Homemade best: 8 top coleslaws tested
You can add carrot and onion for a traditional recipe or experiment with beetroot, fennel, and celeriac — once there is cabbage in the mix we can call it coleslaw.
A few top chefs mix just about anything shredded together and call it a slaw, which certainly makes life interesting. It’s not essential either to use mayonnaise and I have made some delicious slaws with an oil and vinegar dressing, serving Greek yoghurt mixed with grated garlic and olive oil on the side, thanks to Yotam Ottolenghi. See my blog rozcrowley.com for more ideas.
Making our own coleslaw is more economical that buying ready made, and of course we avoid additives and keep the texture natural.
A head of white or red cabbage at about €2 is excellent value, and with 50c for mayo, 60c for a few carrots and 50c for an onion, garlic and other flavourings, we could make over 1kg of coleslaw for under €4.
Good value for so many nutrients which include iron, folate, vitamin C and beta carotene which well outweigh the small number of saturated fats in the mayo.
This is the coleslaw with the best-cut vegetables: They are all the same size, nicely shredded into long, thin julienne strips and singing with freshness. It’s a good example of a red cabbage slaw that has almost as much carrot as cabbage. The dressing is oil and vinegar, which is light and tasty. Typical of some over-the-counter fresh coleslaw from delicatessens and food stalls.
The addition of carrot, apples, pineapple, peaches, sweetened, dried cranberries, and sultanas does a lot for this coleslaw. Even without them the mayo is tasty, made from rapeseed oil, but with good acidity from vinegar and mustard. The texture is natural, with no additional thickeners.
A medium-cut cabbage-and-carrot mixture has some cornstarch thickening, which gives it a less mayonnaise-like texture, but the flavour is pleasant. The result is creamy more than tasty.
Lots of flavour here from the addition of turmeric, chilli, mustard flour, cumin seeds, oregano, and with a nice fruitiness from sultanas, apricots, and pineapple in just the right measure. There is some cornflour thickening, used with rapeseed oil, but not too much. Dunnes is one of several brands to do a curried coleslaw and it works well.
A nice balance here of cabbage, carrot, and a little onion, but the mayo lacks flavour and kick for those who like a little acidity.
The dressing is made from rapeseed oil, which makes it quite heavy, but the onion and mustard liven it up. Good balance of cabbage and carrot, with some onion.
Made with rapeseed oil, the mayo here is heavy, like a few other samples, and the flavour of the lemon juice and mustard doesn’t come through enough.
Nice bright flavours of fresh cabbage, helped by a good seal on the packaging. While the mayo is made from rapeseed oil, the balance here is better than most samples, with the acidic flavours coming through well.
