Sweet Carrot Ginger Salad Dressing

Bursting with fresh ginger, citrus, and sweet peppers with garlic, creamy cashew and cilantro undertones, this dressing makes everything it touches taste 1,000 times better! Don’t think of this as just a salad dressing … it’s a flavor filled sauce for meats, a marinade, something to slather on chicken, pork or salmon. Mix it with rice or noodles for a zip of taste and color.

There’s an interesting story behind this recipe, and strangely enough it involves mashed potato pizza. There’s a local brew pub in town that serves (or rather, used to serve) the absolute BEST mashed potato pizza. I never thought such a thing could even be tasty until one of my friends convinced me to try it and then I was HOOKED! For years, I dragged other friends to this spot and made THEM try the mashed potato pizza. And everyone … freaking … LOVED … it. Even my mom who doesn’t like mashed potatoes loved it. There was a thin, crispy crust with a thin layer of creamy good mashed potatoes, then topped with cheese, bacon, juicy tomatoes and a drizzle of ranch dressing. SO freaking good!

But it had been a while since I’d been there and I was craving a good mashed potato pizza. My mom and dad came down for the weekend, and the kids were off at their dad’s house for the evening, so it was just the three of us. I suggested we go out for a beer and a mashed potato pizza (something we can’t do with the kids). I was soooo excited because I’ve been eating so freaking healthy lately and I wanted just a couple slices of this decadent heaven. I think mom and dad were on a similar wavelength.

The beer was good (as usual), but when the pizza arrived, we were all sorely disappointed. Their mashed potato pizza was frankly, crap. The mashed potatoes were not a thin layer, but rather a big thick bunch … and rather than the perfect mashed potatoes they used to be, they were dry and tasteless. The other toppings and ranch were rather slim, with nary a juicy tomato chunk in sight. It seriously sucked. I almost left the bar without saying anything, never to return again for a mashed potato pizza, but my mom, who used to work in food service (she was a registered dietitian), told me I really needed to tell them. So on our way out, I did stop at the bar and tell them how stellar their mashed potato pizza used to be and how this one just wasn’t up to their normal standards. I had three employees tell me, “let’s get it back up to stellar!” so I have hope for next time. Thanks mom for giving us all hope for resurrecting the greatness that was the Monk’s Mashed Potato Pizza.

Anyway, the next day my kids were home and my parents were out doing their shopping and the kids wanted to go out for brunch. I told them that was on them to ask Gramma and Grampa, so they texted them and we all arranged to meet at my daughter’s favorite brunch restaurant. I wanted something lighter, more in lines with my current health goals, so I chose the chicken salad with sweet ginger dressing. I was so surprised when I took my first bite … it was freaking ah mazing! I was completely floored and totally ecstatic. All the bad taste memories of the previous evening faded away. My taste buds were officially in heaven. My mom and dad had similar experiences and we felt finally satisfied. There was good conversation with everyone too, which doesn’t often happen with my introverted kids.

I couldn’t eat all my salad, so brought some home (asking for a container specifically for that delightful sweet ginger dressing). And once I got it home, I decided I needed to recreate that fabulous dressing at home. So I started concocting, adding this and that flavor that I thought I could detect until I had a dressing that was pretty dang close. I tasted it again and realized I was missing a creamy nutty undertone. Cashews! That’s it! So I blended some of the dressing up with cashews and that pretty well sealed the deal. I’ve got this blissful flavor right here in my fridge, whenever I want it.

So that’s the story of the salad that totally won out in flavor over the mashed potato pizza.

Sweet Carrot Ginger Salad Dressing

• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes
• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Yield: About 8 servings 1x

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 Tablespoon avocado oil
• 1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced
• 1 – 2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 or 3 mini sweet peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• About 3 cara cara orange segments (1/4 – 1/3 of the orange)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 – 2 teaspoons powdered ginger
• 1 teaspoon pectin (optional)
• 1/4 cup roasted cashews
• About 1/4 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems

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Instructions

1. Heat the avocado oil in a small frying pan over medium heat until warmed, then add the carrot, garlic and chopped pepper. Saute for a minute, then cover and cook for several more minutes, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are tender.
2. While the carrot mixture is cooking, add the remaining ingredients except the cilantro) to a small (smoothie sized) blender cup or mini food processor. Add the cooked carrot mixture with all the oil from the pan to the blender cup and blend until completely smooth. Taste and adjust ginger and salt to taste.
3. Add the cilantro and pulse a few times or until the cilantro is chopped to your liking. Store in an airtight jar in the fridge. The dressing will thicken as it chills, so add water as needed to thin to the desired consistency.

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Notes

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

© Copyright 2019, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: About 2 Tablespoons

What this nutrition analysis sadly DOESN’T show you is that a single serving (just 2 Tablespoons!) of this dressing provides 118% of your vitamin C and 8% of your vitamin A for the day. (I used another nutrition analyzer to find that out.)