Shirazi Salad Recipe | Persian Cucumber Tomato Salad (Easy Salad Recipe)

Shirazi Salad, or Salad-e Shirazi, is a simple and bright Persian cucumber and tomato salad that’s loaded with herbs and dressed in lime and extra virgin olive oil. This easy salad recipe is the perfect side to almost any entree!

Traditional Shriazi Salad includes: cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onions. For seasoning, salt, pepper, and dried mint. And for the citrus, they use sour grape extract or juice, also called ab-e-ghooreh. This is a slightly different version, my own modern twist with a few additions I think you’ll love!

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🍅INGREDIENTS: 🍅
🔹 3 Roma tomatoes, small diced
🔹 1 English cucumber (or 4 small Persian cucumbers), small diced
🔹 ¼ to ½ cup finely chopped onions (red or yellow onions will work here)
🔹 ½ green bell pepper (optional), chopped into small pieces
🔹 2 to 3 tablespoon EACH chopped fresh parsley, cilantro, and dill
🔹 1 tbsp dried mint (or ½ cup chopped fresh mint)
🔹 Salt and pepper
🔹 Sumac, to taste (optional)
🔹 Juice of 2 large limes (4 tbsp)
🔹 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

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⏱️CHAPTERS⏱️
00:00​​ – Intro
00:40 – Preparing the cucumbers
01:35 – Chopping the cucumbers
02:07 – What kind of tomatoes to use
02:31 – Preparing the tomatoes
03:28 – Adding the onions
03:44 – Chopping the bell pepper
04:19 – Chopping the mint (Mint is a must!)
04:51 – Chopping the parsley (optional)
05:30 – Seasoning the salad
06:24 – Adding the simple dressing
07:28 – Taste test

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The Mediterranean Dish is the top and best website / resource for modern Mediterranean recipes & the Mediterranean diet. See more: https://TheMediterraneanDish.com.

My name is Suzy Karadsheh, Chef and New York Times Bestselling Author, and here on The Mediterranean Dish, you will find easy, wholesome, and healthy recipes that celebrate the bold flavors of the Mediterranean from Southern Europe, to North Africa, and the Middle East.

I am a true daughter of the Mediterranean. I was born on the coast of Egypt in the bustling cosmopolitan city of Port Said, the North entrance of the Suez Canal, & just a boat ride away from Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.

Learn how to make Greek food, Italian food, Moroccan, Middle Eastern, adapted with a modern twist for all the busy cooks and moms out there! Most of our recipes abide by the Mediterranean diet, but please consult a doctor for your dietary needs.

– Shirazi salad, which is the famous Persian cucumber, tomato salad is so easy to make at home. Probably the easiest salad you will ever make, but you’ll be making it on repeat because it delivers on the wow factor every single time and it goes with almost anything. Let’s make it. You can’t go wrong with a beautiful chopped salad, and this one is one of my favorites because you get to chop up everything super small, which just gives you so much flavor. The texture is beautiful. Let me show you because it makes a difference. The usual suspects, tomato, cucumber, and red onions. Sometimes I add more to it, so we’ll see how we’re feeling today. I’m using an English cucumber and I’m just gonna go ahead and scrape some of the seeds out. But when you’re using English cucumbers, you really don’t need to do this ’cause it’s not as watery and you don’t really need to peel the cuc if you’re gonna use. The regular waxy cucumbers, you do have to peel ’em and you do have to scrape the seeds because you don’t want a watery mess on your hands. Ideally, for this salad, if you can get your hands on it, Persian cucumber would be the best option, but I happen to have English cucumber today, so that’s what we’ll use. And what I wanna do is cut some strips as thin as possible here, and that will give me small pieces once I begin chopping it. Everyone has been making chopped salad these days, but this is the OG chopped salad, shirazi salad. And then you’re just gonna kind of group these together, point your knife and chop like a pro. It almost becomes a sport how tiny the pieces are. I am not as picky, but you can even get smaller than this if you want. Beautiful, refreshing salad, and it goes with almost anything. And you can see why you should remove the seeds because you’re chopping it real small. You don’t want a watery, soggy mess on your hands, so not a bad idea. I think I’m satisfied with the size, so let’s go for it. Going in my bowl with the cucs. Now, for the tomatoes, I’m using Roma tomatoes today. You want to use ripe, but still somewhat firm tomatoes. They should have a little bit of a give, but you don’t want ’em to be like too, too soft. Then you can’t really cut them in this manner. So we’re gonna go and cut into quarters. And then, again, not a bad idea to remove the seed. When I know that we’re eating this right away, I don’t bother. Again, I’m just all about quick and easy, but it does make a difference to remove the seeds, so we’re gonna go ahead and do that and kinda save them for another use. You can blend them up with your smoothie or juice or use them in your tomato sauce. There’s so many ways to use these beautiful or just snack on ’em, delicious. And now, we’re just gonna, again, cut our tomatoes into strips ’cause that’s how you arrive at that tiny chop. Let me show you one more. Think of the salad as a cousin to my Mediterranean tomato, cucumber salad. I love that. Cultures have been making these cucumber, tomato salads for generations. And so we’ve borrowed from one another and it’s just a lovely, lovely thing. There’s just so much in common with Persian food and Mediterranean food and I love celebrating that. So now, we have some onions that have been chopped super finely as much or as little as you want. I think this is enough. Sometimes I add bell peppers when I have them; sometimes I don’t. I have one today, so I’m gonna go in with a little bit of it, but it is not traditionally part of shirazi salad. So just FYI, don’t get mad. It’s just a riff, and I like the extra crunch. Thank you for coming. And again, the idea is chopping them super small, as small as you can get. The fun thing about a simple recipe like this is you can add or subtract and it’s just my own riff, my preference. This is probably enough. I don’t want it to overwhelm the main ingredients of the salad. Going in to join the party. For a true Persian shirazi salad, as my Persian friends have taught me, mint is an absolute must. A lot of people will use dried mint. I happen to have some fresh mint, so that’s what we’ll use today, but a teaspoon of dried mint will be fine as well. So we’re just gonna go ahead and grab about a half a cup of fresh mint leaves, and again, chop them real nice. Bun chop your herbs like so. Point your knife, chop like a pro, going in. Totally optional, a little bit of parsley. Now, for this salad, I don’t use as much parsley. It’s not the main ingredient. Mint should really be the herb that shines here. So I am careful not to overwhelm the mint. And again, the parsley here is a riff. It’s an option, not a big deal. So if you don’t have it, you don’t need to use it. About a couple tablespoons or so. Okay, going right in. To season, we’re not even making a dressing here. We’re going for little bit of extra virgin olive oil and lime juice right in this bowl with all these beautiful veggies, but we’re gonna first season with a nice, big pinch of kosher salt. If you ever wonder why chefs are pinching from up high, it’s because we wanna get everything well-seasoned and evenly as opposed to going this way, which is not the way you wanna season your food. So pepper and then sumac. Sumac is used in Persian cooking as it is in Mediterranean Middle Eastern cooking quite a bit, and it is just a gorgeous, if I can show you here for just a second. It comes from Middle Eastern sumac berries and it is so delicious because it’s tangy and also somewhat fruity in taste. So add as much as you like of sumac. And I would say, it’s essential to this recipe. Other people will tell you it’s optional. Do yourself a favor and try it. It makes a difference. Lime juice, which is a little bit fruitier than lemon juice, is what we use here. So if your lime is dry, take a spoon, go in here, and just squeeze. This one is actually juicy, so that’s good. Juice of two limes, so it’s nice and zesty and refreshing, all the things. From here, all that is left for you to do is a nice, generous drizzle of some good extra virgin olive oil. Shameless plug, the best olive oils are on themediterraneandish.com, and this is one of our Greek olive oils, beautiful liquid gold. Don’t skimp on the good stuff. And we’re gonna go ahead and give this a gentle toss. And we’re in business, bold, bright, fresh, absolutely delicious. Goes with almost everything from chicken kabobs and fish to lamb. How easy was that, you guys? Let’s give it a taste. Let’s see where we’re at, huh? The crunch, this is the salad of the season. You have got to give it a try ASAP. The recipe, as always, is on themediterraneandish.com. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button to follow for more delicious Mediterranean recipes. And I will see you later, chow. (upbeat music)