Shirazi Salad is a refreshing cucumber, tomato herb salad. It has its origins in Persian cuisine.
You can prepare this salad easily with these commonly available ingredients, and because I made it simple for you, you can serve the Shirazi salad with kebabs and similar dishes.
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What is Shirazi Salad?
Shirazi salad is named after the region, Shiraz, in Iran. This particular Persian salad consists of seedless, finely diced cucumbers, diced tomatoes, some onion, and fresh herbs such as dill, mint, coriander, and parsley.
The salad dressing is enhanced with a souring agent such as lemon; however, in Iran something like unripe acidic grape juice (aka verjus) is used to marinate the salad.
I don't know about you, but I don't always get grape vinegar, so I prefer to use regular vinegar or just simply lemon juice. It modifies the original flavor but does the trick too!
The main concept of this salad is that the diced cucumbers give some crunch to the salad and that the fresh herbs balance the flavors out. Shirazi salad is typically sour, salty, and very refreshing.
That is why Shirazi salad is usually prepared during the hot summer days, due to its refreshing properties. I see the Shirazi salad as a way to include a lot of fresh and healthy herbs!
My favorite ingredients are definitely the peppermint, dill, parsley, and cilantro, and they give the salad the character I am looking for when I crave Middle Eastern food.
📖 Recipe
Easy Shirazi Salad Recipe
Ingredients
For the Salad ingredients:
- 2 Tomato
- 1 Cucumber
- 1 small Onion
- 1 Teaspoon Peppermint fresh
- ½ Teaspoon Dill fresh
- 1 Teaspoon Parsley Fresh fresh
- 1 Teaspoon Cilantro Fresh fresh, aka Coriander
For the Dressing:
- Juice of one Lemon
- 2 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
Instructions
- Roughly chop your onion.
- Don' t peel your cucumber just cut off the ends and scrape out the seeds if there are any. This depends on the cucumber variety. Best you use the dark green seedless English cucumber variety. Cut into small dice.
- Mix all the ingredients for the dressing and pour over the salad ingredients. Mix and let sit for at least 30 minutes. The flavors will mingle together and the result will be a beautiful refreshing salad.
- Serve as a side with any meat dishes such as kebabs. Se further on top of serving suggestions.
Nutrition
Serving
Shirazi salad can be served with any Middle Eastern kebab. I tried it with Turkish kebabs and Israeli falafels, and it worked well too due to the fact that the ingredients in these cuisines are similar. Shirazi salad reminds me of Israeli salad at times.
In fact, you can try serving the Shirazi salad with tandoori chicken or chicken tikka too instead of a tandoori salad (which, by the way, is very similar except that there is no dill)
Or you could serve Shirazi salad also with a steak, schnitzel, chicken and rice or any other lightly flavored dry meat dish.
Another idea is to serve with pilaf rice and rice carrot patties or with a cold couscous salad for a tailgating event.
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Very refreshing and I love its crunchiness too.
This is the first time I’ve seen this salad and I can tell that I would love it with its fresh and flavourful herbs and tangy dressing.
I would appreciate if you could help me to prepare vegetables pulao a detailed recipe I don't have any idea how to dry water in pulao. Thanks for your time and advice in advance. Awaiting your reply.
Hi Joaquim, I am not a pulao specialized as I rarely cook it but I can give you the following tip. To reduce the water while cooking you need to make sure to not add too much water to the rice while cooking. All that depends too on what rice variation you use. If you use basmati, it would take a shorter cooking time and less water. The rule of thumb with cooking such rice without it getting too soggy is to use a ratio of 1:2. So if you have 1 cup of rice add 2 cups of water. Then, of course, you can add your spices and vegetables to prepare vegetable pulao. Currently, I hadn' t planned anytime soon to post vegetable pulao here. I have a short old pulao recipe here besides the beef recipe in this post.
This looks so lovely and I love all the herbs in there!
Such a light and refreshing salad! I love all the background information you provided. I can't wait to try this.
Combination of cucumber, tomatoes, onions and herbs is one of my all time favorites. And the simple dressing of lemon and olive oil is all this salad needs. Wonderful.
The fresh herbs in this salad make it extra delicious. Mint and dill rock this salad. Just Pinned!
Such an interesting post! I know this as Israeli salad, but whatever you call it, it's one of my favorites!
LOVING the flavors in this salad!!
thanks for sharing .... keep sharing in future too.