raw grated beet and carrot salad over greens with an orange ginger dressing and toasted tigernuts

Grating raw beets turns your hands and the cutting board a deep, stubborn pink, and there really is no avoiding it short of an old towel kept just for this. It is a small, honest mess in exchange for a salad that needs zero cooking time on a week already crowded with pots on the stove for everything else.

The deep red and orange here trace back to beta-carotene. Your body reshapes it into vitamin A over time, which goes to work on skin health and on keeping the lining of the gut doing its job properly. There is real folate in the beets too, quietly helping your cells divide and rebuild at the pace a body under stress actually needs. Ginger in the dressing brings its own warmth, the kind that wakes up the whole plate before the first bite.

Nothing here touches heat, so what lands on your plate is exactly what came out of the ground: beet, carrot, ginger, a few greens. There is a kind of gratitude specific to a raw dish like this, closer to the growing thing than anything cooked ever gets. Let the colors sit in front of you for a second before you dig in.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups grated raw beets
• 1 cup grated raw carrots
• 2 Tbsp chopped green onion
• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 Tbsp ginger juice, or finely chopped fresh ginger
• 1 Tbsp coconut aminos
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp honey
• 1/4 cup sliced tigernuts
• greens of your choice (baby spinach works well)

Method

Grate the raw beets and raw carrots on a box grater or in a food processor. Combine them in a bowl with the chopped green onion.

In a small jar, whisk together the orange juice, ginger juice or chopped ginger, coconut aminos, sea salt, and honey until the salt and honey dissolve.

Pour the dressing over the grated beets and carrots and toss to coat. Let it sit a few minutes so the flavors settle in.

To serve, lay a bed of greens on each plate, mound the dressed beet and carrot over the top, and scatter the sliced tigernuts on as the finish.

Notes

Tigernuts are a tuber, not a nut, so they are fine in the elimination phase. Toast them lightly first if you want more crunch, though it is optional.

Confirm your coconut aminos are clean-label, with no added cane sugar or excluded additives. This salad is compliant as written. Servings are an estimate, not stated in the source.

*Adapted from wendisaipkitchen.com*