Most Iranians prefer to eat alongside their family members. Usually, families get together during meal times and wait for everyone to join in. Most Iranians spread a special piece of tablecloth called “sofreh” on the floor and sit around it to eat their meal together. Iranians have the habit of decorating their sofreh with a variety of salads, drinks, and appetizers like buttermilk, yogurt, raw onions, fresh vegetables, and salads. One of the most popular Iranian salads that goes well with most Iranian dishes and adds to the pleasure of eating is Shirazi salad.

As the name suggests, this famous Iranian salad originated in Shiraz. Shirazi salad can be eaten as an appetizer. It may seem that because of containing cucumber and the use of sour flavorings, this salad should be more popular in the summer but Iranians eat it all year round!

Ingredients

The required ingredients for making Shirazi salad for four people:

Cucumber: three

Tomato: two

Onion: one

Dried Mint, salt, black pepper, and verjuice or lemon juice: according to taste

The cucumber can be used both before and after being peeled. Some people also add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to it.

Recipe

1. Chop the cucumber, tomato, and onion and put them in a large bowl. Almost the whole process of making Shirazi salad is summarized in this step, so make sure to chop all the ingredients as small as you can. Of course, it is not recommended to grate the ingredients because it results in the loss of the special taste of each ingredient.

Some people also add spring onion and capsicum to the three main ingredients of Shirazi salad (i.e. cucumber, tomato, and onion).

2. In the next step, add some dry mint and parsley to the mixture and stir it. If you are adding fresh parsley leaves to the mixture, chop them before adding them, if you are adding dried leaves, crush them well. Sometimes, pennyroyal is used instead of mint.

3. After mixing the main ingredients well, add salt, black pepper, and verjuice or lemon juice and mix it well.

4. Olive oil can be added to the salad at this point.

How to Serve Shirazi Salad

It is better to leave the Shirazi salad in the refrigerator an hour before serving it so that the ingredients and the items used for adding flavor can taste better.

To serve Shirazi salad, put it in several small bowls. Fresh mint leaves can be used for decorating the salad.

Shirazi salad is popular among Iranians not only for its delicious taste but also because of being colorful and making the sofreh look pleasant.

Iranians have the habit of decorating their sofreh with a variety of salads, drinks, and appetizers like buttermilk, yogurt, raw onions, fresh vegetables, and salads.