Every meal deserves a stunning centerpiece, but vegetables rarely get the glory. I get it: There’s something about a prodigious hunk of meat or platter of jeweled rice that feels festive in a way that spinach and kale simply do not. Still, I’m a vegetables-first kind of cook, which means I’m constantly searching for a high-impact dish that also helps me hit my RDA. So when I heard about this new shaved carrot and charred date salad, it was basically like finding my salad Holy Grail. And yes, I realize how lame that sounds.
Take it from a true salad obsessive: This recipe is fancier and more flavorful than any of its siblings. That’s because it’s built around a base of tender-but-crisp shaved carrots, which look striking and soak up a punchy citrus dressing like a pro. Time to break out your mandoline (and finger guard!) or practice your knife skills.
The second key component of this salad is citrus. Grapefruit or blood oranges would both work great here, but I went with deep purple blood oranges for a heady contrast to my orange carrots because I’m a sucker for aesthetics. After cutting the flesh off the core in lobes (a cheff-y technique called “supreming” that’s much less fussy than it sounds), I squeezed out some juice to build a zingy, bright dressing and fortified it with unseasoned rice vinegar for a little extra kick.
While the carrots hung out in their citrusy bath, I moved on to the final fancy component: the blackened dates. It’s just a bit of simple charring, accomplished in a hot cast iron skillet, but the key part here is to wait until they’re cool before popping out the pits and tearing the sticky fruit into bite-sized pieces. (Learn from my mistakes and save your fingers the pain!) Then sprinkle some tarragon on top of the whole thing, because you’ve come this far.
All together, this salad is a whole lot more than the sum of its parts. There’s something about the combination of crunchy carrots, soft charred dates, and a tangy-sweet citrus dressing that feels much more complex than any raw vegetable deserves to be. It’s a kaleidoscope of color and flavor that goes toe-to-toe with any hearty main—and leaves limp lettuce in the dust.
