This easy Israeli-style salad combines shredded cabbage and carrot with diced tomato for plenty of crunch and flavor. It's dressed with a salty-sweet lemon dressing and fresh herbs.
Israel is big on salad. When we need a change from our beloved usual salad, we move on to other vegetables, sometimes lettuce, the star of the American salad, but more often cabbage. This salad combines three of Israel's raw vegetal loves, red cabbage, carrots, and tomatoes. It comes from the memoir-with-recipes, Miriam's Kitchen, by Elizabeth Ehrlich, a book that stirringly captures the power of the embodied and ephemeral in Jewish life. Specifically, it comes from my favorite chapter in the book, set in my grandparents' Israel, a sunny salad in the sunniest spot in a dark-clouds life. The moment I read through the recipe, it awakens some latent memory of just this kind of salad, and I had to make it. Immediately. I've been making it ever since.
True, you have to drag out the food processor for the shredding, or you can dispense with that and buy bagged grated carrots and shredded cabbage. If shredding the veg yourself, I recommend starting with a slicing disc and shredding the cabbage. Empty out the bowl, then switch over to the coarse grating disc and grate the carrot. The tomato gets diced by hand.
I love the addition of fresh herbs to this salad. My favorite is parsely, cilantro, and chives, but you can use any one of them in combination or alone. This is one of those salads that only gets better as it sits, making it a good make-ahead if you're having a cookout, or perfect for Shabbat lunch.
Red Cabbage, Carrot, and Tomato Salad (parve)
Equipment
- Food processor, for shredding
Ingredients
- ½ medium red cabbage
- 1 large carrot - peeled
- 1 tomato - cubed
- ¼ cup fresh herbs, any combination of parsley, cilantro, and/or chives
- 1-2 scallions - chopped, optional
Dressing:
- ½ cup lemon juice - from about 3 regular or 2 large lemons
- 2 ½ tbs sugar
- ½ tbs salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1 ½ Tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Using the slicing blade of the food processor, shred the cabbage. Empty the bowl and switch to the coarse grating disc. Grate the carrot. Place in a large salad bowl.
- Dice the tomato, scallion, and herbs, if using, and add to the bowl. Toss.
- Make the dressing:
- Juice the lemons and mix in the sugar with the lemon juice. (It’s okay that the sugar stays grainy.) Pour the lemon juice over the salad, then add the salt, pepper, and olive oil. Mix well.
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