This Escabeche Vegetable Salad is a Cheesecake Factory copycat, made at home in a few minutes with no cooking time. It's loaded with cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, and peppers, and tastes great as a fresh, healthy side to any meal.
Mollie and I aren't big chain restaurant fans, but our guilty pleasure is The Cheesecake Factory. Mollie loves the Skinnylicious Soft Tacos, which are served with Escabeche Vegetable Salad. The Escabeche Vegetable Salad is our favorite part of the entree, despite the fact that it's nothing more than some lightly pickled vegetables tossed in a bowl. The crunchy, tangy veggies pair perfectly with the spicy Mexican flavors in the tacos.
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What is escabeche?
Escabeche is popular in Spanish, Portuguese, Filipino, and Latin American cuisines, and (at a baseline) involves marinating vegetables, meat, or fish in oil, vinegar, and spices. In this recipe, we marinate vegetables (rather than meat or fish) in oil, vinegar, and some other ingredients to achieve a quick pickled effect. Some recipes call for cooking the vegetables prior to adding them to the marinade, but we like the crunch of raw veggies, so we've chosen not to cook ours ahead of time. The marinade breaks the veggies down a bit, so they're not quite as crunchy as they are pre-marinade. The added benefit? You don't have to cook anything.
Key Ingredients and Substitutions
- Mini cucumbers. We like mini cucumbers because the slices come out perfectly bite-sized, but you can use regular cucumbers if you prefer--just cut the slices into halves or fourths.
- Carrot. Regular sized carrots work best, but you can use whatever you prefer.
- Cauliflower florets
- Shredded cabbage. We use white cabbage, but red works too.
- Serrano or jalapeño pepper (optional). Serrano peppers are hotter than jalapeños, so choose which pepper you use based on your heat tolerance (and availability). This is optional, but it does add a lot of flavor to the marinade. If you don't like hot stuff you can also leave the peppers out, but my recommendation would be to put them in during the marination process and remove them prior to serving.
- Marinade/dressing ingredients: white vinegar, olive oil, honey, dijon mustard, black pepper, and salt
Step-by-Step Instructions
This escabeche vegetable salad is essentially quick pickled cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, and peppers in a tangy dressing. It comes together quickly and without any cooking time.
Step 1:Make the marinade/dressing. Combine white vinegar, honey, olive oil, dijon mustard, black pepper, and salt in a mason jar or bowl with a lid and shake or whisk to combine.
Step 2: Add the vegetables. Add the cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower florets, cabbage, and peppers to the jar or bowl with the dressing and shake (or mix) to combine everything. The vegetables should be mostly submerged in the dressing.
Step 3: Refrigerate and serve. Refrigerate the vegetable and dressing mixture for at least 2 hours, and up to 48 hours. The longer it marinates, the more pickled the vegetables taste. Serve in a bowl alongside tacos, chicken, shrimp, or anything else that sounds tasty to you!
Serving Ideas
- Blackened Mahi-Mahi Tacos with Peach Pico de Gallo and Cilantro Lime Sauce
- Mexican Black Beans
- Skinny Orange Grapefruit Margarita (with Mocktail Option)
Escabeche Vegetable Salad: FAQs
We don't! We prefer slightly crunchy vegetables, so we leave ours raw. If you'd prefer to cook yours first, boil them until they reach your desired level of done-ness, and then follow the directions as written.
Absolutely! This would also be great with bell peppers, radishes, okra, onions, or whatever other vegetables you generally like pickled.
Yes! The longer it sits, the more pickled the vegetables taste, and the more flavor the dressing gets. I don't like to let it sit longer than 48 hours, though, because the vegetables start to lose their crunch. 24 hours is the sweet spot, in my opinion.
📖 Recipe
Escabeche Vegetable Salad
- Total Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
This escabeche vegetable salad is a Cheesecake Factory copycat, made at home in a few minutes with no cooking time. It's loaded with lightly pickled cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, and peppers, and tastes great as a fresh, healthy side to any meal.
Ingredients
For the vegetables:
5 mini cucumbers, sliced a quarter of an inch thick
½ large carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups cauliflower florets
1 cup white or red cabbage, shredded
1 jalapeño or serrano pepper, sliced with seeds removed
For the dressing/marinade:
1 cup white vinegar
¾ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Combine white vinegar, honey, olive oil, dijon mustard, black pepper, and salt in a mason jar or bowl with a lid and shake or whisk to combine.
- Add the cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower florets, cabbage, and peppers to the jar or bowl with the dressing and shake (or mix) to combine everything. The vegetables should be mostly submerged in the dressing.
- Refrigerate the vegetable and dressing mixture for at least 2 hours, and up to 48 hours. The longer it marinates, the more pickled the vegetables will taste. Serve in a bowl alongside tacos, chicken, shrimp, or anything else that sounds tasty to you!
Notes
Serrano peppers are hotter than jalapeños, so choose which pepper you use based on your heat tolerance (and availability).
Nutritional information is only an estimate and includes the marinating liquid.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Marinating Time: 2 hours
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Category: Sides
- Cuisine: Salad
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 443
- Sugar: 10.3 g
- Sodium: 72.1 mg
- Fat: 42.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 16.9 g
- Protein: 2.6 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sharie says
This was a really fun find! Fun way to do veggies and really good either on their own or as a topper on a salad, etc. I love pickled vegetables and this recipe has a wonderful flavor!
Liz says
Really enjoyed this! It reminded me of the cheesecake factories escabeche salad.
Mollie says
Love this!
★★★★★