Carrot Pâté Recipe: A Vegan Take on a French Bistro Classic

A bright carrot pâté, creamy but vegan, will be welcome on any holiday table and inspire recipe-requests at potluck celebrations—and it’s perfectly portable for winter picnics. It’s also shape-shifting in a magical way, because it is the basis of a comforting soup, as well as a substantial filling for hand pies and galettes. That’s why I  always double the recipe. Bonus: It freezes well and can be made ahead.

Here is the adaptable recipe you didn’t know you needed, ready for your next gathering.

Photography by Marie Viljoen.

This carrot pâté is a spread. A schmear. And a dip. Oxford defines pâté as “a rich, savory paste made from finely minced or mashed ingredients, typically seasoned meat or fish.”  Or root vegetables? To me, weaned on my mother’s French-inflected decadent chicken liver version, pâté is a mouthful that is entirely satisfying, lacking nothing. Fat is important. So is bread, or a cracker, at the very least. This carrot iteration evolved in my kitchen to serve to vegan attendees of the botanical walks I lead, and to use esoteric forage-pantry items, like linden flower vinegar and ramp leaf salt. But it also welcomes more conventional ingredients.

It has proved very adaptable: to season, to pantry limitations and inspirations, and to cosmopolitan appetites. And the basic recipe—oil, carrots, onions, acid, salt, and something sweet—is designed for variation and improvisation.

If there is a trick to successful improvisation, it is choosing elements that belong together in a palate-pleasing way.

For the foundational funk: To amplify the onions, in spring I may add the leaves of wild onions like field garlic, ramps, or three-cornered leeks. Garden-grown and market-bought fresh chives, and later chive flowers, work just as well.

For the salt: Ramp leaf salt, preserved lemon, or shoyu

For the sweetness: I may add a spoonful of pine cone jam, or yuzu syrup. Once, I use red currant jam. Maple syrup is winter-perfect. Chestnut honey sublime. Strawberries roasted with the carrots are surprisingly effective.

For the acid: Wild-fermented vinegars, according to season: apple, elderflower, linden, wisteria. But white balsamic is perfect. So is any sour citrus juice, like lemon, yuzu, or calamondin.

For the herbs: Tender bayberry in spring, mugwort in summer. But fresh bay leaf, thyme, marjoram, or rosemary are very good, too.

For the spices: Juniper, spicebush, and sumac for foraged and local flavor. But cumin and coriander are delicious.

For the heat: Aleppo pepper, urfa biber, Korean chile flakes, regular chile flakes; it’s endless.