• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

White Kitchen Red Wine logo

  • Recipe Categories
  • About Me
  • Let's Work Together!
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • Recipe Categories
  • About Me
  • Let's Work Together!
×

Home » Authentic Tabbouleh Recipe

May 19, 2022 Lebanese Cooking

Authentic Tabbouleh Recipe

Love this recipe? Share it!

62 shares

Authentic Lebanese tabbouleh is a popular mediterranean salad & essential to my dinner spread! It's also the PERFECT salad for spring or summer. It's fresh, light, full of those spring green onions and yummy fresh herbs.

SO GOOD! I've learned this recipe first hand from my husband's Lebanese family. It's easy to make at home and one of my favorite things to serve with mediterranean food.

I am pretty picky about my tabouli, I love it super lemon-y and loaded with little pops of cherry tomato in every single bite. It is a very simple salad, but if you mess with the ratios it can taste really "meh."

What is Tabbouleh Salad?

Lebanese Tabbouleh salad is a classic Middle Eastern salad with bright flavors and a simple olive oil lemon dressing. The star of the show: a lot of parsley. The main ingredient is what gives this green salad it's fresh flavor.

Big bunches of parsley combined with soaked bulgar wheat and loaded with ripe tomatoes, cucumber and a little bit of fresh mint leaves. Some recipes even add a bit of pomegranate molasses for sweetness.

There can be a lot of variations of tabbouleh from family to family. People might say there is the traditional way, but to be honest, there is no wrong way! This bulgur salad is what is traditional to our family and when I made it the original recipe for the first time, it instantly became one of my favorite salads.

I attend a largely Lebanese church, and there are tabbouleh police for sure! This one has passed the test as an authentic Lebanese version, which is such an important thing to me. I love cooking a good traditional recipe from my husbands family as that's one of the reasons I started this blog.

Is It Healthy?

OH YES! Loaded with leafy greens, whole grain, - you will no doubt get your vegetable servings in for the day. This is a perfect option for a light lunch, serve it with my Chicken Kafta burgers on the side for a lean and green dinner.

It also has the cracked bulgur wheat and an olive oil and lemon dressing and while it all sounds simple, when you use good quality ingredients you're serving up a hearty and healthy dish that you can definitely feel good about.

Tabbouleh Salad Recipe

The ingredients are standard in most every tabouli recipe: 

  • lots of parsley (curly parsley, flat parsley, or Italian parsley works)
  • lemon juice
  • fine bulgar wheat (can substitute cracked wheat if that's what you find at your local grocery store!)
  • fresh tomatoes
  • green onion (could also use red onion, white onion, or even a shallot)
  • diced cucumber
  • mint
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • salt & pepper
  • cold water (I like to soak it in cold water but you could use hot water to speed up the process!)

Simple enough, right? The combo of these few simple ingredients will add amazing fresh flavor to any dinner table you set! 

We love to eat it with traditional Lebanese recipes like pita bread, Kibbeh nayeh, baked kibbeh, Chicken Kafta, Lebanese Spinach fatayers, or Kousa but it makes a great side for anything. Especially during the Spring and Summer.

Tools Needed

Making this perfect side dish doesn't require many tools. You'll need a sharp knife, food processor, a salad spinner, and an airtight container for storage.

I've found that for the best results, I remove the stems of the bunches of parsley with the knife and then add that to the food processor to chop finely along with the onion. It gets the fresh parsley very finely chopped and

Making Authentic Tabbouleh

Middle Eastern cuisines have deceptively easy recipes in my opinion, this parsley salad is not an exception! Here is how to make the best tabbouleh....

  • Wash and dry all produce using a salad spinner.
  • In a small bowl combine the bulgar with cold water and let soak for 30 minutes up to overnight. If you want to soak it faster than that, combine it with boiling water while you prep the rest of the ingredients.
  • Remove stems of the parsley and place leaves in the food processor.
  • Pulse until very fine. You may need to do this in two batches! This may seem like too much parsley, but it's perfect!
  • Roughly chop the rest of the ingredients (onion, mint, cucumber, and tomatoes) and place in a large bowl.
  • Add the chopped parsley to the large bowl
  • Once the bulgur soaks and has become soft, I like to let it come to room temperature but you don't have to wait if you are in a pinch!
  • Squeeze out the excess water, it may just be a small amount or none at all.
  • Add in the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt to the bulgar and stir.
  • Add this mixture to the veggies in the large bowl and toss well.
  • Give it a taste and add more lemon or salt as needed.
  • Refrigerate for at least an hour for the best flavor!

Substitutions

Most of these ingredients should be fairly easy to find. The only one that might be tricky is the fine bulgur wheat. It may also be labeled cracked wheat in grocery stores and you'd likely find it in the international isle.

You could substitute in cooked quinoa or even cauliflower rice to make quinoa tabbouleh.

Adding feta cheese is a delicious idea and creates one more texture to this amazing salad.

Sub in any type of finely chopped tomato if you don't have cherry tomatoes.

How To Use Leftover Tabouli Salad

After making this recipe by request of my husband again and again and again...we started to have a lot of leftovers.

The next day, I came up with a tabbouleh salad chicken wrap! It's basically the perfect bite, every bite. It's a great main dish for lunch or a light dinner.

I layer a wrap with hummus, tabouli, and grilled chicken for the ultimate lunch! Who doesn't have a bit of leftover chicken laying around that could get used up?! So let's make a wrap & some tabouli!

It's a great recipe to prep at the beginning of the week and enjoy for many meals. We even like to jazz it up with feta cheese sometimes.

Interested in more salad ideas similar to this easy recipe? While tabouli is a traditional Lebanese salad, perhaps try this greek Marouli salad or this Parsley and Lemon Carrot Salad

tabouli

Authentic Tabbouleh Salad

Simple and traditional Lebanese tabouli salad recipe. This was taught to me by my husband's Lebanese family and has their seal of approval! It's a parsley packed salad with a bright lemon and olive oil dressing.
5 from 2 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Salad
Cuisine: Mediterranean
Keyword: easy salad, lebanese, parsley
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 6 servings
Author: Sara Ayesh

Equipment

  • 1 sharp knife
  • 1 Food Processor
  • 1 cutting board
  • 1 salad spinner

Ingredients

  • 2 bunches of parsley
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
  • 5 green onions
  • 10-15 mint leaves
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup bulgar wheat (or fine cracked wheat)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • cold water

Instructions

  • Wash and dry all produce using a salad spinner.
  • In a small bowl combine the bulgar with cold water and let soak for 30 minutes up to overnight. If you want to soak it faster than that, combine it with boiling water while you prep the rest of the ingredients.
  • Remove stems of the parsley and place leaves in the food processor.
  • Pulse until very fine. You may need to do this in two batches! This may seem like too much parsley, but it's perfect!
  • Roughly chop the rest of the ingredients (onion, mint, cucumber, and tomatoes) and place in a large bowl.
  • Add the chopped parsley to the large bowl
  • Once the bulgur soaks and has become soft, I like to let it come to room temperature but you don't have to wait if you are in a pinch!
  • Squeeze out the excess water, it may just be a small amount or none at all.
  • Add in the lemon juice, olive oil, and salt to the bulgar and stir.
  • Add this mixture to the veggies in the large bowl and toss well.
  • Give it a taste and add more lemon or salt as needed.
  • Refrigerate for at least an hour for the best flavor!
tabouli

More Salad Recipes

Kale & Brussels Salad

Harvest Spinach Salad

Cranberry Vinaigrette

Table of Contents

  • 1 What is Tabbouleh Salad?
  • 2 Is It Healthy?
  • 3 Tabbouleh Salad Recipe
  • 4 Tools Needed
  • 5 Making Authentic Tabbouleh
  • 6 Substitutions
  • 7 How To Use Leftover Tabouli Salad
  • 8 Authentic Tabbouleh Salad
« Easy 10 Bean Soup Recipe

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Let's Get To Know Each Other

Nice to meet you! I'm Sara Ayesh. A food photographer, blogger, mom, and wife! I'm so glad you are here to share in these simple, yet special recipes and easy entertaining tips! You'll find everything from recipes and my chicken adventures to home renovations! Let's have fun! Dig deeper →

What's New Around Here

tabouli

Authentic Tabbouleh Recipe

close up of 15 bean chili recipes

Easy 10 Bean Soup Recipe

two bowls of split pea soup

Instant Pot Split Pea Soup

white bowls of risotto and blackened scallops

Blackened Scallops with Spring Green Risotto

loaf of crusty dutch oven bread on a cooling rack

Easy Dutch Oven Bread

bowl of kale caesar salad

Juicy Frozen Chicken In The Air Fryer

3 plates of Italian mushrooms caps

Italian Stuffed Mushrooms (Vegetarian Recipe)

glass of white chocolate mocha

Iced White Chocolate Mocha (Starbucks Copycat!)

Footer

Blog

  • Recipe Categories
  • About Me
  • Let's Work Together!

Welcome!

  • Privacy Policy

Thanks!

Copyright © 2022 White Kitchen Red Wine on the Cookd Pro Theme

62 shares