Tabbouleh Salad Recipe – light and zingy with garden-fresh ingredients

Tabbouleh Salad is a light fresh salad (usually with bulgur wheat, but we’re using couscous), tomatoes, onion and cucumber, parsley and mint is perfect if you’re growing your own vegetables and herbs. The ingredients are all really easy to grow and this Tabbouleh Salad Recipe uses the traditional dressing of olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Most Tabbouleh Salad recipes are heavy on the use of parsley, but recently I’ve been finding that the parsley is just too strong and overpowers everything else, so a little experimentation was in order.

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Introducing our take on the Tabbouleh Salad Recipe

We’ve made a few changes to the traditions of this recipe, mainly to suit our tastes, and the garden-fresh herbs and vegetables available. We use a lot less parsley than many recipes and our recipe for Tabbouleh Salad calls for couscous rather than the traditional bulgur wheat.

You can vary the ingredients of the Tabbouleh Salad to your taste. Our recipe uses couscous rather than bulgur wheat (what can I say, lockdown shopping was a challenge). Our recipe for Tabbouleh Salad also calls for double the amount of mint to parsley, but that’s because our parsley has developed quite a strong taste. Oh and we love mint. It’s such an easy herb to grow and we grow mint from cuttings to increase our yield as we can use it for lots of things.

We also tend to serve Tabbouleh with additional lemon to squeeze over the top for an extra zing in the salad. No fresh lemon available? That’s fine, you can use bottled lemon (or lime) juice.

Tabbouleh Salad Recipe Details

A light fresh salad of couscous, fresh tomatoes, onion and cucumber, parsley and mint.

yield:2

prep time:20 MINUTES

additional time:6 HOURS

total time:6 HOURS 20 MINUTES

Tabbouleh Salad Ingredients

80 grams of couscous.
40 grams of fresh tomatoes.
80 grams of cucumber.
40 grams of spring onion.
Two handfuls of fresh mint (10 grams)
One handful of fresh parsley. (5 grams)
One small lemon, juiced.
1 tablespoon of olive oil.
40 millilitres of water.

Equipment you’ll need to make a Tabbouleh Salad

You’ll find all the equipment to make tabbouleh salad in our kitchen essentials list here.

Customizing a Tabbouleh Salad

How to Make Tabbouleh Salad – Method

Dice tomatoes, cucumber and onion

Roughly tear the parsley and mint, removing any thicker stems
For speed, you can use a food processor, as in our photos of the method of making a Tabbouleh Salad

Combine all the vegetables and herbs in a large bowl (it will need a lid)
Add the dried couscous or bulgur wheat.

In a separate container combine the lemon juice, olive oil and water and stir
Once the liquids are mixed – we like to whisk them – pour the liquid into the bowl with the vegetables and herbs.
Stir the ingredients together, transfer into a bowl to go into the fridge.

Cover the bowl and leave in the fridge for at least 6 hours – it’s best if you can leave it overnight. You might think that there’s not much water in this recipe, but never fear, there’s a lot of water in cucumber and tomatoes and that’s going to soak right into your couscous while keeping all the goodness of the vegetable right in the dish.
Prior to serving add additional lemon juice to taste (I like mine quite tart) – and garnish with a sprig of mint.

How to Serve Tabbouleh Salad

Tabbouleh is usually served either at room temperature or chilled (we prefer it chilled) and its pair with both hot and cold dishes. Tabbouleh is usually included as an accompaniment or side dish alongside a host of other side dishes.

Tabbouleh as part of a mezze style meal

Tabbouleh is great served as part of a mezze style meal – where there’s an arrangement of help yourself small dishes. Serve Tabbouleh alongside falafel, baba ganoush, olives, feta cheese. Take your pick of Mediterranean dishes or Middle Eastern dishes and add this gloriously fresh salad to your table.

Tabbouleh as an accompaniment to a main

This fresh from the garden salad goes really well as an accompaniment with grilled white fish or salmon. We love salmon in a lemon and pepper sauce with Tabbouleh, it’s a great complement. Try also a basa filet in a light tempura batter served with a side of tabbouleh and some fresh salad leaves from the garden.

Wine pairing for Tabbouleh

We love a Sauvignon Blanc with Tabbouleh or a Pinot Gris.

The Origins of Tabbouleh and Tabbouleh History

Tabbouleh is the national food of Lebanon. Tabbouleh originated in the mountains of Syria and Lebanon, an area that is widely known as the Leva and has been eaten since the Middle Ages. Tabbouleh is one of the staple dishes of the Lebanese appetizers, or mezze and it’s present everywhere. You’ll see varieties of Tabbouleh in Armenia where its call the “eetch” and in Turkey where it is called the “kisir”

Tabbouleh – also tabouleh, tabbouli, tabouli and taboula – is derived from the Arabic “Tabil” – which means seasoning. In Levantine Arabic, the word is tabbule and the use of the term Tabbouleh came about in English first of all in the 1950s.

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Final Words on our Tabbouleh Salad Recipe

I think what I like best about our Tabbouleh Salad is that it brings so many fresh flavours from the garden onto the table. Sure I’m yet to have any lemons in the garden. We’re not great parsley fans, so this recipe works for us by accentuating the tomatoes, mint and lemon. It’s great having so much fresh produce from the garden to be able to experiment. What will you change about the Tabbouleh recipe?

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