Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios

This Roasted Carrot Salad has wonderful flavors that come together with crisp apples and savory pistachios making the most amazing salad! Easy enough for a weeknight dinner, and beautiful enough to serve for a holiday meal.

This post may contain affiliate links. Delightful E Made is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios

If you follow me over on Instagram and watch my IG stories, you’ll quickly see that I make a stop at my local farmers market just about every Saturday morning. I do this pretty religiously from June through November, and always seem to find some wonderfully fresh and delicious fruits and vegetables. This Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios is a recipe loaded with many of my favorite farmers market finds.

Carrots and apples are now in their peak, and are incredible in this delicious Roasted Carrot Salad. Here’s how this easy, farmers market salad comes together.

Step 1: Start by roasting the carrots

Grab a big bunch or two of those beautiful, orange carrots from your farmers market. Once you get them home, cut off the tops, rinse, peel, and then slice somewhat thinly, on the diagonal. Feel free to slice any way you wish, however, these longer cuts of carrots look great in the salad.

Toss with olive oil, garlic and a little big of salt and pepper, and roast on a sheet pan at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. At the 10 minute mark, I stirred/turned the carrots just to ensure they were roasting evenly. Once done roasting, remove from oven and let the carrots cool to room temperature.

Twenty minutes seems to be the perfect amount of time to roast the carrots. Softened, but still slightly firm, the carrots hold up well in the salad. When roasted with the garlic, salt and pepper, the carrots come out with an amazing flavor. You’ll want to eat these right from the pan – I definitely had more than a few!

Step 2: Toss the cooled carrots into the salad

Once the carrots have cooled to room temperature, they are ready to be added to the salad. Toss the carrots with spring mix (or your choice of greens), sliced apple, green onions, pistachios and goat cheese. I chose spring mix because it had a nice variety of color and texture.

As for the apple, honey crisp are in season right now, and add superior flavor and texture to the salad. Green onions are a nice, mild onion choice, and the pistachios add a great color and crunch to the salad. I particularly love goat cheese, and it’s the perfect mild, creamy addition to this salad. Another option would be blue cheese crumbles for a strong cheese option. Your Roasted Carrot Salad is almost complete!

If you’re making this carrot salad in advance for a dinner, refrigerate the salad WITHOUT the dressing. Dressing the salad and then refrigerating it will basically turn everything to mush. You can make the dressing in advance, just store in a separate container (no need to refrigerate) and dress the salad before serving.

Wondering what to serve with carrot salad? These are great options:

• Easy Slow Cooker Turkey Breast
• Air Fryer Coconut Shrimp
• Maple Glazed Air Fryer Salmon
• Brown Sugar Balsamic Grilled Chicken
• Italian Grilled Chicken
• Apple Cider Glazed Pork Chops
• Italian Mini Meatloaf
• Air Fryer Turkey Burgers

Step 3: Mix the dressing

The honey balsamic dressing for this carrot salad is fantastic! It is simply made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. When making this dressing I literally mix it up in a glass measuring cup. It comes together in just a minute or two. So simple, and way better than anything that comes in a bottle.

Dress the salad just before serving, or serve the dressing on the side for your guests to dress on their own.

Looking for some healthier homemade dressing recipes? Check these out:

• Healthy Homemade Italian Dressing
• Greek Yogurt Ranch Dressing
• Healthy Caesar Dressing
• Creamy Poppy Seed Dressing

This delicious Roasted Carrot Salad is perfect side salad for just about any dinner. It’s simple enough for a weeknight meal, and beautiful enough to be served at your Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter dinner.

This carrot salad would also be fantastic topped with my Balsamic Grilled Chicken and enjoyed as an entrée salad for a fantastic healthy lunch or light dinner. Enjoy!

If you loved this delicious Roasted Carrot Salad, check out some of my other delicious salads and sides:

• Blueberry Spring Mix Salad
• Roasted Rainbow Carrots
• Sauteed Carrots
• Pistachio Fluff Recipe
• Cranberry Citrus Salad with Goat Cheese & Pecans
• Apple & Fennel Salad with Blackberries
• Kale Apple Salad
• Italian Chopped Salad
• Creamy Broccoli Salad with Apples & Cherries
• Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

Here are some tools that I have in my kitchen that are especially helpful in making this Roasted Carrot Salad:

J.A. Henckels Signature Hollow Edge Rocking 7″ Santoku Knife (Amazon Affiliate Link) – This is my absolute favorite, go-to knife for chopping and slicing vegetables. This knife is amazing and has lasted (and will last) for years!

OXO Good Grips Utility Cutting Board (Amazon Affiliate Link) – A good cutting board is a necessity in any kitchen. This OXO cutting board is the perfect size, is easy to clean and is a workhorse in my kitchen.

OXO Good Grips Non-Stick Pro Half Sheet Pan (13 x 18 Inch) (Amazon Affiliate Link) – I actually have several of these half-sheet pans. They are amazing for making sheet pan dinners, to roasting carrots for this salad, to baking a batch of bars.

Here’s the easy, delicious recipe for my Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios:

Continue to Content

Roasted Carrot Salad with Apples and Pistachios

Yield: 6-8 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This Roasted Carrot Salad has wonderful flavors that come together with crisp apples and savory pistachios making the most amazing salad! Easy enough for a weeknight dinner, and beautiful enough to serve for a holiday dinner.

Print

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. carrots, peeled, sliced thinly on the diagonal
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 5 c. spring mix (about 5 heaping handfuls)
• 1 apple, sliced thinly
• 2 green onions, diced
• 1/4 c. pistachios, shelled and roughly chopped
• 2 Tbsp. goat cheese crumbles

Dressing:

• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. honey
• 1 clove garlic, minced (about 1 tsp.)
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a sheet pan, place the sliced carrots and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and toss together to coat the carrots. Evenly disperse the carrots on the pan so they are in a single layer. Roast carrots for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Stir carrots half way through (at 10 minute mark) to ensure they are roasting evenly. Once roasted, let carrots cool to room temperature.
2. In a large bowl or platter, add the spring mix and toss together with the cooled, roasted carrots, sliced apples, onion, pistachios and goat cheese. Chill until ready to serve.
3. Just before serving, mix together the dressing. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. Feel free to dress the entire salad before serving, or serve the dressing on the side. Enjoy right away.

Notes

Instead of spring mix, feel free to choose any leafy greens you prefer. I chose an organic spring mix that had a good variety of colors and textures. Spinach, arugula, baby kale, butter leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, Boston or Bib would all be great choices for this salad.

Nutrition Information:

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cups
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 1599Total Fat: 103gSaturated Fat: 16gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 1017mgCarbohydrates: 157gSugar: 86gProtein: 25g