The original Tabouleh recipe originates in Levantine cuisine, which includes traditions of many Middle-Eastern countries. Personally, it is one of my favorite salads. Very healthy, easy and tasty. What else do you need from a salad? :) Tabouleh goes well with kebabs, grilled dishes and goes exceptionally well with Eggplant Casserole. If you haven’t tried it, it is time for you to consider making this fantastic salad for your family!
Yield: 4-5 servings (thouthI can eat all of it by myself )
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup cracked wheat (a.k.a. bulghur)
- 2 cups of warm water
- 2-3 cups of curly parsley
- 1/2 cup of mint
- 1/4 cup of scallions
- quarter of a medium onion
- 2-3 tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp of olive oil
- juice of half of the lemon
- 1/2 tsp salt
Directions:
Soak the bulghur in 2 cups of water and let it stand in water for 1 – 1.5 hours. Bulgur will soften in the water. If you do not have much time, you might want to put the bulghur (with water) into the microwave for 2 minutes. Obviously, this is not the preferred way to cook bulghur. It loses much of its beneficial characteristics in the microwave. But we can look at it as an option, in case you forget to soak the cracked wheat beforehand.
Wash the greens thoroughly under running water!
Chop all the greens finely. This should be fairly easy :) Cut the onion very thinly. You do not want big chunks in your salad.
You can either peel the skin off tomatoes or you can use them without doing so. Make it your call. Either way, you need to cut the tomatoes finely.
Squeeze out excess water from bulghur and place all of the ingredients in a medium bowl.
Add oil and squeeze the lemon on top of the ingredients. I love using Mayer lemon. It has a great smell and tastes like lemons back home in Uzbekistan. Simply the best! If you are using Mayer lemon, only quarter of it is enough for this salad. If you are feeling adventurous, make your own limits.
Add salt and mix the salad with a spoon. You can serve the salad immediately or you can keep it refrigerated until dinner. It is good fresh and it is equally good if it stays in the refrigerator for couple of hours.
Bon Appetit!
Love this salad, I tried it in arabic restaurant and then used to prepare it myself without any recipes(i coulnd’t rememeber the name to look for ). Now I read recipe, will try to do it in proper way.
So I see you started with arabic cousine ? What is next, falafel and homous( I guess :))?
I have no idea :) Whichever I like. I do not like Falafel much. I don’t think I will go there :)
I was wonderring if it would be un-arabic to add garlic?
absolutely my favourite salad! and a party hit :-)
Thank you, Fenke :)
Hi Lola
Delicious salad, you made it brilliant I would say I smell the herbs, I fell the freshness, while it is Arab recipe specifically from (Sham area) which are Syria and Lebanon and of course I am Arab woman. So please let me tell you my recipe and my recipe’s story:
Ok, thanks a lot. I am just mad about cooking and it is wild world, so I decided firstly to learn Arab food style as much as possible, my Lebanese friend gave me her grandmother’ Tabouleh recipe:
3 punches of cured Parsley (just use the leaves)
A half punch of mint
4 spring onions
5 tomatoes
Juice of 3 lemons
Salt
Olive oil
30 g of bulghur and keep working with your way was perfect. With my recipe the quantities of ingriedents for large family. Oooh Lola your recipe was brilliant, despite little think, try not to soak bulghur, just wash it with running water.Why? Because originally Tabuleh is juicy salad depend on tomato lemon juice plus olive oil,at this time bulghur is absorpting the lovely juices, do not afraid it becomes tender and give you more flavors and the best of taste.
Traditionally we eat Tabouleh with Ice berg leaves, use it as natural eatable spoons.
It is the best salad combine with BBQ
Karima alfasi
Libya
Oh wow, Karima, shukran! You recipe sounds amazing, too. So, what I got from you is just to rinse bulghur without letting it soak in water. With all the juices in the salad, it will absorb the moist and becomes even tastier with all the infused lemon+olive oil juice. I will try it really soon and will let you know :)
Thank you very much!
Lola’s recipe is great! Thank you for a great post. I love Tabouleh.
I will try Karima’s suggestion of not soaking it, it makes a lot of sense but wonder if it depends on the particular characteristics of the bulghur you use.
Oh! I usually soak the bulghur in the lemon juice. Adds so much citrus flavor! MMM!!
İn Turkey this salad is called Kısır and known as women’s dish especially in Eastern region. My Kurdish friend makes this salad when I visit her in lunch time.
I loved your version- lots of herbs and less bulgur.
Yes, yes!! I love kIsIr a lot! Although bulgur is very healthy, I prefer more herbs for the bulgur :) How are you and the family? Any additions?
Hey Lolik, bravo to you for this great illustration of the recipe,i just love it and love your pictures! I make it all the time myself but seeing it in your interpretation just made it even better for me. How about babaganoush which is one of my most favorites but since i don’t know the exact content of ingredients,or being absolute honest,due to quite a complication of ingredients, i always buy it in the store already prepared. Have you ever made it yourself??? If you did, i’m really encouraging you to document your great cooking talent and share it with us,ordinary people….Please!!!! :)
Miss you!!!!
Why, thank you Natasha! I will try to dig out the babaganoush recipe for you. There are couple of ingredients I need to hunt before I do that :)
I must say the pictures are absolutely stunning – I can almost smell and taste those flavours just looking at the pics :D
I notice there is no garlic in this recipe while some other recipes include garlic – I seem to like the flavour with garlic too!
Thank you, Steph :D
Garlic could be a great addition. I should try it next time! Thank you for the tip!
I am sharing with my friends this wonderful recipe!!!
I love tabbouleh! Thanks for this recipe.
Yeap this recipe from my country, its sooooooo delicious especial when you add more lemon juice on it sooo yamme ;-))