Ludo Lefebvre’s Roasted-Carrot Salad

If you're looking to spend 30 minutes making this instead of 2 hours, here's my shortcut version. Roast the carrots with salt, pepper, and thyme (dried is fine). For the vinaigrette, just combine a little juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt/pepper. The recipe amounts make way too much. For the creme fraiche, just squeeze in some lemon juice and sprinkle in some cumin and salt. No need to supreme the blood oranges - slices are fine. For herbs, basil and parsley work really well.

You can't possibly "discard the aromatics"! Pop the garlic out of the pods and store it in leftover vinaigrette and some more olive oil. Great on the next salad.

The roasted carrots (and yukon gold potatoes) alone were delicious... I pared this recipe down using only I tablespoon olive oil with the recommended herbs, spices and garlic. I added a 1/4 teaspoon of aleppo pepper flakes and tossed 1/2 carrots and 1/2 diced yukon gold potatoes in the oil mixture and roasted as directed. I served the mix warm from the oven to rave reveiws.

Made as directed minus chervil(unavailable). Delicious but a lot of work. Increase the amount of carrots to at least 2 1/2 lb. Keep other ingredient amounts the same. Decrease roasting time 5 minutes. Use the blood oranges for the vinaigrette, but skip the "supreming" and either peel them very well and slice them into rounds, or better still, slice some cara cara's or Ruby red grapefruit into rounds. Less drama but more taste and much less work. Room temperature worked well.

Wow, this is delicious! I made it for Easter Sunday last year, and again today because I just wasn't in the mood for meat. I found tri-color carrots (orange, yellow and purple) at Trader Joe's and cut them into diagonal pieces before roasting. I used creme fraiche the first time I made this, but Greek yogurt tonight. I think I liked the yogurt even better.

I've made this twice and my husband and I both loved it. For a healthier variation the 2nd time, I used plain nonfat Greek yogurt instead of crème fraîche. It was delicious. I also added baby spinach to the salad because the 1st time, the carrots seemed to be drowning in the crème fraîche. the recipe makes a lot of vinaigrette; make half of what's called for unless you think you will be able to use it up later in the week. Cook the carrots until they are very brown or almost burnt.

This was a winner. Definitely prettier on the serving platter than the plate, but really delicious. Threw the roasted garlic in the salad and skipped the chervil and tarragon. Would pair well with steak.

Fantastic, super flavorful, and beautiful salad - filling enough for dinner (would serve ~4) with some good bread. I used 2% greek yogurt rather than creme fraiche, added arugula and pommegranate seeds, used mint and chives, and pistachios rather than almonds. It makes lots of dressing so I just spooned some over the top of the assembled salad rather than tossing the carrots with it. Great!

I cut a few corners. Left out the creme fraiche with cumin seeds instead roasted red carrots tossed with salt, ground cumin, thyme sprigs and bay leaves and canola oil left out the head of garlic instead tossed the carrots with 2 minced medium garlic gloves used pistachios instead of almonds in my dressing used maple syrup instead of sugar and sliced my oranges as it was much easier and garnished with arugula and cilantro, ie what I had on hand

It was an amazing salad! The carrots oranges and cumin all form a great combo. One thing to suggest is that you don't need a whole cup of cream fraiche. I think even half a cup would be fine - of course with the rest of the ingredients adjusted accordingly.

No need to peel carrots, just scrub really well with a stiff brush, or even a scouring pad (non-metallic) . Saves time and, in my opinion, they're better with the texture of the peel left intact.

Take the tip of a very sharp knife and draw a few parallel lines along the length of the fresh bay leaf. It will help release the flavor and aroma.

Even the person who doesn't like carrots loved this salad. It's beautiful! I made it exactly to the recipe. Might add a bit more cumin next time, but there will definitely be a next time. Yogurt would be a good substitute but creme fraiche is a bit more luxurious. Thanks for the lovely recipe.

I always love these restaurant recipes. This one was excellent but agree with A. Fein re: serving temperature. I served it at room temperature (basically cold here during the Maine winter) and had the feeling that warm would have been much, much better. Perhaps that was the intent but I missed it.

What happens to the garlic? Is it just to flavor the roasted carrots?