French Carrot Salad W Honey Mustard Dressing

Published 3/11/2022 • Updated 8/1/2024 If you are looking for a salad recipe that is packed with veggies but doesn’t use greens, this French Carrot Salad with honey mustard dressing. It’s crunchy, tossed with a delicious mustard dressing, and topped with a funky blue cheese crumble. If you ask anyone on the team, they’ll tell you that I can turn anything into a salad. No lettuce…no problem! This is truly one of my favorite hearty salads. I’ve made it for Easter and summer BBQs and it never gets old 🙌🏻

What You Need for Our French Carrot Salad

Carrots– the star of this French carrot salad is obviously CARROTS. There are a few different ways you can prepare the carrots for this recipe. You can buy a pound of carrots, peel them, and then julienne them or you can buy a bag of matchstick carrots if you’re running low on time. It is delicious. The combination of crunchy carrots, creamy beans, seeds, and a honey mustard dressing leaves you with an amazing salad. This carrot salad has a long shelf life (or fridge life). Carrots are a hearty root vegetable that lasts longer in the fridge than a green salad. It is the perfect salad to make at the beginning of the week and eat for days. Not only can you eat this salad as a salad, but you can add it to sandwiches or wraps. Green onions- not only does the flavor of the green onions add a delicious onion-y flavor to this salad, but how you slice the green onions makes or breaks this salad. Just like the carrots, you julienne the green onions. You use the white and green parts of the green onion. Don’t skip them! Northern white beans– we take two cans of northern white beans and we infuse them before tossing them into this salad. If you are using dried beans, be sure to prep them the day before. Sunflower seeds- a seed is always a great addition to any salad. They add a light and salty bite to salads. Blue cheese– what better pair is there but blue cheese and carrots? Find your favorite blue cheese or blue cheese crumbles and top this tasty salad with all the cheese. Honey mustard dressing– we make a simple and homemade honey mustard dressing that is made from mustard, honey, white vinegar, red wine vinegar, garlic, paprika, and cayenne pepper if you’d like!

How to Make French Carrot Salad

Prepare the Beans

Have you ever added beans to a salad and thought that something was missing? Us too. We quick infuse the northern white beans by first straining them from liquid and then tossing them with 1/4 cup olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Warm the beans up in the microwave for 90 seconds. Heating the beans with the oil, lemon, and spices warms the beans and when they sit in the liquid after you heat them the beans will soak up all the liquid and flavor. Set them aside while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Toss the ingredients together.

Toss the carrots, raisins, seeds, onions, and parsley in a large bowl.

Make the dressing.

Keep it simple and add the mustard, honey, vinegars, spices, and 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a jar. Cover the jar and shake until combined.

Toss the salad.

Pour the dressing over the carrots and then pour the beans into the salad bowl, along with the oil that is full of flavor. Toss all the ingredients together and top the salad with blue cheese crumbles.

Top Tips

Infuse the beans first. The longer the beans sit in the oil and lemon juice, the more flavorful they will be. Infuse them before even slicing and chopping your vegetables. Salt to taste. Everybody has a different tolerance for salty foods. If this salad tastes bland, don’t be scared to add more salt. Add more spice. We use a pinch of cayenne pepper, but if you like things spicy, add more!