Summer is upon us, and one of my favorite things about the season are fresh, chilled salads. They make a great snack, side dish, or even a light lunch. This time of year, there are always at least one, and up to three or four, different kinds of chilled salads in our fridge. One of my favorites is Tabbouleh, a Middle Eastern dish made with coarse bulgur wheat, tomatoes, cucumbers, and parsley. It’s fresh and light, with the brightness of lemon juice, and I learned a tip from the amazing folks at America’s Test Kitchen that makes every bite a burst of amazing summer flavors.
So, I do indeed love me some cooking on TV. Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and America’s Test Kitchen on PBS are both always full of no-nonsense tips, recipe tweaks, comparisons, best-of tests, and I pretty much trust them in all things culinary.
I was catching up on my episodes of Test Kitchen, when they made tabbouleh. They had an absolutely brilliant step in the recipe that ended up making some of the best tabbouleh I have ever produced here in my kitchen! Clearly, I needed to pass this along to you!
The secret is, instead of using solely lemon juice and olive oil to dress the tabbouleh, which is pretty standard, instead dice and salt the vegetables and allow them to sit for a while, where some of the juices will be drawn out by the salt. Then, you build the dressing using the tomato and cucumber waters that come out of the veggies, and add that to the lemon juice and olive oil.
It’s a win-win — the veg come out seasoned, so is the juice, and even more of that wonderful, fresh summer flavor gets absorbed into the grains of bulgur wheat. It’s really fantastic, and I sure hope you will give This easy tabbouleh a try!
You don’t need the tabbouleh kit with the seasonings and dried parsley in it, just get the bulgur wheat. Do it from scratch. It will take you the same amount of time either way, and this one will give you bragging rights. Pro tip: better get double the bulgur wheat and stuff, because you will be making this again when it gets completely devoured!
- 16 Oz Dry bulgur wheat, medium coarse ground
- 1 Ea Large, ripe tomato
- 1 Ea Large cucumber
- 2 Ea Green onions/scallions
- 1 Bunch Flat leaf parsley Or more to taste up to 2 bunches
- 3/4 Cup Extra virgin olive oil
- Juice of 2 lemons Up to 2/3 cup
- Bring together all the delicious ingredients, and grab a knife!
- Cut the ends off the cucumber (the bitter compounds are primarily in the two ends of a cucumber) and slice it in half the long way. Scrape out the seeds and dice the cucumber into no larger than half inch pieces. Put the pieces in a bowl and sprinkle them with 1 tbsp of kosher salt. Mix and allow the salt to pull some of the juices out of the cucumber.
- Dice the large, ripe tomato. Make sure to catch and conserve all of the juices! I like to out my tomato into a strainer over a bowl after it is diced into no larger than half inch pieces. Include all the seeds and tomato pulp. Sprinkle the tomato pieces with 1 tbsp of kosher salt, mix, and leave to drain its juice over a bowl.
- While the tomato and cucumber are marinating, dice the green onions and the parsley leaves. To remove the leaves from the stems, I like to slide the knife down the stems horizontally to kind of shave the leaves off. Set the onions and parsley aside.
- Check the tomatoes and cucumbers for juice. Pour off cucumber and tomato juice into 2-cup measuring cup if you have one, otherwise just use a regular one-cup. For this recipe we need two cups of liquid in total -- add the lemon juice to the vegetable juice, then add the olive oil. If this does not total two cups of liquid, keep the tomato and cucumber draining and collect more juice until you total two cups.
- When you've collected two cups total, rinse the dried bulgur wheat briefly with plain water and then drain, and put it in a bowl. Pour the juices and oil mixture over the wheat, stir it once, and let it sit for an hour. Don't touch!
- After an hour the bulgur wil be fluffy and will have absorbed all the liquid.
- Add the cucumbers, tomatoes, any more juice they might have given up, the onions and parsley to the bowl and mix to combine.
- Move to a container with a lid, and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Serve as a side dish, a snack, or sit down with a spoon and eat it all! I won't tell!
