Tabouleh Salad with Chickpeas

August 29, 2011

Tabouleh is a summer staple for us, and I meant to post this sooner!  I hope it’s not too late for all of you to try this out as it’s great for hot weather.  Our recipe is a combination of three others.  The Bob’s Redmill bulgar wheat package has a recipe on the back that we started with, then we got the idea to add radishes from the recipe in The Kind Diet, and finally, we added chickpeas after having them in Pete’s mom’s tabouleh.  All together, we think this is perfect.

The recipe goes like this:

2 cups dry bulgar wheat / 2 cups water
1 bunch of parsley (roughly 2 loosely packed cups)
1 bunch of mint leaves (roughly 1 loosely packed cup)
1 bunch of radishes, chopped
1 bunch of green onions, minced
1 large cucumber, sliced and chopped
1 can of chickpeas (15oz.)
1 teaspoon cumin
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

To prepare the bulgar wheat, follow any directions on the package/bulk bin, or simply soak 2 cups of dry bulgar wheat with 2 cups of water in the refridgerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  (The soaking has always been enough for the kind we buy, but some bulgar is cut into bigger pieces and requires some cooking.)  Place in a large salad/serving bowl.

A food processor helps with the speed of this recipe tremendously.  First put the tops of the parsley branches (just the curly part plus a little bit of stem)  and the mint leaves into the food processor and pulse a few times until it’s all chopped up pretty small.  Or, simply chop up the parsley and mint into tiny pieces with a chef’s knife.  Combine this with the prepared bulgar wheat.  Then add the chopped radishes and cucumbers (we quarter the cucumber and halve the radishes and use the slicer on the food processor to cut these up) and mix together.  Next add the chickpeas (rinsed), cumin, lemon juice and olive oil and mix thoroughly.  Serve immediately or chill for an hour or so while the flavors mix.  Add salt and pepper to taste!  We love to serve this with a dollop of hummus on top too.  Look for a hummus recipe in a future post.

Note: This recipe is also great with tomatoes.  We often use tomatoes in place of the radishes, though I suppose you could include both!

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