Shirazi Salad

Have you ever just wanted to try a completely different recipe? I’m talking about stepping away from the normal routine of making your traditional American meals and testing out a foreign dish? Well, that is exactly what I did here with this recipe. 

Shirazi salad is an Iranian dish, and one of the reasons why I like it so much is because not only does it offer a lot of unique flavors, but the colors are so vibrant it will have your mouth watering before you even taste it! 

This salad consists of finely diced veggies with hints of lemon or lime juice and mint and other fresh herbs. It is perfect to enjoy year-around but I do want to say that this would make for the best side dish to take to a backyard barbecue. Pair it with some grilled meats and corn on the cob and you have yourself a very full stomach! However, this salad can go well with multiple dishes! I know of some people who like to pair this with rice and soups. 

Shirazi salad is also very quick and easy to put together. It can be made in a pinch! If you are looking to change up your side dishes for your family dinners this is a great dish of choice. If you do not typically eat Middle Eastern dishes your family will be introduced to a new type of cuisine which keeps making and enjoying family meals so much fun. 

This recipe calls for three Persian cucumbers. I like the taste of these types of cucumbers because it is sweet and adds a tasty flavor to my salads. These cucumbers are also very easy and smooth to cut, chop and dice, but feel free to use English cucumbers in place of Persian.

I also used two Roma tomatoes, cut them up into small pieces, added the diced red onion and a small amount of green pepper. For the green pepper, all I did was cut off the top of the bell pepper and used that to chop up small pieces to throw into my salad. I saved the rest of the pepper for other recipes. You can really enjoy this dish with or without the bell pepper, but I just enjoy the taste of it mixed in with my fresh herbs and special dressing. 

The dressing is very simple to make as well. All you need is fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice, you can use the store-bought kind if that is what you have on hand), olive oil, salt and pepper, and that’s it! See? I told you it was very easy! I made my dressing first in a large bowl, then tossed in my veggies and fresh herbs as I went along. I mixed everything together and that was it. I prefer making my dressing first instead drizzling it on top of the salad because I think the veggies coat a lot better when you just toss them in the bowl with the dressing already in there. 

However, no matter what order you choose to make this Shirazi salad, if you include the right ingredients, I can guarantee it will taste fresh and delicious! I hope you get the chance to try out this dish and if it is something new for you, I hope this will encourage you to try out more dishes from other countries. Happy eating!