Side dishes · Green salads & slaws

Carrot ribbon salad

Name: Carrot ribbon salad
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 5 large carrots mature carrots, peeled into ribbons; 3 stalks green onion, sliced thin; 2 cloves garlic, grated; 2 tbsp rice vinegar; 1 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp canola oil; 2 tsp sesame oil; 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes; 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Carrots peeled into long ribbons and dressed while they're still curling — soy, rice vinegar, sesame and enough chilli oil to make it interesting. It went round the internet in 2025 because it turns the cheapest vegetable in the shop into something people fight over.

Time: 15 min (15 prep + 0 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 140 kcal
Protein: 2 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

5 large carrots mature carrots, peeled into ribbons500 g
3 stalks green onion, sliced thin45 g

Dressing

2 cloves garlic, grated6 g
2 tbsp rice vinegar30 g
1 tbsp soy sauce18 g
1 tbsp canola oil15 g
2 tsp sesame oil10 g
1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes3 g
1 tbsp sesame seeds8 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Peel the carrots into ribbons with a vegetable peeler, turning as you go and stopping at the woody core. Long ribbons hold dressing far better than grated carrot does.
Warm the canola oil until it shimmers, take it off the heat and stir in the pepper flakes, garlic and sesame seeds. It should sizzle for a few seconds, not fry.
Whisk in the rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil.
Toss the ribbons and green onion through the dressing and eat within the hour — the ribbons soften and slump if they sit much longer.

Why ribbons and not grated?

Surface area. Ribbons carry a coating of dressing across a wide, thin sheet, so every bite tastes seasoned; grated carrot wrings out water and turns the bowl into a puddle.

Why this score

solidly filling

Low energy density — a lot of food for the calories.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

7% of kcal

83% water

33 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 560 kcal goes into the pot, 635 g of ingredients comes out as ~635 g of food → 88 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 88
Protein: (7%); 1 g
Fat: (51%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (42%); 9 g
of which sugar: 4 g
Fiber: 3 g
Sodium: 226 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.