Red Cabbage, Carrot and Beet Salad with Orange Dressing

This recipe brings together fall produce and an orange vinaigrette for a colorful and crunchy salad. Several of the ingredients in this recipe are julienned, or cut into matchsticks. This shape can feel a little intimidating for newer cooks, but it's a good technique to learn. We recommend watching a few tutorial videos to learn how to cut produce this way. If you have a mandolin, you can use that instead of a knife, just be careful!

Because this is a raw salad with lots of chopping, it's also a great recipe for younger kitchen helpers to practice their knife skills. It does take some time to chop everything, but there's no cooking involved and it makes a lot! Make this dish when you're looking to have leftovers or need to feed a crowd.

This recipe uses raw beets which can stain the other ingredients when mixed together. If you're ok with everything looking a bit purple, feel free to mix away. If you want each ingredient to stand out a bit more and limit beet staining, we recommend not mixing everything together until right before serving and adding the beets last. We've also found that letting the julienned beets sit uncovered for a little while before mixing everything together can help too, because the cut surfaces get a chance to dry out a bit, making them less prone to staining.

Much of this recipe can be prepped ahead of time with everything mixed together when you'd ready to eat. The soaked raisins, dressing, cabbage, carrots, and beet can all be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge separately. When you're ready to combine everything, you'll only need to chop the apple and scallions.