked well.

Wow, this is delicious! I made it for Easter Sunday last year, and again today because I just wasn't in the mood for meat. I found tri-color carrots (orange, yellow and purple) at Trader Joe's and cut them into diagonal pieces before roasting. I used creme fraiche the first time I made this, but Greek yogurt tonight. I think I liked the yogurt even better.

I've made this twice and my husband and I both loved it. For a healthier variation the 2nd time, I used plain nonfat Greek yogurt instead of crème fraîche. It was delicious. I also added baby spinach to the salad because the 1st time, the carrots seemed to be drowning in the crème fraîche. the recipe makes a lot of vinaigrette; make half of what's called for unless you think you will be able to use it up later in the week. Cook the carrots until they are very brown or almost burnt.

This was a winner. Definitely prettier on the serving platter than the plate, but really delicious. Threw the roasted garlic in the salad and skipped the chervil and tarragon. Would pair well with steak.

Fantastic, super flavorful, and beautiful salad - filling enough for dinner (would serve ~4) with some good bread. I used 2% greek yogurt rather than creme fraiche, added arugula and pommegranate seeds, used mint and chives, and pistachios rather than almonds. It makes lots of dressing so I just spooned some over the top of the assembled salad rather than tossing the carrots with it. Great!

I cut a few corners. Left out the creme fraiche with cumin seedsinstead roasted red carrots tossed with salt, ground cumin, thyme sprigs and bay leaves and canola oilleft out the head of garlic instead tossed the carrots with 2 minced medium garlic glovesused pistachios instead of almondsin my dressing used maple syrup instead of sugarand sliced my oranges as it was much easierand garnished with arugula and cilantro, ie what I had on hand

It was an amazing salad! The carrots oranges and cumin all form a great combo. One thing to suggest is that you don't need a whole cup of cream fraiche. I think even half a cup would be fine - of course with the rest of the ingredients adjusted accordingly.

No need to peel carrots, just scrub really well with a stiff brush, or even a scouring pad (non-metallic) . Saves time and, in my opinion, they're better with the texture of the peel left intact.

Take the tip of a very sharp knife and draw a few parallel lines along the length of the fresh bay leaf. It will help release the flavor and aroma.

Even the person who doesn't like carrots loved this salad. It's beautiful! I made it exactly to the recipe. Might add a bit more cumin next time, but there will definitely be a next time. Yogurt would be a good substitute but creme fraiche is a bit more luxurious. Thanks for the lovely recipe.

I always love these restaurant recipes. This one was excellent but agree with A. Fein re: serving temperature. I served it at room temperature (basically cold here during the Maine winter) and had the feeling that warm would have been much, much better. Perhaps that was the intent but I missed it.

What happens to the garlic? Is it just to flavor the roasted carrots?

This is great. Not too unusual, but definitely feels special. Do not skimp on the onion; I went light thinking that a lot of raw onion would be bad, but regretted it instantly. The onion is important to the flavor. I think I doubled the almonds, but I'd double them again; every time I got one in a bite, I was happy. As for the rest, I followed the recipe pretty closely and enjoyed the results--toasting the cumin, thinning the creme fraiche, tossing the carrots in the vinaigrette.

Gorgeous and delicious. I don’t like crème fraiche, so instead, I used tahini (and added a LOT of extra lemon juice) which turned out great. This might be the only (accidental) vegan dish I’ve ever made, and it’s a keeper.

I make this for almost every dinner party I have. You can leave out the fussy herbs and use whatever your have (usually cilantro and parsley is what we have.). I’ve used dukkah in lieu of the almonds and regular oranges instead of blood oranges. It’s a very forgiving dish and always a crowd pleaser.

Delicious and unique! I've made this twice - both times to rave reviews. I used toasted walnuts instead of almonds, and the second time I halved the vinaigrette for the carrots. Next time I'll add some greens for crunch and to offset all of the cream. Might also make closer to 2lbs of carrots. I love mint on this, too.

Loved the different textures in this salad. Don’t skip the almonds! I had a ton of trouble trying to do the supremes. I probably would not waste my time trying to do that if I made this again. It is a lot of work, but I kind of spread it out throughout the day because I was home all day for the holiday. What’s nice about this is it can be served at room temperature so it’s a good thing you can do for a holiday spread before that big meat dish goes in the oven. Bright and refreshing!

Followed simplified directions in comments and used sour cream instead of crème fraiche and it was delicious and a great side dish for Easter.

I found blood oranges at Trader Joe’s so I just had to make this. Such a delicious, beautiful dish. Took others’ advice: halved the crème fraîche though had to a bit more cumin as the flavor wasn’t coming through. Mint and chives were great. Next time I’ll serve immediately as I would have preferred the carrots warm.

April, 2015. Making vinaigrette not necessary because of cooking oil. R liked crème Fran he bit recipe can be cut in half. 6

This was a wonderful winter salad. I made it as written except used Mandarins 2:1, due to smaller size, for blood oranges as they were not available at the store. I added some Italian parsley garnish around the edge of the platter that my guests thought resembled a wreath. It is so good it should be doubled for 4. I doubled it for 6 and everyone wanted more.

I’ve had my eye on this recipe for years and finally made it as part of a celebratory dinner. It’s a lot of work, but so worth the effort. Almost everyone had seconds of it!

An elegant Christmas side dish. Has a wow effect.

I've tried this many ways over many years. The best version, by far and every time, is delivered by following this recipe, exactly as-is. Don't mess with perfection.

Has anyone used baby carrots? I have some fat tri-colored carrots that I would like to use.

This was tasty, but I feel like the dressing isn't needed at all? It's very sweet, and pairs with the orange slices to be a bit overwhelming. Something higher in acidity would probably be better to cut through the richness of the creme and the sweetness of the oranges, and to bring up the carrots, themselves. Definitely, definitely save the garlic, though - amazing on pretty much anything!

I made this for Easter 2021 and loved the combination of flavors, colors and textures. I think I made it pretty much as given, except I did not find chervil, so I skipped it. Everyone served their own serving from a platter, which was just a little messy and didn't look as pretty on the individual plates as it did on the serving platter. If I make it again, and I probably will, I think I will compose a plate for each person instead, so that it looks just as beautiful for each person.