This mediterranean carrot salad is filled with chickpeas, royal raisins, feta, parsley and tossed with a creamy yogurt tahini dressing. Makes a great side salad for any cookout this summer!

I bought my spiralizer last August (I hate that it actually took me that long to do it – so many missed spiralizing opportunities!) and somehow, even though it’s been almost a year, I never spiralized a carrot until this mediterranean carrot salad recipe.

Now that it’s been done, I think zucchini and I are taking a short break (even though it’s almost prime time for zucchini pasta with avocado cream sauce and Chinese chicken zoodles) because I might just be obsessed with carrot noodles.

*This yogurt tahini mediterranean carrot salad recipe is sponsored by Nuts.com, a 2017 partner of Running to the Kitchen using their autumn royal raisins. All content and opinions are my own.

I’ve made carrot salad before and one of my favorite parts of that recipe were the sweet bites of dried cherries.

Dinner salads growing up always had nuts and dried fruit in them in our house so I think it stems back to that for me.

I feel like raisins are a polarizing fruit for most.

People seem to be very opinionated on their place in baked goods and while some (me) have fond memories of those little red snack boxes, others seem to be disgusted at the thought.

I’m a raisin lover though and when thinking about how to incorporate these autumn royal raisins from Nuts.com, a mediterranean flavor packed salad seemed perfect.

These are no snack box raisin though.

They’re about 3-4 times the size (and the largest variety of raisin out there!), seriously plump (they almost remind me of a prune) and have an almost caramel-like taste to them.

Getting one on your fork while eating this carrot salad feels like a special treat because you just know it’s going to be a good bite.

Equally as delicious as the royal raisins is the creamy yogurt tahini dressing.

I love tahini but I have a bone to pick about any and every brand I’ve ever bought because without fail, it ALWAYS separates and I’m left with upwards of an inch of oil at the top and the hard sesame paste at the bottom.

Unlike nut butters, it’s impossible to stir and it always seriously pisses me off when I go to try and use it.

Fortuitously, I read this post on how to make perfect hummus recently and she whipped the tahini first in a food processor.

Light. Bulb.

That little trick completely eradicated my annoyance at the separated tahini and resulted in the most luscious and creamy tahini yogurt dressing for this salad.

With a touch of lime juice and honey, it’s really the most perfect mediterranean-like accompaniment to this carrot salad.

Maybe that canister of tahini that usually sits in the back of my pantry will get a little more attention now thanks to that genius idea.

Don’t have tahini on hand? White miso paste can also be used as a swap. Check out this article about substitutes for miso paste for more information.

With a hearty carrot noodle base and chickpeas bulking it up, this is really more than just a vegetable side dish.

It’s a salad that can double as both side and salad for any summer cookout.

It literally goes well with almost anything off the grill (similar to my Thai Kohlrabi Noodle Salad) and I’d venture to say, just a tad bit healthier (and more flavorful!) than any pasta or potato salad out there.

Love this Mediterranean carrot salad? Try these other salads:

Roasted Winter Root Vegetable Salad with Toasted Pecans, Blue Cheese and Cranberries 
Lemony Shaved Asparagus Tomato Salad
Tart Cherry Glazed Ahi Tuna Kabobs over Spiralized Winter Salad
Roasted Sweet Potato, Squash and Chickpea Fall Salad with Maple Tahini Dressing