“Jabouleh” (Healthy Zero Waste Tabouleh by Jackie Lane)

We LOVE tabouleh in our household. We eat it in wraps, as a side dish, salad, in kids’ school lunches or as a main dish – any meal of the day! One of the other things I love about tabouleh is that there really are no rules when it comes to ingredients or quantities — hence the invention of “Jabouleh.”

Jabouleh is our own version, which can be modified to suit your preferences. It still has the typical tabouleh base — lemony persley, but we like to load it with hemp hearts and shredded root veggies for extra nutrition (plus, whatever random items we have on hand to use up!). In the spring and summer, we even throw in a few handfuls of wild sorrel from the back yard 🙂

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh parsley (flat or curly, doesn’t matter), chopped small*
• 1/2 cup raw hulled hemp hearts
• 1/4 cup raw hulled sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds
• 1/4 cup onion (I like purple, but any kind will do), finely diced*
• 1/4 cup fresh mint (optional – sometimes we don’t have any on hand so we skip this bit), chopped small
• 1/4 cup bell pepper (any type/colour), finely diced*
• 1/4 cup celery or cucumber (or both, this adds a nice crunch), chopped small*
• 1/4 cup carrot or radish (or both), shredded finely*
• 1/4 cup tomato (optional), chopped small*
• 1/2 cup quinoa, cooked and cooled (optional)
• 1/2 cup fresh wild sorrel leaves, chopped (optional)
• 3-4 Tbsp extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil
• 4 Tbsp (or more!) lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Chop up all herbs and veggies and place in a small bowl.
2. Add desired seeds (and cooked/cooled quinoa if desired).
3. In a small cup or jar, prepare dressing: mix oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper together.
4. Add dressing and mix thoroughly.

ENJOY — as a side salad, on top of another salad, in a wrap, on a burger, as a midnight snack, with your morning eggs, in a box with a fox or on a boat with a goat! WHAT DO YOU like to add to your tabouleh? Share ideas below!

*Don’t forget to retain all veggie scraps (e.g. parsley stems, onion skins, celery stalks, etc.) in a sealed tupperware. Freeze these scraps for future use in Compost Broth.