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This easy Mexican coleslaw recipe is deliciously fresh and tangy, featuring cabbage, red onion, cilantro, and cumin. It’s perfect as a side or on tacos!
You can’t have too many coleslaw recipes, right? Alex and I rediscovered our love for the stuff after creating our famous creamy coleslaw recipe. But for a healthy spin that’s little lighter and fresher, here’s another delicious coleslaw recipe for you.
This Mexican coleslaw has no mayo, and instead focuses on fresh flavors: crunchy cabbage, red onion, cilantro, and cumin. It’s got both cumin seed and ground cumin for a double hit of flavor. Oh—and it doubles as a taco topping. Keep reading for the recipe!
How to make Mexican coleslaw
This Mexican coleslaw is a great summer side dish, and perfect on tacos too. We first created it for our grilled shrimp tacos, but it works on any taco. It’s very simple and requires no wait time in the refrigerator either!
Many coleslaw recipes require melding in the fridge for an hour or so, but this Mexican coleslaw is perfect right away! A unique feature is that it has both cumin seed and ground cumin to bring out a savory flavor. Here’s how to make Mexican coleslaw (or go to the recipe):
- Thinly slice the cabbage.
- Shred the carrot, thinly slice the red onion onion, and chop the cilantro.
- Mix the vegetables together with apple cider vinegar, olive oil, cumin seed, ground cumin, kosher salt and pepper. Serve immediately!
Storing leftovers
An important note on this Mexican coleslaw: it does taste best right away. If you want to make it in advance, we’d recommend slicing up the veggies and keeping the olive oil, vinegar and spices separate. Then mix them up directly prior to serving.
If you do have leftovers, you can store them refrigerated. The coleslaw may lose a little flavor over time, you could refresh the flavor with another splash of vinegar, drizzle of olive oil, and pinch of kosher salt.
Tips for cutting cabbage
Since one of the most time-consuming parts of making this Mexican coleslaw is cutting the cabbage, here’s a trick that makes it much easier! I used to cut it in half and then hack at it until I got some “shreds.” Sometimes my knife would slip and they’d be super uneven!
This new method changed the game for me. Watch the video below to see me demonstrating the best way to cut cabbage: it makes cutting up the cabbage for coleslaw a breeze! And, here are all our favorite cabbage recipes for other ways to use this veggie.
How to serve Mexican coleslaw
And that’s it: all you need to know about how to make coleslaw! This Mexican coleslaw is a perfect side dish for summer, and it also works fabulously as a side to go with tacos. We recently served it for a patio party with our grilled shrimp tacos and it was a huge hit! Tacos are perfect for entertaining, especially accompanied by some frozen alcoholic drinks (am I right?!). Here are a few different ways we’d serve this coleslaw:
- On grilled shrimp tacos (with lime daiquiris)
- On jackfruit BBQ sandwiches
- With refried bean dip or bean dip
- With grilled shrimp or baked salmon
- With vegtarian enchiladas or chicken enchiladas
- On fish tacos, cauliflower tacos, chickpea tacos, or vegan tacos
Dietary notes
This Mexican coleslaw recipe is vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based, vegan, and refined sugar free.
Mexican Coleslaw Recipe
This easy Mexican coleslaw recipe is deliciously fresh and tangy, featuring cabbage, red onion, cilantro, and cumin. Perfect as a side or on tacos!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 to 6 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Raw
- Cuisine: Mexican Inspired
Ingredients
- 8 cups shredded cabbage (1/2 large or 1 medium head green cabbage; or do half red cabbage and half green)
- 1 cup shredded carrot (1 large or 2 medium carrots)
- 1/4 red onion
- ½ cup finely chopped cilantro
- ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon cumin seed
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Fresh ground pepper
Instructions
- Thinly slice the cabbage. Shred the carrot. Thinly slice the red onion. Finely chop the cilantro.
- In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients together. Taste and add additional salt or pepper if needed. Serve immediately. (Make ahead: slice the veggies in advance and store refrigerated. Mix together with the vinegar, olive oil, cumin seed, ground cumin, salt and pepper directly before serving. Store leftovers refrigerated; if you find the flavor needs refreshing, add a splash of vinegar, drizzle of olive oil and pinch of kosher salt to taste.)
I was looking for a side dish to serve with enchiladas, and this was perfect. For a little heat, I added some cholula, and that worked out really well.