Broccoli Tabbouleh

Summer is all about the salads; quick, cool, and delicious.  One of my favorite salads is a Tabbouleh salad.  It has a very clean flavor full of citrus and herbs.  It is also a very healthy salad dressed with only lemon juice and olive oil.  

I was craving tabbouleh the other day but I didn't have any parsley, the main ingredient in a traditional tabbouleh salad, in the house.  I did have some broccoli and so I decided to use it instead.  The result was so delicious!  Although it didn't have the same intense herb flavor as a traditional tabbouleh, it did have a wonderful texture and light cabbage taste that only raw broccoli can give.  

This one goes into the salad rotation not only for the summer but all year round.

Ingredients:
12 oz raw broccoli florets
3 Persian or 1 English cucumber, diced
1/2 cup red onion, diced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced 
1/4 cup fine bulgar 
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup of olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Place the raw broccoli florets in a food processor and pulse them until they are small chopped and uniform in size.  Remove and place in a bowl large enough to hold all the final ingredients.  If you don't have a food processor, you can chop the broccoli with a knife.  

Next add your diced cucumbers, tomato, red onion, and lemon zest to the broccoli mixture. 

In a measuring cup, add the bulgar, lemon juice, and olive oil and let it sit for 15 minutes.  

If you have never had bulgar, it is cracked wheat.  It comes in various sizes and is used in a lot of Middle Eastern cooking.  In Tabbouleh, the bulgar is not cooked so by using the fine grain you can soften it by adding it to the lemon juice and olive oil.  

After 15 minutes, pour the contents of the measuring cup into the bowl of broccoli and veggies, mix, taste for salt and pepper, and enjoy.  Keep in the refrigerator.  The flavor only gets better with time.  You can serve this salad cold or at room temperature.