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Tabbouleh

Published: 9 Jan 19
Updated: 18 Mar 24

Tabbouleh is a mix of bulgur wheat, tomatoes and lots of parsley. Serve is as part of a mezze feast or, as is tradition, eaten scooped up with small cos lettuce leaves. It also goes well alongside barbecued lamb, chicken or fish.

Easy

Test kitchen approved

Serves 4
Hands-on time 40 min

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Ingredients

100g bulgur wheat
2 large firm, vine-ripened tomatoes (about 200g) with lots of flavour
1 large bunch (about 100g) fresh flatleaf parsley
20g fresh mint
6 spring onions, trimmed and very thinly sliced
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

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Method

Put the bulgur wheat in a bowl, pour over cold water to cover and rub your fingers through the grains to remove excess starch. Drain through a sieve, tip back into the bowl and just cover with boiling water from the kettle. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, no longer.
Drain the bulgur wheat well, tip onto a clean tea towel and press out the excess water. Transfer to a large dry mixing bowl.
20 minutes before you are ready to serve, finely dice the tomatoes, mix them into the bulgur and set aside for a few minutes for the flavours to mingle.

Just before serving, bunch up the parsley and slice the leaves across as finely as you can but don’t chop them. Slice the mint leaves in the same way.
Stir the parsley, mint, spring onions, lemon juice, olive oil and some flaky sea salt into the salad and serve straightaway (see tip).

delicious. tips

Pomegranate seeds make a nice addition to tabbouleh. Stir in about 70g (the seeds from 1 large pomegranate) with sliced spring onions.
True tabbouleh is a salad of chopped parsley embellished with a little bulgur wheat, tomato, spring onions and lemon juice, rather a wheat-based salad. It should be made with fine bulgur wheat, not the medium grain found in most British supermarkets, but as this is what most of us can buy easily, the trick is to soak it for as little time as possible so that it remains al dente.