Colors make me smile. Fattoush Salad makes me smile.

Today we’re visiting the Middle East, and more precisely Lebanon, food wise and I’m serving you all one of the most simple but yet so delicious and beautiful salads of them all - fattoush! Fattoush is basically a fried bread salad consisting of colorful vegetables, loads of wonderful herbs, lemon juice and olive oil. It’s really simple to make and the fried bread pieces on the side just takes this whole salad experience to a whole new level.

There are loads of different versions of fattoush available but since my hubby’s mom is Palestinian and I ate this fattoush salad the first time in her kitchen, I today want to share the recipe of hers to you all!

Did I really say fried bread?

Yes, I did! It’s like eating chips but made of bread. You can only imagine how tasteful this is and it really takes the salad to a whole new level. Lebanese farmers used to fry their pita bread into olive oil to add some more flavor to it, and thereafter serve it with a salad with whatever ingredients they had. This obviously became a success because fattoush has today become, probably, Lebanon most known salad.

I don’t fry my bread in the frying pan though. It is a matter of taste, but to keep the recipe a bit more healthy I prefer to make the bread crispy and “fried” in the oven instead. You don’t need as much oil when using the oven, and I’m going to teach you how to do it this way further down in the recipe.

What adjustments can I make?

Like I said previously, there are lots of different versions of fattoush available but it’s important to still keep the base elements and ingredients in the dish to still keep it authentic. I have in general a rather basic fattoush but I don’t have the radishes nor sumak (a spice) in my salad. That is simply because I didn’t have radishes at home when making the salad and because my hubby’s mom said that sumak isn’t delicious; that it’s better without it. I totally trust her opinion so I made it without it. If you DO want to add radishes or sumak though, go ahead! The recipe further down just gives you a basic fattoush recipe which you thereafter can add “more” to if you want too.

THIS RECIPE IS:

• Vegan

• Original Lebanese

• Simple to make

• Colorful

• Full of flavor

• Juicy and crunchy

• Nut Free

Lebanese Fattoush Salad

INGREDIENTS:

2 loaves pita bread

2 ripped tomatoes

3 “leaves” of Romaine Lettuce or lettuce

0.5 yellow bell pepper

0.5 green bell pepper

0.5 red bell pepper

approx 0.3 big cucumber

1/2 green or red onion

a handful of fresh parsley

a half handful of fresh mint leaves

the juice from 1 lemon

Olive oil

Salt

HOW TO MAKE:

• Heat the oven to 225 degrees C (435 F) and line a baking sheet.

• Cut the pita bread to 3-4 cm slices or pieces and place them on the baking sheet. Ripple over a little bit of olive oil and place the sheet in the oven for approx 7’ until golden.

• Meanwhile, prepare the salad: chop the tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumber and onion into small pieces. We do this so that the salad will become as juicy as possible. Finely chop the parsley and spearmint and add that to the salad.

• Ripple over some olive oil (approx 2 tbsp) and the lemon juice and salt.

• Combine everything together and serve.