Gordon Ramsay Carrot Salad Recipe

Gordon Ramsay’s carrot salad is a Moroccan-inspired dish made with blanched carrots, rose harissa, preserved lemon, green chilli, garlic and fresh coriander (cilantro), ready in about 15 minutes. It’s bright, punchy and works as a side or a light lunch with flatbreads.

This recipe appears as “Moroccan Carrot Salad” in Gordon Ramsay’s Quick and Delicious, where he says he “fell in love with all the North African flavours” while filming in Morocco. He suggests making a double batch of the dressing to drizzle over grilled halloumi or roasted cauliflower, or to stir through couscous.

The move that sets this apart: he blanches the carrot rounds in boiling water then plunges them straight into iced water. This softens the carrots just enough to absorb the spiced dressing while keeping a clean snap when you bite into them, so you get flavour and crunch in the same mouthful.

FAQs

Why does Ramsay blanch the carrots instead of serving them raw?

Raw carrots have a tight, waxy surface that dressing slides right off. A quick blanch in boiling water followed by an ice bath opens up the texture just enough for the harissa dressing to cling and soak in.

The ice bath is the important part. Without it, the residual heat keeps cooking the carrots and they go soft. With it, you lock in that halfway point between raw crunch and cooked tenderness.

Why does he warm the dressing in a pan instead of mixing it cold?

Heating harissa, cumin and garlic together for 2 to 3 minutes does two things. It blooms the ground cumin so the flavour is rounder and less dusty, and it loosens the thick harissa paste so it emulsifies with the olive oil and lemon juice.

A cold harissa dressing tends to sit in clumps on the carrots. Warming it first means it flows evenly and coats every round.

How is this different from his Carrot, Cumin and Orange Salad?

The version in Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Home Cooking takes a completely different approach. He grates the carrots raw instead of blanching them, then tosses them with orange zest and juice, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and a Dijon mustard and honey dressing with white wine vinegar.

That version is lighter and sweeter, built around the orange and honey, while the Quick and Delicious version is punchier and more savoury with the harissa and preserved lemon doing the heavy lifting. The older recipe also uses toasted whole cumin seeds ground in a mortar, which gives a more intense cumin hit than the ground cumin here.

Can you skip peeling the carrots?

Ramsay includes a time-saving tip in the book: skip the peeler and give the carrots a brisk scrub instead. He notes that a lot of the goodness sits just under the skin and gets lost when you peel.

This works especially well if you’re using fresh, thin-skinned carrots. Older supermarket carrots with thick, bitter skin are still better peeled.

What should you serve this with?

Ramsay suggests this alongside grilled halloumi or roasted cauliflower, or stirred through a big bowl of couscous. In the same book, he also pairs it with his lamb flatbreads, calling it the kind of side that “will turn a simple lunch into a feast.”

If you’re building a spread, his couscous salad stays in the same North African direction, and his beet salad adds colour contrast to the plate. For a different salad with a similar punchy dressing style, his lentil salad pairs well too.

How long does this salad keep?

The blanched carrots hold their texture well in the fridge for a day, and the harissa dressing actually improves as the flavours meld. Beyond that, the coriander wilts and the carrots start to soften past the point of pleasant.

His raw grated version from Ultimate Home Cooking keeps longer, up to 2 days, because grated carrots hold their structure better than sliced rounds sitting in an acidic dressing.