Chef Freja
Aeggesalat med Karse
Hard-boiled eggs folded into curry-spiked mayonnaise, heaped onto buttered rugbrod, and crowned with freshly snipped garden cress. The piece of smorrebrod that Easter lunch cannot be without.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Sellerisalat
Created by Chef Freja
Grated celeriac dressed in Dijon, mayonnaise, and sour cream. The pale, peppery winter salad that belongs on any Danish cold table, alongside ham, cold roasts, and thick slices of rugbrod.
Salads
Danish
Make Ahead
Dinner Party
Weeknight
20 min
Active Time
0 min cook•50 min total
Yield6 servings
Celeriac is a winter vegetable in Denmark. It comes into its own from late October onward, when the last of the summer crops have gone and the markets fill up with roots: parsnip, Jerusalem artichoke, beetroot, and this knotted ball of a thing that looks like it was pulled out of the ground still protesting. Don't let the outside put you off. What's underneath is sweet, peppery, and the backbone of one of the most useful salads in the Danish repertoire.
Sellerisalat is what you put on the table when there is cold meat to serve. Ham on a Sunday. The last of the flaeskesteg from the night before. The long cold table at julefrokost in December, when the whole family sits down and works their way through herring, roast, cheese, and whatever else is set out. The salad is there to cut through the richness of the meat, to give the plate a bright, cool counterpoint, to make the whole meal feel lighter than the sum of its parts.
The method is simple. You peel the celeriac deeply, grate or julienne the flesh, toss it with lemon to keep it pale, and bind it in a dressing of mayonnaise, sour cream, and Dijon mustard. The dressing is where the salad is made or lost, so I'll walk you through getting it right. Pay attention to two things in particular. First, peel the celeriac more aggressively than feels reasonable. The grey layer under the skin is bitter and will ruin the salad. Second, let the finished salad rest in the fridge for at least half an hour before you serve it. That rest is when it stops being grated vegetable in sauce and becomes sellerisalat. You'll taste the difference and you'll understand. The season decides, and in Denmark this one belongs to the cold months.
Celeriac has been grown in Denmark since at least the 1700s, though it only became a fixture of the home kitchen in the 19th century, when the French-influenced remoulade dressing entered the Danish bourgeois repertoire and gave cooks a way to dress raw roots into something refined. Sellerisalat became a standard of the cold table tradition, det kolde bord, which formalized in the late 1800s as a way of serving elaborate shared meals without heating the dining room. It remains one of the defining sides at julefrokost, the Danish Christmas lunch, where it sits between the herring and the roast pork and does the quiet work of keeping the plate in balance.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
celeriac
Quantity
1 medium, about 700g
peeled deeply
lemon
Quantity
1
juiced
good mayonnaise
Quantity
4 tablespoons
sour cream or creme fraiche
Quantity
3 tablespoons
Dijon mustard
Quantity
1 tablespoon
whole grain mustard
Quantity
1 teaspoon
caster sugar
Quantity
1 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
white pepper
Quantity
freshly ground, to taste
chives
Quantity
small bunch
finely snipped
capers (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
drained and roughly chopped
fresh dill (optional)
Quantity
a few sprigs
to finish
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| celeriacpeeled deeply | 1 medium, about 700g |
| lemonjuiced | 1 |
| good mayonnaise | 4 tablespoons |
| sour cream or creme fraiche | 3 tablespoons |
| Dijon mustard | 1 tablespoon |
| whole grain mustard | 1 teaspoon |
| caster sugar | 1 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| white pepper | freshly ground, to taste |
| chivesfinely snipped | small bunch |
| capers (optional)drained and roughly chopped | 1 tablespoon |
| fresh dill (optional)to finish | a few sprigs |
Equipment Needed
- •Sharp chef's knife
- •Box grater or mandoline
- •Large mixing bowl
- •Whisk
Instructions
- 1
Peel the celeriac
Celeriac looks forbidding. A knotted, muddy ball with roots clinging to the underside. Don't be shy with the peeling. Cut the top and bottom off flat so it sits steady on the board, then work a sharp knife down the sides in long strokes, taking off the skin and the grey layer beneath it. Keep going until what you see is pure ivory-white flesh all the way around. The layer you remove is bitter and fibrous. What stays is sweet and peppery.
A vegetable peeler will not reach deep enough. Use a knife. You want to lose a little of the good flesh rather than leave any of the bad. - 2
Grate or julienne
Cut the peeled celeriac into manageable pieces and grate it on the coarse side of a box grater, or cut it into fine matchsticks with a knife or mandoline. Both work. The grater gives you a softer, more yielding salad. The julienne gives you more bite and a prettier plate. Choose whichever suits the meal. For a julefrokost spread alongside cold ham, I tend to julienne. For a weeknight plate with leftovers, I grate.
Work quickly once the flesh is exposed. Celeriac browns fast, the same way an apple does, and the lemon in the next step is what stops it. - 3
Dress with lemon immediately
Tip the grated celeriac into a bowl and pour over the lemon juice straight away. Toss it through with your hands so every strand is coated. The lemon does two things at once. It keeps the celeriac pale and bright, and it starts to soften the raw edge, turning the flesh from stiff and woody to pliable and willing. Leave it to sit for ten minutes while you make the dressing.
If your celeriac is very large and the taste feels too assertive raw, add a small pinch of salt here too. It pulls out some water and calms the sharpness. - 4
Make the dressing
In a separate bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, sour cream, Dijon, whole grain mustard, and sugar together until smooth. Season with salt and white pepper. Taste it. The dressing should be creamy but sharp, with the Dijon coming through clearly and the sugar just rounding the edges. If it tastes flat, it needs more mustard. If it tastes harsh, it needs a touch more cream. This is the engine of the salad, and if the dressing is right, the rest will follow.
White pepper, not black. Black pepper leaves dark specks that muddy the look of the pale salad. White pepper gives you the heat without showing up. - 5
Combine and rest
Pour the dressing over the celeriac and fold it through gently until every strand is coated. Don't beat it. You're not whipping cream, you're dressing a salad. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for at least thirty minutes. This rest is not optional. The celeriac needs time to drink in the dressing and soften, and the flavors need time to marry. Straight from the bowl it tastes raw and separate. After half an hour it tastes like sellerisalat.
If you have the patience, leave it overnight. The next day it is even better, the celeriac more relaxed, the dressing fully settled into the strands. - 6
Finish and serve
Just before serving, taste the salad one more time and adjust the salt, pepper, and lemon if it needs them. The celeriac will have absorbed some of the dressing and may need a little lift. Fold through most of the chives and the chopped capers if you're using them. Tip the salad into a wide, shallow serving bowl and scatter the remaining chives and a few fronds of dill over the top. Serve cold alongside ham, cold roast pork, or smorrebrod. You'll know when it's right. It tastes like winter in Denmark, pale and peppery and clean.
Chef Tips
- •Buy celeriac that feels heavy for its size with firm, unblemished flesh where the roots join the bulb. A light celeriac is old and spongy inside. A heavy one is dense and sweet.
- •The quality of the mayonnaise matters more than you'd think. A cheap supermarket mayo will taste sharp and oily against the celeriac. A good Danish-style mayo or a homemade one gives the salad its roundness.
- •Sellerisalat keeps for three days in the fridge, and many Danes will tell you the second day is the best. The flavors settle, the celeriac softens, and the salad finds its balance.
- •If you want to make it more substantial, fold in a grated tart apple at the end. It adds sweetness and crunch and turns the salad into something closer to a waldorf, which is a perfectly Danish thing to do in January when you're looking for another way to use what's in the fridge.
Advance Preparation
- •Sellerisalat is genuinely better made ahead. Prepare it the morning of the meal, or the night before, and keep it covered in the fridge. The celeriac softens and the dressing settles.
- •For a julefrokost or a dinner party, make it a full day in advance. Add the chives and dill just before serving so they stay bright and green.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 150g)
Calories
140 calories
Total Fat
9 g
Saturated Fat
2 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
8 mg
Sodium
430 mg
Total Carbohydrates
13 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
2 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Danish Cold Plates & Salads
Browse the full collection
Chef Freja
Agurkesalat
The sweet-sour Danish cucumber salad that turns up next to stegt flaesk, frikadeller, and anything off the summer grill. Paper-thin slices, a vinegar brine with dill and peppercorns, the side that makes the plate make sense.
Chef Freja
Honsesalat
Poached chicken, white asparagus, and mushrooms folded through a gentle curry cream, piled high on buttered rugbrod and crowned with crisp bacon. The smorrebrod that arrives at every Danish Easter lunch.
Chef Freja
Hvidkaalssalat
Danish white cabbage slaw softened with salt and dressed in vinegar, cream, and crushed caraway. The cool, crunchy counterweight to frikadeller, pork roasts, and anything coming off the summer grill.