8 Best Carrots Substitutes For Your Recipes - How To Use Substitutes for Carrots

Awesome Carrots Substitutes: Carrots are one of the most popular vegetables consumed worldwide. You can add these sweet and earthy flavor carrots to your food. We use these fiber-packed carrots in a lot of cuisines. Carrots are extremely nutritious and beneficial for our health too.

Don't have carrots in your fridge and looking for carrots substitutes? If yes, then you have come to the correct place. We have a lot of substitutes that can replace the taste and flavor of carrots in your dishes.

A few substitutes for carrots are squash, parsnips, cucumbers, ad so on. You can add the listed substitutes to all your recipes. Try all these substitutes for making your favorite recipe when you run out of carrots and enjoy your dish.

substitutes for carrots

Best Carrots Substitutes

Carrots are vegetables that don't have a strong taste and most of their original taste is also lost while cooking them. They are mainly used to give sweetness to the dishes. Carrots have a unique flavor but it is a mild than flavors that other vegetables add to the recipe.

There is no accurate substitute for carrots as other veggies give a different taste to the dish. Here we are listing some of the easy carrots substitutes that make your dish delicious and healthy.

  • Cucumber
  • Parsnips
  • Squash
  • Celery
  • Beets
  • Daikon
  • Zucchini
  • Turnips
  • Cabbage
  • Kale
  • Potato
  • Jicama
  • Radish
  • Onions

Parsnips

The first and most preferable alternative for carrots is parsnips. Their appearance is just like carrots with white color. As they are widely used as carrot substitutes, they are also called white carrots.

They have a sweet and verbal taste with high nutrients. It gives a nice flavor and taste to your dishes.

The equal amounts of carrots are replaced with parsnips, but these have lesser cooking time when compared with carrots. Most people use this to make soups and stews at the end stage to avoid squishiness.

Cucumber

You can also add cucumber in place of carrots. Cucumbers have high water content which can help you to keep hydrated. You can replace carrots with cucumber while making the vegetable juice.

The replacement quantity is one big cucumber is approximately equal to 5 small-size carrots. You can even substitute carrots with cucumbers for making salads and juices. Cucumbers add more freshness and taste to your dish.

Squash

Few people consider squash as a vegetable, but it is a fruit. The two types of squash are summer and winter. Summer squash has a mild sweet flavor and it is the best carrots substitute in varieties of soups. As it has high water content and doesn't need much cooking.

Winter squash has a firmer texture and thicker skin that needs much cooking time and contrary to summer squash. Both summer and winter squash are substitutes for carrots.

You can use the squash in recipes like soups, stews and casseroles. Equal amounts are squash are used as carrots in any dish.

Celery

The usage of celery and carrots are same. It can be used as a snack as well as a vegetable. Celery is a marshland plant and it is completely edible as you can eat leaves, stalks, and roots.

Leaves are used for making herbs, and stalks are used in salads, dips and sauces and are the best replacement for carrots.

The celery roots are roasted, baked and mashed like potatoes. You can substitute equal amounts of carrots with celery in all recipes. The health benefits of celery include high fiber, weight loss and keeping you hydrated.

Beets

Substitute beets in place of carrots to give an earthy flavor to the dish. The nutritious beets are available in different colors. They can be used boiled, roasted or steamed.

Use them as carrots substitutes in soups, salads and smoothies. Equal portions of beets are used to replace the carrots in all dishes.

Daikon

Daikon is a popular item used in Japanese cuisine. It is also a root vegetable just like a carrot. They are refreshing and with a crunchy texture. Daikon is the most common vegetable that can be used instead of carrots.

Daikon has mild flavor and can use as a carrot substitute in soups, stews, salads, and other recipes. They can be baked, boiled and steamed. Equal amounts of daikons are used as carrots replacements.

Zucchini

Zucchini is a kind of summer squash. This popular vegetable can be used as a substitute for carrots in various recipes. Similar to cucumbers, they are also juicy and watery.

They have vitamin A and few calories. You can substitute carrots with zucchini to bake, make salads, juices and other recipes.

You can substitute a large zucchini with 3 medium-sized carrots. It can be used in all recipes that need carrots including sweet recipes.

Turnips

Another root vegetable which is similar to a carrot is turnips. These turnips taste between cabbage and radish or a mix of carrots and potatoes. Turnips can be steamed, boiled, mashed, roasted or fried. It is a great alternative to carrots in almost all recipes. They are even a good way to replace snacks also.

Do Check

How To Choose a Carrot Substitute?

If you need carrots to add to your recipe, but you don't have them or don't like adding them? Don't worry there are a lot of alternatives for carrots that can give a similar flavor to your dish.

All the above-listed options are great substitutes for carrots, but some of them work better in certain dishes based on the texture and flavor needed in the dish.

Parsnips, daikon and turnips have the most similarities with carrots. They not only look like carrots but even carry the texture and flavor. People can use them as carrots substitutes in stews, soups, salads, and other dishes.

Beets, squash, and celery won't give you similar aesthetics, but they are good replacements for carrots in dishes that call for an earthy and sweet taste.

Zucchini, kohlrabi and cabbage are not the first preference chosen as the substitute. All these offer a complex flavor to the recipe. You can try all other veggies as alternatives for carrots and if they work well, you can let us know.

FAQs on Substitutes For Carrots

Conclusion

Hoping that the details mentioned here about carrots substitutes are helpful for you. We can use these items as replacements for carrots in almost all recipes. The health benefits of having carrots are boosting weight loss, good for eyesight, healthy heart, aiding healthy digestion, and so on.

You can make soups, snacks and other food varieties by using the substitute for carrots. You can stay in touch with our site to know about any other substitutes for foods. If you need any other alternatives that are not on this list, please let us know via comments.

Carrots Substitutes

By Amber Kubala, MSPH, RDN

Do you want substitutes for carrots to make your favorite recipes? Don't worry. Here are the best carrots substitutes that will seamlessly stand in for the real thing.

Carrots Substitutes
Prep Time
20 seconds
Cook Time
20 seconds
Total Time
40 seconds
Servings
3
Category
Substitute
Cuisine
American

Ingredients

  • Replacements of Carrots
    • Celery
    • Parsnips
    • Turnips
    • Daikon
    • Squash
    • Zucchini
    • Beets
    • Onions
    • Water Chestnuts

Instructions

  • 1 Zucchini
    • 1 While adding zucchini instead of carrots in baked goods, replace one cup of carrots with one cup of zucchini.
  • 2 Celery
    • 1 If you don't have carrots, then you can swap it with celery. Adding 1 cup of celery as a replacement of 1 cup of carrots makes a delicious recipe.
  • 3 Water Chestnuts
    • 1 You can replace every cup of carrots with one cup of water chestnuts in all kinds of recipes.
  • 4 Daikon
    • 1 When using daikon as a substitute for carrots, swap an equal amount of daikon in all your cooking recipes.

Nutrition

Protein : 1g
Calories : 25
Fat : 0g
Sodium : 42mg
Carbohydrates : 6g
Potassium : 0g