Recipe: Carrot Lox (Vegan, Gluten Free, Nut Free, Soy Free)

Years ago, I gave you a recipe for carrot lox. Like most of my recipes, it was buried alongside my packed lunch for the day, which made it hard to find. I recently made this again so I decided to give you a dedicated post for carrot lox. If you haven't tried it, you really should! (If you're just here for the recipe and don't want to read any more about it, just scroll down to the bottom of the post.)

Carrot lox was one of those early vegan discoveries for me, and one of the most exciting. I loved smoked salmon as an omnivore, but I almost never had it because it was so expensive. You know what isn't expensive? The main ingredients in this recipe: Carrots.

Seriously, compare the cost here:

This whole recipe for carrot lox (4-6 servings): About $1.54
An equivalent amount of servings of lox (store brand, bought in the "family pack" size, in my area): $19.99

You will pay a bit more for non-dairy cream cheese but you'll come out ahead of the omnivores in price. I like Miyoko's cream cheese because in addition to tasting wonderful it has a pretty good amount of protein in it, which is not something you can say for dairy cream cheese (or carrots). And yes, that will run you around 69 cents per serving in my area, while store brand dairy cream cheese is about 19 cents per serving, but the whole bagel, per serving, will still be significantly less, because you're using carrots instead of fish. However, it doesn't quite look like carrots instead of fish, does it? Would you know if I didn't tell you?

Although on its own, I think this just tastes like smoky, silky carrots, if you use it with the usual accompaniments--here some Miyoko's cream cheese, thinly sliced red onion, and capers on a bagel--it will hit all the notes that smoked salmon or lox would. You get bonus points for eating vegetables for breakfast. And the texture is a far cry from "carrot," too. The texture is really close to the smoked fish I remember. (I haven't had that in the better part of a decade, of course; take that with a grain of the salt you'll need to roast the carrots.)

And okay, yeah, I took a lot of photos of this bagel, because it's one my favorite things and I'm really proud of this recipe. So you have your pick if this is something you want to stick on your Pinterest board. Go for it. But don't just pin it. Make it.

This recipe works best with somewhat shorter, fatter carrots, but if your carrots are too long to fit in your pan, you can trim them. Just cut off the skinny end so it fits in your pan and keep going.

You may be wondering if this is super salty, since it uses so much salt. It isn't noticeably salty at all, so long as you're careful to get any salt chunks off the salt roasted carrots. Also, you may worry about food waste; I use the leftover salt rocks as a mild abrasive for scrubbing out pans when I need to. It's perfect for cast iron if something happens to get sticky in one of your pans. So you can use the salt after you roast it. It will be carrot-flavored, though, so if you want to eat it, keep that in mind. I just put mine in a jar and keep it by the sink to use for scrubbing, but if you want you can break off rocks and use it in things where carrot-flavored salt wouldn't be a problem.

For me, the main drawback to this recipe is that you have to both have your oven on for a long time and then wait a few days of marinating time before you can have the finished product, but patience will reward you. If you're getting a lot of freak snowstorms in early spring like I am, the long baking time won't bother you. Or, if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, use this recipe on your next chilly fall day.

This recipe is Top 8 allergen-free, but the serving suggestion in my photos is not. For an allergy-friendly vegan cream cheese, I recommend Daiya. Check your local stores for the availability of gluten free bagels. If you can't find those, this is also good to top rice cakes. I hope everyone can enjoy this recipe!

I was originally inspired by this recipe. The original post I made with the carrot lox recipe is here, if you want to check it out and read about how I chose the ingredients I used.

Carrot Lox

Serves: About 4-6

3 large carrots (don't peel or trim yet)

2 cups salt, plus more if needed to cover

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons liquid smoke

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put a thick layer of salt (about half your salt) into a loaf pan. Wash the carrots and while they're still wet push into the salt, taking care not to let the carrots make direct contact with the pan. (You'll still have quite a thick layer of salt underneath.) This is easier to do if you tessellate the carrots. Add more salt to cover carrots completely.

Roast carrots in their salt for 90 minutes uncovered.

Remove carrots from oven. Dump the salt (now kind of  a giant salt crystal) into a large pan. Allow to cool until you can handle the big salt rock.

Using a wooden spoon, carefully crack open the salt to reveal the carrots and gently remove them.

You can peel the carrots now but really you don't need to. Just make sure you don't have salt clinging to them. It should brush off if you gently rub the surface.

In a bowl with a lid, mix oil, liquid smoke, and vinegar; set aside.

Slice the carrots thinly into uneven pieces. We're aiming for lox, not carrot coins.

Add carrots to the prepared marinade and stir gently to coat. Put in the fridge for at least two days to marinate. If they dry up in that time, add a little more oil.

Serve as you would regular old salmon lox, if you ate fish.