Salads are a great thing to add to your diet. They allow you to encompass your much needed vegetables but in a tasty manner. I love eating salads, but one of the biggest problems with salads, especially raw salads with no fruits or meats added, is that they don’t taste that great. Salad dressings are a way to make your salads great tasting…but those pre-made salad dressings that you get from your grocery store shelf aren’t that healthy for you, regardless of how great they taste. Adding those dressings, with all its chemicals, pretty much defeats the purpose of eating the salad in the first place. Even those vinaigrette dressings aren’t that great…and the ones that claim to be made with olive oil, are usually made with only a small portion of olive oil, the rest is canola/sunflower oil and sugar. For those of you who buy “balsamic vinegar”, the vinegar that you’re buying probably isn’t balsamic. If it costs between $3-$5, it’s not really balsamic, no matter how fancy the packaging is. Real balsamic vinegar costs anywhere between $50-$60 dollars for a small bottle.
So here is a great tasting and healthy salad dressing recipe that you can use for anything! You can even use it as a marinade for meats if you wanted. The thing I love about this recipe is that it’s SO EASY TO MAKE, even an untrained monkey can do it. These recipe is for a healthy Lebanese salad called Fattoush, which is made of: Fresh Romaine Lettuce, Tomatoes, Persian cucumbers, green peppers, onions, Italian parsley, red radishes (I don’t like it so I don’t use it), and pita chips (Pita chips are made from ripping pita bread into small pieces and deep frying them or baking them. Pita chips aren’t paleo. I never use them).
I fell in love with Fattoush in year 1, when my friend Mohammad (mentioned in my earlier posts), took me and another friend out to eat at a Lebanese Restaurant. This was my first time eating Lebanese food. I’d eaten Arabic food many times before when I traveled to Dubai, but I usually found the food to be bland…so needless to say, I wasn’t excited. We ordered kebabs, rice, and Fattoush. The waiter asked me if I wanted more rice or more salad. I asked for more rice, because I thought the rice would taste better. My other friend at the time, Narjis, asked for more Fattoush. When the food came, I got a massive plate of rice, 4 kebab sticks (chicken and beef), and small Fattoush. The rice, much to my disappointment, was tasteless! These people had managed to butcher my favorite rice (Basmati, which is virtually impossible to screw up), but the Fattoush was delicious! After then, whenever I went to that restaurant, I ordered just Fattoush and Kebabs.
The salad is very fresh, and as I’ve said, delicious. I got the original recipe from Tasty Kitchen .com but after going to several Lebanese restaurants and asking them what they put in their dressing, I was able to get some more ingredients and tweak the recipe. After making the dressing, store it in the fridge always. Shake the dressing before using it always. If you want to use the dressing right away after making it, don’t. I recommend letting the dressing sit in the fridge for at least 2 hours before using it, that way the flavors can meld together. I like to eat my salad with home made grilled chicken shish tawook or with just regular home made grilled, baked, or oven roasted chicken. I’ve included recipes for both the dressing and the salad. There are photos at the very bottom are just of the dressing making process. I usually make my dressing in bulk (since I eat Fattoush almost every day), and store it in a clean jar in the fridge.
FATTOUSH DRESSING RECIPE
- ¼ cups Vegetable Oil (I usually use grapeseed oil)
- ¼ cups extra virgin Olive Oil (use quality olive oil)
- ¼ cups Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice
- 2 teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar (can Substitute White Vinegar)
- 2 teaspoons Dried Mint
- 2 cloves Garlic, Minced
- 1-½ teaspoon Sugar (optional. I always eliminate the sugar)
- ¾ teaspoons Salt
- ¼ teaspoons Fresh Ground Black Pepper
- 1-½ teaspoon Sumac (Sumac is a middle eastern spice that is sour tasting. You can get it from Arabic/Middle Eastern Stores or in the spice section at Bulk Barn. You need the sumac! It’s critical to this recipe)
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon pomegranate molasses (optional. I’ve never used it)
PREPARATION OF DRESSING
- Place all of the dressing ingredients in a blender and mix well.
- Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow all of the flavors to blend together.
- Shake before serving
FATTOUSH SALAD INGREDIENTS (try to use organic if possible. you can add or eliminate ingredients based on your preference)
- 1 head Romaine Lettuce washed and peeled
- 2 medium tomato
- 1 large red pepper
- 1 medium green pepper
- 1 large Persian cucumbers or hothouse English cucumbers (or just regular cucumbers)
- ¼ cups Loosely Packed Fresh Italian Parsley
- ½ cup of Purslane Leaves (optional)
- ½ cup fresh mint leaves
- 4 scallions (green onions) thinly sliced
- 5 Lebanese pita bread ripped into small pieces and toasted in the oven until brown (optional, not paleo)
FATTOUSH SALAD PREPARATION
- Rinse all the vegetables in cool water, making sure they isn’t any dirt
- Pat vegetables dry with a paper towel or clean dish cloth
- Chop the romaine lettuce into smaller pieces
- Chop the tomatoes (I always like to remove the seeds and the jiggly parts inside the tomatoes, but this is optional)
- Chop peppers into small pieces
- Chop cucumbers into quarters. I do this by slicing the cucumber down the center vertically, and then horizontally (so you get 4 pieces), then chopping these pieces
- Chop the rest of the vegetables into small pieces (except the onions which you slice into tiny pieces)
- Break the toasted pita chips into smaller pieces
- Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss salad.