Another Delicious Summer Salad: Carrot, Corn and Avocado Slaw

Here’s another simple salad that I absolutely love to put together, and it’s especially convenient to make now in the midst of our kitchen remodeling project. The carrots combine with sweet summer corn (perfect and in season right now!) and creamy avocado to make a great combination of flavor. Paired with some delicious creamy lemon dressing, this is the quintessential summer salad to serve along side grilled meat or fish.

I first heard of this, I must admit, through an old Barefoot Contessa episode and it’s been tweaked a bit here to include some of my favorite vegetable combinations. I did take the Contessa’s advice here and included raisins in the dish, which I think adds some really great (interesting) texture and sweetness. But one of the best parts of this dish is that you can really combine any old fresh crunchy vegetables to this salad, a bunch of lemon and dressing and it will more than likely work out on the plate. I paired it with some pre-made spinach chicken sausage, which worked really well.

The quality of the carrots really help here to, try to buy yours from a local farmer’s market or at least try your best for locally grown, organic carrots – they’re the sweetest and most delicious!!!  Have fun with this recipe and improvise, I did!  Try adding some Madras curry powder to it too, a classic combination.  It’s a totally easy and delicious recipe to do:

Serves 4-5

2 bunches (about 2 lb.) of carrots – orange and/or yellow – Shredded on the medium holes of a box grater
2 ears of fresh sweet corn – see prep below
1 small head of broccoli – diced small
1/2 – 3/4 cup of large raisins, dark or golden
1 large Haas avocado – roughly chopped
6 green onions (scallions) – cut fairly thin on a bias
3-4 sprigs of tarragon – diced
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt and pepper

For the dressing:

1/2 cup good mayonnaise (Hellman’s preferred)
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. freshly ground cumin seed – toasted and crushed in your mortar and pestle
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp. each of salt and fresh ground pepper

Start by chopping all of you vegetables.  Put your raisins into a small bowl and cover them with a little water while you prep the rest of your veg.  This will help them plump up a bit.  For the corn prep, slice off the corn kernels from the cob length-wise and then milk the cob.  To do this, flip your knife over to the butt-side and rub it up and down the cob.  This should produce a sort of milky, chunky liquid that you should add directly to the salad.  It’s full of awesome corn flavor!  When your vegetable prep is done, combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and add the lemon juice, tarragon and salt and pepper.

Next make the dressing by combining all of the ingredients listed and adjusting seasoning to taste.  You can also add some hot sauce to this if you want to add another element to the flavor of the dish.  Start dressing the vegetables with just some of your dressing and mixing to combine.  Doing the dressing a little at a time will prevent you from over-dressing the salad.  Add as much dressing as you desire, adjust seasonings and enjoy!