The Viral Make-Ahead Salad That's Good With Almost Anything

Let's be honest, cooked carrot dishes get most of the love. (We're looking at you, roasted carrots and carrot cake.) Raw carrots are often relegated to veggie trays, but what if tried to do a little bit more with the uncooked version of the sweet orange veggie?

That's why I was more than a little intrigued when I came across glowing reviews about a raw carrot salad making its round on TikTok.

What is the Viral Carrot Salad?

Morkovcha, also known as "Korean carrots," is a popular dish in Russian and Eastern European cuisine. Despite its name, the salad does not have roots in Korean cuisine but rather has close ties to the Korean diaspora that once resided in the former Soviet Union. Forcibly relocated to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan under the rule of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Korean population had to sustain with minimal access to food, much less ingredients fundamental to Korean cooking. But where there's a will, there's a way. What the Koreans in the Soviet Union created, from scarcity, was this frugal carrot salad. Popularized by the TikTok content creator Danielle Zaslavsky, the now viral Russian Korean carrot salad is her grandmother's version of the dish.

Related: 40+ Best Carrot Recipes You'll Love

How to Make the Viral Carrot Salad

This wonderful make-ahead salad is quick to make and uses ingredients that probably always live in your kitchen. Danielle and many creators, including The Snack Qween, opt for grating their own carrots but you can purchase pre-shredded carrots if that's more convenient. Just know that pre-cut carrots tend to be thicker and drier than the freshly grated kind, so it might affect the texture of the finished salad.

Once you've got your grated carrots, all you do is toss them in a mixture of garlic, cayenne pepper, salt, and vinegar. Then pour some hot oil over the carrot mixture and toss once more to combine. Transfer the salad to a glass jar or an air-tight container and let the mixture marinate overnight.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Related: I Tried TikTok's Viral Mac & Cheese That Broke the Internet

The internet loves the carrot salad because it's tasty, crunchy and super easy to customize. The salad tends to be very garlic-forward, as evidenced by how creators use upwards of 10 cloves, but you can add as much or as little as you want. Feel free to make the salad as spicy or mild by tinkering with the amount of cayenne pepper you throw in. For the oil, any neutral oil—avocado oil, olive oil, or grape seed—will work. The vinegar you use is up to you, too. Balsamic will add a color that you might not want, but white vinegar or apple cider vinegar both work well.

Letting the salad sit in the fridge for a day or two lets the flavors meld and marry. It's tangy and sweet and garlicky and really delicious. Serve it as a side dish for your favorite protein (maybe your Easter ham?), mix it into tuna salad or add it to a green salad for a fun kick.

Up next: I'm Only Making Jacques Pépin's French-Style Deviled Eggs From Now On