Authentic Taboule Lebanese Salad

Taboule is an authentic Lebanese salad that is fresh, light and easy. Made with finely chopped fresh parsley tossed in a refreshing lemon dressing.

What is Taboule?

Taboule is a famous Lebanese salad and is considered one of the country's national salads. This parsley salad features fresh herbs as the main ingredient, giving it its distinctive vibrant green color.

It is mostly referred to as tabouli, tabooli, or tabbouleh and is pronounced as tah·boo·li in Arabic.

This recipe is authentic, passed down through the generations of my Lebanese family just like fattoush.

Ingredients Highlight

The best type of parsley and most commonly used is fresh flat-leafed parsley aka Italian parsley, avoid using any other kind. The parsley will need to be uniformly finely chopped after washing, drying and cutting away the thicker stems, which are too woody and stringy, you can reserve them for making stock if you wish.

There are different sized bulgur, for this Lebanese salad fine cracked bulgur is used as it hydrates quickly, is easy to eat in a raw salad and looks lovely speckled against the contrasting green color as fine bulgur is white. You can buy fine bulgur here. It is very different from larger-sized grains of bulgur which you can see in this tomato burgul pilav.

Tomatoes (not cherry tomatoes) should be ripe but firm, this plays an important part considering the tomatoes and (white or brown) onions are the only other fresh ingredients. Both of these will need to be finely diced as uniformly as possible, this is something my aunty instilled in me, she made sure that taboule always looked spot on.

Variation For Making It Gluten Free

As bulgur is a wheat product, it contains gluten. To make this a gluten free tabouli, you can either leave out the bulgur or make it a vegan quinoa tabbouleh.

What To Eat With Taboule?

Taboule makes a fabulous side to so many meals, it's always offered with mezze. You could try it with some of my favorite meals;

A plate of kibbe potato which is a cold mixture of boiled potatoes and bulgur with a thyme flavoring.

Mjadara is almost always served with tabouli, it's kind of mandatory in my family.

Start with this salad first, then enjoy a filling bowl of lentil and pasta rishta soup. I love this combination!

Or try it on a plate with the best falafels from Lebanon drizzled with tahini shawarma sauce, a dollop of baba ghanouj, and a side of fries. Ouft, you'll be in heaven!

More Salads From Lebanon

You can read about the differences between these two salads here in fattoush vs taboule.

A common salad is salatah Arab it's a default pairing for most meals.

Otherwise, try this sumac tomato salad or this underrated salad with tahini both are simple sides.

Explore many more refreshing recipes in this list of salads of Lebanon.