Skip to footer

Lebanese red cabbage salad

With colorful red cabbage, kale and carrots, this crunchy salad gets a kick from lemon juice and some nuanced savor from za'atar, a blend of Middle eastern spices. 

|
A Palatable Pastime
Not a slaw, not a chopped salad, this very simply dressed salad is the perfect accompaniment to Middle Eastern foods.

My husband, Bill, and I recently were down in Cincinnati using up a Groupon to a Lebanese restaurant we had never been to before called Cafe Mediterranean.

He had ordered some salmon in grape leaves and a similar salad was also on the plate. I tasted it since he said how much he liked it, It was fairly simple, albeit theirs did not have kale.

So recently when I was making ground lamb shish kebabs, I knew this was just the thing to go with. I hadn’t planned as such to put the kale in there, but I had a bunch from the local farmer’s market and felt it would add a ton of great color, as well as making it even healthier.

This doesn’t have a flavor like coleslaw if you were wondering. It is a bit zippy from the lemon (as is usual in Middle Eastern recipes) but not overly so. The za’atar spice adds a  little bit of depth of flavor to it. It is great as an unobtrusive side for a pita sandwich, and if you are daring, you can also use this as a topping for your meat on pita. Either way it is sure to please.

Servings: 4-6 Time: 2hr 30mins Difficulty: easy

Ingredients:

12 ounces finely shredded red cabbage
1 medium carrot, finely shredded
4-5 kale leaves, finely shredded (about 1.5 ounces)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon za’atar spice
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar
lemon slices to garnish (optional)

Whisk together dressing and toss with vegetables.

Related post on A Palatable Pastime: Ground Lamb Shish Kebabs on Pita

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Lebanese red cabbage salad
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Food/Stir-It-Up/2014/0725/Lebanese-red-cabbage-salad
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe