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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 are the basic steps for 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 frpzen daiquiris)
- On jackfruit BBQ sandwiches
- With refried bean dip or bean dip
- With grilled shrimp or baked salmon
- With vegtarian enchiladas, chicken enchiladas or enchilada casserole
- 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.
Frequently asked questions
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.
Are you mixing in whole, raw cumin seed? Seems weird and I don’t see any in the picture so I wonder, am I missing something?
Yes, there is some whole cumin seed but only 1/2 teaspoon, so it’s difficult to see in the photos! It adds a nice intrigue to the flavor but you can omit if desired!
Too much cilantro. Reduce by 1/2 or better, or use parsley for color.
This was delicious and easy and made perfect vegetarian tacos. I smashed up some avocado and I diced up some jalapeño actually put that in the coleslaw, the jalapeño, but delicious!!! Looking forward to trying more of your recipes!
That is so smart! Love the idea to add avocado and jalapeno — we will have to try that!
This is DELICIOUS! I love the lightness with loads of flavor. Made it with Angel hair shredded cabbage, shredded carrot, cilantro, and minced jalapeño … for taco night with homemade tortillas. This was a wonderful add! Thank you. I will use this on chopped romaine salad from now on!!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for this great recipe! It’s so fresh, and makes taco night feel a bit healthier 🙂 I love a classic coleslaw but this is just as good, without the calorie laden mayo & sugar. Also appreciated the tips on how to cut cabbage – thanks!
You’re welcome! :)
Can you use this dressing on romaine lettuce? We have people with tender stomachs and they cannot eat cabbage.
Yes, I think that would work great!
Very good alongside black bean enchiladas! Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Took this to a Mexican food potluck and everyone LOVED it! No leftovers and many going back for seconds. Thank you!
So glad to hear this! Thanks for making :)
I just made this Mexican Coleslaw and love it. I wouldn’t change a thing.
So glad you enjoyed it!
Made this last night and loved it! The only thing I changed is that I used lime juice instead of vinegar. Delish!