Shirazi Salad

What’s A Shirazi Salad?

A Shirazi Salad is a Persian salad made with cucumber, tomatoes, and red onion finely diced into small pieces and served with an olive oil sour grape juice dressing.

The salad comes from the city of Shiraz, where the Syrah grapes come from.

It’s similar to the popular Mexican side dish Pico de Gallo but with Mediterranean flavors.

How To Make A Shirazi Salad

A Shirazi salad is a simple recipe that doesn’t require much preparation or kitchen skills.

Ingredients

All you need to make this salad are:

• English Cucumber – These are regular cucumbers found in most supermarkets. You can also use small Persians cucumbers. These cucumbers have fewer seeds in the center.
• Roma Tomatoes – Or any of your favorite tomatoes rich in flavors.
• Red Onions
• Fresh Parsley
• Fresh Mint Leaves
• Fresh Cilantro
• Dried Mint or dried oregano
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Pick olive oil of the highest quality for better taste.
• Lemon Juice or lime juice. But if you can find a classic unripe sour grape juice called Ab Ghooreh in Persian, the salad will taste even better.
• Sumac or Za’atar – both are optional but add a delicious middle-Eastern flavor to the dressing.
• Salt

Dicing Tomatoes And Draining

Lay the tomatoes upside down with their stem on the chopping board. Hold on one side and cut horizontal slices of identical thickness using a sharp knife.

Lay each piece flat on the board and cut a series of vertical slices with the same spacing.

Repeat in the opposite direction, perpendicular to the slices you just cut to dice the tomato.

Place the diced tomatoes in a colander over the sieve to discard the excess juice.

Dicing Cucumber

Half peel or fully peel the cucumbers. It’s up to you. Some people don’t digest the skin of cucumbers well.

Cut off both cucumber ends and discard them.

Next, if you are using regular cucumbers, cut them in half vertically, so you end up with two small cucumbers.

Then, cut each cucumber piece horizontally into thin slices.

Finally, place each slice on the cutting board, cut into long stripes and then cut stripes vertically to make dice.

Dicing Red Onion

Cut the red onion into thin horizontal slices.

Then cut slice into small cubes.

Chopping Herbs

Discard stem of each herbs, keep only the leaves and chop has fine as possible.

Assemble the salad

In a large bowl, combine all the diced vegetable cucumber, tomatoes, and onions. Stir to combine evenly. Sprinkle some fresh chopped herbs on top, olive oil, and lime juice.

Serving

This is a great salad to serve as a side dish to grilled meat, fried eggs, crusty bread, and more.

Below are some great recipes to serve with this salad.

• Lemon Pepper Chicken
• Cast-Iron Chicken Breast
• Roasted Cauliflower
• Greek Chicken using my Greek Chicken Marinade
• Baked Pork Chops

You can also serve this salad as an appetizer or dip, along with some crackers and chips like:

• Pita Chips
• Almond Crackers
• Flaxseed Crackers
• Crusty Bread Slices
• Low-Carb Pita Bread

Storage Instructions

This salad is better fresh but can be stored well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days in a sealed container.

It’s a great healthy lunch to meal prep and add to a lunchbox or as a side to a high-protein meal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are my answers to your most frequent questions about this recipe.

Do I Need To Deseed The Cucumber Or Tomatoes?

No, you don’t have to deseed the vegetables.

You can, if you want, remove some of the juice from the vegetables.

However, a Shirazi salad is usually made with raw chopped vegetables with their seeds, and cucumber is not sweated with salt.

Can I Add Other Vegetables To The Salad?

Yes, some versions of this salad include thinly chopped bell pepper like orange, yellow, or red bell pepper.

Other ideas are kalamata olives or diced avocado, but this won’t be authentic to the salad.

Can I Use Cherry Tomatoes?

Sure, you can swap Roma Tomatoes for cherry tomatoes but they are much more difficult to cut into small dice.

You will need 2 cups of cherry tomatoes to replace the Roma tomatoes in the recipe.