My grandparents had a cozy pre-war ranch house with a modest dining room, where we’d gather almost every weekend when I was a kid. A couple years after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother sold the house along with the dining room furniture. And as time goes on, the table grows bigger in my memory. When I think of it now, it fills the whole room, with just enough space for chairs to surround it. Every weekend, the big dining room table was laden with the food my grandmother cooked. And there was almost always a big bowl of fattoush in the center.
When we said there was going to be salad, we almost always meant this salad.
My mom taught me how to make fattoush long ago, and I posted about it back when I started blogging. But I was new to recipe writing, and hadn’t yet learned how to write streamlined instructions. I think there were like 4 paragraphs of footnotes, so I decided to give it a little makeover.
Hope you enjoy this one!
Things I love about this fattoush recipe:
- The dressing is mixed up on the side, which means that you have more flexibility in how you serve it. You can meal prep the whole thing on Sunday, and store the ingredients separately from the dressing. You can dress half of the salad to serve for dinner and then store the leftovers undressed. That way they’ll stay crisp for the next day. Or you can mix up the whole thing for a big dinner.
- I’ve included both US and metric measurements, so whether you want to eyeball it, use cups/tablespoons/teaspoons, or use a digital scale, this recipe has you covered.
- The pita gets baked, which is so much easier than frying or pan-toasting.
A quick note on ingredients:
Sumac is the only ingredient in this recipe that you might need to seek out. It’s available at Middle Eastern markets, and super easy to find online. While it might be tempting to seek out another recipe that suggests a substitution, I’m going to be real with you:
You absolutely need sumac to make decent fattoush.
You might find a recipe out there that says you can get away with substituting lemon zest or some other unrelated ingredient. But there’s really nothing out there that tastes remotely similar to sumac. The heart and soul of fattoush is in the pita chips and sumac. So while this salad might still be super delicious without the sumac, it would cease to be fattoush.
my favorite fattoush
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 10 side servings
Ingredients
- 2 medium pitas, cut into bite-sized triangles (140 grams)
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil (14 grams)
- 3 tablespoons sumac (25 grams)
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (61 grams, from about 2 lemons)
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (55 grams)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 medium head of romaine, chopped (375 grams)
- 5 roma tomatoes, chopped (325 grams)
- 4 Persian cucumbers, chopped (325 grams)
- 1 large or 2 very small green bell peppers, chopped (170 grams after seeding)
- 1 1/4 loosely-packed cups coarsely chopped mint leaves (15 grams)
- 2 loosely-packed cups coarsely chopped parsley leaves (20 grams)
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup chopped green onions (35 grams)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F convection.*
- Coat the pita triangles evenly in 1 tablespoon of neutral oil. Spread evenly on a sheet pan, salt to taste, and bake until golden brown (about 10 to 14 minutes, depending on the thickness of the pita).
- Combine the sumac, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Whisk, and set aside.
- Spread out the chopped romaine in the bottom of a large salad bowl. Top with the tomatoes, cucumbers, green pepper, mint, parsley, and green onions. When you’re ready to serve, whisk the dressing, top the salad with the dressing and pita chips, and toss everything together.
Notes
* If you don’t have convection, no worries—it just might take a little longer for them to toast, and you might need to rotate the pan once halfway through to make sure they’re browning evenly.
Storage
To store for less than a day: Make sure your herbs and veggies are well-dried before chopping with a sharp knife. Refrigerate the veggies and herbs in one sealed container, and the dressing in another. Store the toasted pita chips in a sealed container at room temperature once they’ve cooled down.
To store for a few days/for meal prep: Store as described above, but also refrigerate the herbs and green onions in another separate container, lined with a slightly damp paper towel (and seriously make sure you dry them well before chopping).
Love this! I tried someone else’s fattoush recipe and thought it was fine, but this made me feel like ok, I can really get into fattoush! The parsley and green onion (missing from the first one I tried) add a lot to the flavour profile. I halved the recipe since I’m cooking for one and know it won’t last the week, but I’ll be making it again!
Ah I’m so glad you’re enjoying it Gabrielle! I feel like a lot of recipes leave one or two of the herbs and veggies out, because it’s just so much easier to make with a couple less ingredients—but at the end of the day, fattoush is such a maximalist salad, and it’s hard to take anything away from it and still have it be as good haha. I also love adding a ton of sumac, and I feel like sometimes recipes just have you add a few pinches. I definitely grew up in a tablespoon-upon-tablespoon-in-the-fattoush kind of household haha.
Enjoyed your salad! Colors, textures, taste in perfect harmony. Especially loved the sumac dressing. Thank you
Aw that’s wonderful! Hope you enjoy lots more fattoush this summer 🙂
Looks great, I will make it soon. Thanks for the recipe and inspiration!
Aw you’re so welcome!! Hope you enjoy! 😀