Armenian Tabbouleh Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the main ingredients in tabouli? ›

Tabbouleh is basically parsley salad. There's technically no lettuce in it. It's a salad made up of parsley, tomatoes, bulgur wheat, and green onions – all finely chopped and tossed with olive oil and lemon juice!

Dishes like tabbouleh attest to their continued popularity in Middle Eastern cuisine today. Originally from the mountains of Lebanon and Syria, tabbouleh has become one of the most popular salads in the Middle East.

While the classic tabbouleh recipe includes bulgur wheat, alternative versions can be made without it, using substitutes like quinoa, couscous, or even omitting the grain entirely. These variations allow for dietary restrictions or personal preferences while still maintaining the essence of the dish.

Pre-salting the tomatoes and parsley removes excess liquid through osmosis, preventing the salad from becoming soupy later. Tomato water is re-infused into the salad by using it to soak the bulgur, enhancing the flavor. Soaking the bulgur in heated tomato water ensures it will soften, regardless of its grind size.

Tabbouleh is a healthy, vegetarian food that has no cholesterol, is low in fat, and high in fiber, vitamins, and much more. Plus, it makes great use of the backyard gardener's abundance of parsley, mint, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Letting tabouli sit for a day in the refrigerator may even help the flavors mingle. Because of its ingredients, tabouli will last in the refrigerator for up to four days, so make sure you eat it before then.

Tabouli is also good eating just on its own as a salad, and you can find it pre-made in many grocery stores and Middle Eastern specialty stores.

Tabbouleh is dressed in a simple combination of olive oil and lemon juice. You won't find garlic in every tabbouleh recipe, but I think that one clove makes this recipe extra delicious.

Tabbouleh Serving Suggestions

Try pairing it with a falafel wrap, or add it to a mezze platter with components such as these: Dips and spreads. Hummus, baba ganoush, muhammara, and tzatziki are all fantastic with tabbouleh.

They each have moderate glycemic indexes, but quinoa has a slightly lower glycemic index. Bulgur has fewer calories per serving than quinoa does. The main nutritional difference between the two ingredients is that bulgur contains gluten, while quinoa does not.

Is couscous the same as bulgur? ›

While couscous is a tiny pasta, bulgur is an ancient form of pre-cooked wheat. To make it, the grains are par-cooked while still inside the chaff, then they are hulled and chipped into smaller pieces. This process drives the nutrients into the grain, rather than washing them away.

Bulgur wheat has its outer bran layer removed, giving it a lighter, softer texture, whilst cracked wheat retains this layer, resulting in a heartier, chewier texture. For this reason, cracked wheat also has a slightly higher fibre content.

By lightly salting the vegetables in a colander, you can extract some of the water and get more concentrated veggie flavours in the tabbouleh. Why is my tabbouleh bitter? The most likely sources of bitterness in a tabbouleh are parsley and olive oil. The parsley should be finely chopped to avoid bitter flavours.

The best side dishes to serve with tabbouleh are grilled chicken skewers, hummus and pita bread, couscous, chicken wings, salmon with dill, chicken nuggets, stuffed grape leaves, baba ghanoush, falafel, fattoush salad, kebabs, and labneh.

Instead of bulgur, the French Taboulé is made with couscous that is often cooked in chicken stock for extra flavour, and studded with diced vegetables and raisins. It also uses less mint and other herbs which gives it a more couscous-forward texture and less-green appearance.

Tabbouleh (also spelled tabouli) is a super fresh herb and bulgur salad, with parsley being the number one ingredient. It's dotted with diced cucumber and tomato, and dressed simply with olive oil and lemon juice. It's refreshing, light and packed with healthy ingredients.

Tabbouleh alongside grilled anything is such a delicious winner: kebabs, chops, steaks, chicken, even grilled vegetables—the smokey, charred flavor of anything grilled just loves the contrast of tabbouleh, which has all of the refreshing flavors of parsley and mint along with a lemony vinaigrette.

Alternatively spelled tabouli or tabouleh, this Middle Eastern salad consists of finely chopped parsley, mint, tomatoes, and bulgur wheat. Don't let the bulgur's presence fool you – traditional Lebanese tabbouleh isn't so much a grain salad as it is an herb salad with grains.

Bulgur consists of parboiled whole or crushed partially debranned wheat grains, and is used as a substitute for rice, e.g., in pilaf, an eastern European dish consisting of wheat, meat, oil and herbs cooked together.