Turkish Cucumber-Tomato-Olive Chopped Salad with Sumac ♥

Turkish Cucumber-Tomato-Olive Chopped Salad with Sumac, another healthy summer salad ♥ AVeggieVenture.com. Vegan. Low Carb. WW Friendly. Totally Addictive.
graphic button small size size 10 Today's gorgeous summer salad: A colorful crunchy mix of fresh-fresh summer vegetables in a lemony dressing spiced with the delightful sourness of sumac plus cumin, smoked paprika and oregano. It makes a great supper salad or better yet, a salad for a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern meze platter. Weight Watchers Friendly, just 1 Freestyle point. Low Cal. Low Carb. Gluten Free. Paleo. Primal. Vegetarian. Not just vegan, "Vegan Done Real". And naturally, completely delicious. graphic button small size size 10

So yeah, call me summer's broken record. Every year about this time I am surprised to experience the same thing: just how easy and fun it is to cook when tonight's tomatoes were picked from the garden this morning, when we've been waiting/watching patiently for just the right moment to pluck an expanding green pepper from the vine, not too big, not too small.

Not that there's any cooking to throw together this little gem of a salad, just some quality time with a knife and cutting board, is all.

This Turkish Chopped Salad was a very-last-minute addition to a family swim party, good thing we all played hard in the pool because man-alive, did we ever eat! Green Chile Burgers topped with jack cheese and the oh-so-gorgeous Green Chile Sauce (Salsa Verde) I'd made the night before. Ratatouille filled with vegetables from the garden. We were so full, so satisfied that instead of making the peach cobbler I'd intended, I plopped the kids at the kitchen table with a jug of milk and Banana Oatmeal Cookies. My kinda party.

Now this crew rarely raves. But the Green Chile Sauce and this Turkish Chopped Salad, they got compliments. And more compliments. And more compliments.

I'll take a little credit but mostly, the garden earned all the accolades. The peppers this year are oh-so-good and I really do recommend skin-thinned garden peppers here (and the green ones, to boot) versus their thicker-skinned grocery store Dutch bell pepper counterparts.

RECIPE for TURKISH CUCUMEBER-TOMATO-OLIVE CHOPPED SALAD with SUMAC

Hands-on time: 20 minutes
Time to table: 20 minutes
Makes about 5 cups

CHOPPED SALAD
Collect about 5 cups chopped vegetables, total
Cucumber
Green pepper
Super-ripe summer tomatoes
Onion or red onion
Good olives (don't skip)
Fresh parsley & mint

DRESSING
1 clove garlic
Zest & juice 2 lemons (about 4 tablespoons lemon juice)
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon sumac (don't skip)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

CHOPPED SALAD Chop all the vegetables into equal-size pieces, some times I'll do big pieces, here I wanted the salad to go a long way so I chopped everything into small pieces. Even the olives!

DRESSING In a mini food processor, chop the garlic into tiny bits. Add the remaining ingredients, taste and adjust the seasoning.

COMBINE Just before serving, toss the dressing into the vegetables and fresh herbs. Serve immediately.

MAKE-AHEAD TIPS This is an easy salad to make ahead of time. Just keep three separate containers until it's time to serve, the chopped vegetables, the parsley/mint and the Dressing.

LEFTOVERS Turkish Chopped Salad is best within an hour or so of mixing but stays quite fresh for a couple of days without turning soggy.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
graphic button small size size 10 FRESHNESS This salad is all about freshness, use the very freshest vegetables you can put your hands on.
graphic button small size size 10 CUCUMBERS If you're using thin-skinned English or Persian cucumbers, there's no need to skin the cucumbers; with garden cucumbers with tougher skin, consider either "striping" or peeling the skins off and scooping out any large seeds.
graphic button small size size 10 RED ONION I've used finely chopped red onion, also red onion shaved thin-thin-thin in short lengths. For extra convenience? The most-wonderful Spiced Pickled Red Onions are like "pre-chopped" red onion, any time you need just a bit.
graphic button small size size 10 TOMATOES Tomato lovers will want to err on the side of the tomatoes here, especially early in tomato season. I think this salad would be especially pretty made with the tiny little tomatoes that grow by the bushel in the garden.
graphic button small size size 10 WHAT IS SUMAC? I wrote about sumac here, Fattoush (Traditional Middle Eastern Salad). Sorry, I don't have a substitute to recommend, it adds an addictive sourness to the dressing that's difficult to replicate without sumac itself. I know it's tempting to skip an ingredient rather go out of your way to buy something for just one recipe. I find sumac easy to use, here's a few recipes that call for sumac.



A Veggie Venture - Printer Friendly Recipe Graphic



Still Hungry?



MORE FAVORITE CHOPPED SALAD RECIPES

~ Babe's Naked Fruit & Veggie Salad ~
~ Raw Beet, Carrot & Kohlrabi Salad ~
~ Spring & Summer Sliced Salad ~
~ more Chopped Salad recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Quick 'n' Easy Raw Salad ~
~ Power Food Broccoli Salad ~
~ Bloody Mary Salad ~
~ more salad recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade, my food column

COOKING IN SEASON: THIS SAME WEEK ACROSS THE YEARS

Tomato & Zucchini Salad (< so many favorites this week, there's no picking just one!) Quick Broccoli Soup with Chive Oil For Instance Technique V (raw veggies with Italian dressing) Broccoli, Pepper & Celery Salad Corn Cayenne Tomato Ginger Jam (< another favorite!) Quick Microwave Sweet Corn Summer Tomatoes for Winter Greek Greens (Flash Cook to Eat Later) (< and another!) Mom’s Potato Salad (< and another!) “Lost Recipes” Classic Coleslaw with Boiled Dressing Dear Anonymous: THIS Is Why We Blog Ripe-Tomato Relish with Peaches & Pears (Sharon's Pickle) (< and still another!) Watermelon, Cucumber & Feta Salad Melon, Blueberry & Feta Salad with Honey Lime Vinaigrette Caponata - Sicilian Eggplant (< and yet another!) Raw Corn Chowder (< and one more!) Julia Child's Cucumber Salad Israeli Couscous Salad with Yellow Squash & Sun-Dried Tomatoes Summer's Best Corn Chowder (< no missing this one!) Garden Eggs "Benedict" Spiral Zucchini Noodle Salad with Homemade Catalina Dressing Warm Caprese Bites

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the
famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

© Copyright Kitchen Parade 2018


Alanna Kellogg
Alanna Kellogg

A Veggie Venture is home of "veggie evangelist" Alanna Kellogg and the famous asparagus-to-zucchini Alphabet of Vegetables.

Comments