Detox Cabbage and Carrot Salad with Ginger Miso Dressing – Vegan

This Cabbage and Carrot Salad is so satisfying, and it only takes a few minutes to make with only 7 ingredients. If you’re looking for a light, zesty and detoxifying salad, you’ve found it! Everyone’s going to want to know exactly how you made the dressing!

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What’s in Cabbage and Carrot Salad?

This salad is just as simple as it is tasty. Between the dressing and the salad you’ll only need 7 ingredients. The dressing contains 5 ingredients while the dressing uses another 3. To make the salad here’s what you’ll need…

1. Cabbage
2. Carrots
3. Sesame Seeds (optional)

For the Carrot Ginger Miso Dressing you’ll need…

1. Fresh Peeled Ginger
2. Mellow White Miso Paste
3. Carrot
4. Toasted Sesame Oil
5. Rice Wine Vinegar

How to Make the Salad

Cabbage is very high in fiber and it’s cellulose content makes it crunchy and hard to chew. I use an old Japanese technique called Tsukemono to make the cabbage softer and easier to digest.

What is Tsukemono?

Tsukemono is the Japanese technique of salting and preserving fresh pickles. It sounds more complicated than it is. When making Tuskemono (Japanese pickles), you add salt to freshly chopped veggies and cover them with a heavy weight. The salt draws water out of the vegetable and the weight from the press softens the cellulose structure.

Prepare the Tsukemono Cabbage

Step 1: Chiffonade (slice cabbage into thin ribbons) half a head of cabbage and place in a wide bowl. Lightly season and toast he cabbage with salt and place a heavy pot filled with water on top of the cabbage. Let the cabbage sit under the weight of the pot for up to 1 hour. After the hour has passed remove the pot and pour off the water that has pooled at the bottom of the bowl.

Make the Ginger Miso Dressing

Step 2: Make the carrot ginger miso dressing. Peel the fresh ginger. Peeling fresh ginger can be a challenge because of its irregular shape. It’s hard to peel the skin in between the branches. (See my tips to peel ginger below). Next peel the carrot.

Throw the carrot, ginger, miso, rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil into a high speed blender. I like using the Vitamix. Emulsify until the dressing is completely smooth. It will look like cheese sauce when it’s done.

The cabbage will be softer, but still crunchy. Next, stir in the sliced carrots and sesame seeds. Drizzle the dressing on top and serve.

Time Saving Tips

If you’re fast with a knife then chopping the cabbage and carrot by hand will take no time at all. But if you’re in a rush or don’t want to deal with prep there are two things you can do.

Buy two bags of cabbage and carrot slaw. Cabbage and carrots often come pre-chopped in bags for coleslaw. There’s nothing wrong with buying these bags for an instant meal! – Or…

Shred Cabbage and Carrots with The Food Processor

If you want to save literally hours of your life, use a food processor to shred the cabbage and grate the carrots instead of chopping them by hand.

By using a food processor you won’t only save time, but your salad will look professional since all of the cabbage will be uniform in size.

1. To shred cabbage with a food processor use the chopping blade. Attach the chopping blade to the wand so that the blade sits at the top of the processor. Slice the cabbage into pieces that will fit into the mouth of the food processor. Feed chunks of cabbage into the food processor and watch them instantly turn into streamers.

2. To shred the carrots, swap the chopping blade out for the grading blade. Repeat the same process.

Substitutions

• While I like using traditional cabbage, you can use any type of cabbage for this recipe. Purple and Napa cabbage work well!
• If you’re avoiding soy you can use chickpea miso paste instead of soy based mellow white miso paste.

How to Adjust the Flavor of the Miso Dressing

• If the dressing is too salty or acidic for you add more carrots and sesame oil. 
• If the dressing isn’t salty enough add an additional teaspoon of miso paste.

More Healthy Salads

• Rainbow Salad with Green Goddess Dressing
• Roasted Broccoli and Corn Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
• Mixed Microgreen and Chickpea Crouton Salad
• Marouli Salad