Tabbouleh
30 min · 3 g protein · 108 cals / serving
The Lebanese parsley salad the way it is made in Beirut: mostly finely chopped parsley and mint, with juicy tomato, green onion and just enough fine bulgur to give it bite, all soaked in lemon juice and good olive oil. Bright, fresh and very green.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup bulgur, fine (#1) bulgur
- 1/3 cup lemon juice, from about 2 lemons, divided
- 3 medium tomatoes, finely diced, juices kept
- 3 large bunches fresh parsley, flat-leaf, leaves and thin stems, finely chopped
- a large handful fresh mint, leaves finely chopped
- 4 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 small cucumber, finely diced (optional)
- 2 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Steps
- Rinse the bulgur in a sieve and put it in a large bowl with half the lemon juice and the diced tomatoes and their juices. Leave it 20 minutes to soften while you chop; the bulgur drinks up the juice instead of water.
- Wash the parsley and mint and dry them very well (a salad spinner, then a towel), or the salad turns soggy. Chop finely with a sharp knife rather than a food processor, which bruises the leaves. Add the parsley, mint, green onion and cucumber (if using) to the bowl.
- Add the rest of the lemon juice, the olive oil, allspice, salt and pepper and toss well. Taste: it should be bright and lemony. Serve within a couple of hours, with crisp lettuce leaves to scoop it up if you like.
Good to know
Quinoa instead of bulgur?
Yes, for a gluten-free version. Use 1/2 cup of cooked and cooled quinoa and stir it in at step 2 instead of soaking it. It scores about 67 instead of 70.
Why so little bulgur?
Real tabbouleh is a herb salad. The bulgur is there for texture, so the parsley stays the star. If you like it grainier, double the bulgur; it becomes heartier as a meal, at about the same score, but less like the Lebanese original.
Turn it into a meal?
Serve it next to grilled chicken, fish or a scoop of hummus. It is also very good spooned over the Greek chicken bowl in place of the salad.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 66
- Protein
- (11%)
- 2 g
- Fat
- (46%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (43%)
- 8 g
- of which sugar
- 2 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 214 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 650 kcal goes into the pot and 972 g of ingredients comes out as about 980 g of food: 66 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.