Farmers Salad Recipe for the Middle Eastern Salata Falahiyeh – Beragampengetahuan

Our farmers salad recipe for salata falahiyeh makes a refreshing salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, shallots, and fresh herbs with a simple dressing of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Eaten throughout the Middle East, with provenance in Palestine, it’s also called a Palestinian salad, Arabic salad, village salad, or chopped salad, salata na’ameh. It’s fantastic with kofta, kebabs, grilled meats, fish, and roast chicken.

One of my favourite Middle Eastern recipes, this farmers salad recipe couldn’t be easier. It makes one of those delicious home-style salads almost every cuisine has. It’s the Middle East equivalent of my Russian family’s garden salad. It won’t win awards, nor wow guests, but they’ll certainly enjoy it. It’s a wonderful salad when made with super-fresh quality produce.

This farmers salad recipe for salata falahiyeh – also called a village salad, Palestinian salad, Arabic salad, and chopped salad or salata na’ameh – makes a fantastic side served with Middle Eastern mezze such as hummus, baba ganoush and muhammara, salads like fatoush and tabbouleh, meatier mains such as kebabs, meatballs and shish tawook, and this Middle Eastern spice rice dish.

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Farmers Salad Recipe for Salata Falahiyeh or a Middle Eastern Village Salad

We ate Arabic food a few times a week during the eight years we lived in the UAE. When we left Dubai to bounce around the Middle East and Europe, working on guidebooks and stories for another four years, we ate Arabic food every day when we were in one of the Gulf countries or in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan.

Yet while we’d see tabbouleh and fatoush salads on every single menu at Arabic restaurants, Lebanese restaurants and Syrian restaurants throughout the Middle East, we’d rarely see a farmers salad on restaurant menus. Why? Because it’s a simple salad served in the home, which isn’t considered interesting enough for restaurants.

Of course, fattoush is very similar to a farmers salad. It has the addition of pomegranate seeds or pomegranate molasses and crispy pita chips, which make it more special. Although I regularly make pita crisps now, I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing so when I worked long hours in Dubai and we could easily get Arabic takeaway.

Yet this farmers salad recipe is just that little bit easier that makes it a cinch to cook at home. This Middle Eastern village salad or Arabic salad can be made in as little as 15 minutes if you take the time to evenly dice the vegetables evenly – which for many is what makes it so delicious.

Chop the vegetables more roughly and you can make this farmers salad in as little as five minutes, although it won’t taste the same. Let me share a few tips to making this Middle Eastern farmers salad recipe.

Tips to Making this Farmers Salad Recipe for Salata Falahiyeh

Salad recipes don’t come much easier than this Middle Eastern farmers salad recipe, which will make you a super easy garden salad or village salad, which you’ll be able to make by heart after you’ve prepared this salad once or twice.

The first thing I recommend you do is to make the dressing in a small bowl or jar by stirring the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper together. Taste the dressing and adjust the ingredients if needed to suit your palate.

Next, wash, dry and dice the cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, and bell peppers (capsicums) into 1-1.5cm sized pieces, then toss them all into a salad bowl. Add the chopped fresh herbs and combine everything well with a spoon, but don’t add the dressing yet. If you’re not serving the salad immediately, refrigerate it.

Just before you’re ready to eat and serve your salad, add the dressing to the salad bowl, stir everything to well incorporate the ingredients, then taste and adjust the dressing and seasoning to suit your palate. Enjoy!

Farmers Salad Recipe for Salata Falahiyeh

Middle Eastern Farmers Salad Recipe for Salata Falahiyeh or a Village Salad

AuthorLara Dunston

This farmers salad recipe for salata falahiyeh makes a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, shallots, and fresh herbs with a dressing of extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Eaten throughout the Middle East, with provenance in Palestine, it’s also called a Palestinian salad, Arabic salad, village salad, or chopped salad, salata na’ameh. It’s fantastic with kofta, kebabs, grilled meats, fish, and roast chicken.

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 0 minutes mins

Total Time 15 minutes mins

Course Salad

Cuisine Middle Eastern, Arabic, Palestinian

Servings made with recipeServings 4

Calories 139 kcal

• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground cracked black pepper
• 4 large tomatoes – vine-ripened
• 2 long Persian cucumbers
• ½ large purple onion
• 1 large red capsicum – bell peppers – or 3-4 small capsicums
• 2 tbsp mint – fresh, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp Continental parsley – fresh, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp dill – fresh, roughly chopped

• Make the dressing in a small jar or bowl by stirring the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper together, taste, and adjust to suit your palate.

• Wash, dry and dice the tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and capsicums into 1-1.5cm pieces, toss them into a salad bowl.

• Add the chopped fresh herbs and combine everything well with a spoon.

• Just before serving, add the dressing to the salad, stir to combine well, try it and adjust to suit your taste.

Use hand-picked vine-ripened tomatoes like Truss tomatoes, which are very red, sweet and smell like just-picked tomatoes.
Try to get long Persian cucumbers, which have thin skins you can leave on and lots of delicious little seeds in the centre; they’re the tastiest cucumbers.
The purple onions I use are like red Tropea onions and sweet; if you can’t find them use 3-4 small purple shallots
I usually make this salad with a large red capsicum (bell pepper), but I’ve been getting boxes of little capsicums in a variety of colours (usually red, onion and yellow) and use 4-5 of these, which make for a more colourful salad.

Calories: 139kcalCarbohydrates: 10gProtein: 2gFat: 11gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 8gSodium: 306mgPotassium: 457mgFiber: 3gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 2274IUVitamin C: 65mgCalcium: 33mgIron: 1mg

Please do let us know if make this Middle Eastern farmers salad recipe for salata falahiyeh as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.

A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.