Simple Carrot Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

Pain au chocolat for obvious reasons (side note: I ate enough of them to gain five pounds in three weeks). But when my host family served carrot salad at dinner, I couldn’t help but marvel at how something so simple could be so delicious.

More than twenty years later, I still make carrot salad and stick to the classic simplicity of the dish: freshly shredded carrots in a basic vinaigrette. You can add chopped parsley for color contrast and stud it with sunflower seeds for some extra crunch — or even dried cherries or cranberries. It’s a quick side dish that’s fresh, sweet, and healthy.

Your food processor will shred a pound of carrots faster than you can dig your box grater out of the cupboard, so definitely put it to work here.

And feel free to adjust the vinaigrette ingredients based on what you like.