Feta & Beetroot Tabbouleh - The Perfect Summer Side

With summer here (mostly in spirit, not in weather at the moment), we tend to look to lighter, fresher meals rather than warming & comforting meals. This very healthy, light and filling salad is one such example of how I'm lightening up my meals. Forget mash potato and roast root veggies!! This gem of a salad has it all. The Bulgar wheat is low in GI, the feta cheese gives a salty cheesy hit, and the beetroot adds nutrition and a wonderful colour. Finally the typical salad ingredients that make up a tradition tabbouleh of cucmuber, onion, tomatoes and herbs (flat leaf parsley & mint) add a fantastic freshness. 

This salad can be the main dish of a meal, serve with some flat breads and natural yogurt, or it can be a great side dish for a tagine, roast chicken/lamb, BBQ, or as I did here, Moroccan Meatballs.

Ingredients

• 100g Bulgar wheat
• 400g of chicken/vegetables stock
• Salt & Pepper
• Half a cucumber
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 2 spring onions
• 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 tbsp of fresh mint
• 1 tbsp of fresh flat leaf parsley
• 1 cooked beetroot
• 50g of feta cheese

Method

1. Put the Bulgar wheat in a saucepan and add the stock. Cook on a medium heat for 15 minutes, or until all the stock has been absorbed. 
2. Remove from the heat and allow to stand for 10 minutes, before fluffing it up with a fork.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the salads. Half the cucumber length ways and scoop out the seeds. Then dice the cucumber. Quarter the tomatoes. Slice the spring onions very thinly. Cube the feta, and dice the beetroot.
4. Add all the salad ingredients to the Bulgar wheat along with the lemon juice and chopped fresh herbs. Season well with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. 
5. In my experience this tastes better when made ahead as the the flavours really develop.