1
StepWash the parsley in a sink of cold water and dry it thoroughly — a salad spinner followed by ten minutes spread on a tea towel. Any water left on the leaves ends up in the bowl.
Salads
Tabbouleh
A parsley salad first and a grain salad a distant second: three bunches of parsley to a small handful of fine bulgur, which softens in tomato juice rather than being cooked. Lemon and olive oil go on right at the end so the leaves stay green and sharp. Scooped up with lettuce or cabbage leaves rather than eaten with a fork.
35 min
Prep: 25 / Cook: 10
4
servings
Easy
Difficulty
4.5
6 Ratings
Layla Haddad
This content is owned by the author and used with their consent.
Terms ↗May 14, 2026
Ingredients
- 3 bunches flat-leaf parsley
- 40 g fine bulgur
- 300 g tomato
- 4 pieces spring onion
- 20 g mint
- 60 ml lemon juice
- 80 ml olive oil
- 1 pinch ground allspice
- 1 tsp salt
To serve
- 2 pieces little gem lettuce
Preparation
6 Steps
2
StepDice the tomatoes small and tip them into a sieve set over a bowl with a pinch of salt to catch the juice. Stir the fine bulgur into that tomato juice with a squeeze of lemon and leave it for 10 minutes; it needs no cooking and should stay slightly chewy.
3
StepStrip the parsley leaves and tender stems from the thick stalks and chop them very finely, gathering the pile and slicing through it rather than rocking the knife. Chop the mint the same way, at the last moment, since it blackens fastest.
4
StepSlice the spring onions thinly, using most of the green as well as the white.
5
StepCombine the parsley, mint, spring onion, drained tomato and swollen bulgur in a wide bowl. Add the lemon juice, olive oil, allspice and salt and toss with your hands so nothing gets crushed.
6
StepTaste — it should be bright, sharp and overwhelmingly green, with the bulgur registering only as texture. Serve within the hour with lettuce leaves for scooping.
Chef's Tip
Dry the parsley completely after washing, in a spinner and then a tea towel, or the salad goes limp within minutes. Chop it with a very sharp knife in a slicing motion instead of rocking the blade, which bruises the leaves and turns them dark.
Comments (3)
drying the parsley properly is the whole trick, everything else is easy
chopping that much parsley took me ages but the slicing motion helped a lot
i had been making this with about five times too much bulgur for years