How to make Turkish Kisir (Salad Recipe with Bulgur)

Kisir is a traditional Turkish dish where it is often served to welcome guests. It's one of the traditional recipes Turkish people make in the southeast of Turkey. You can eat it as a salad, but also roll it in little lettuce leaves or serve with grape leaves and eat it as a snack.

The great thing about this bulgur salad is that you can prepare it well in advance and it's a great recipe to prepare in a big batch (for your next potluck BBQ). It will keep well in the fridge for up to 3 days (and the taste will be even better!). A great recipe from Turkish cuisine.

This Turkish salad recipe was adapted from Foodquotes (a Dutch blog).

And do you like salads with a fresh taste? This pomegranate orange salad and couscous salad with chives are also good choices!

What is the difference between Tabouleh and Kisir?

Tabbouleh, a traditional Lebanese recipe, is a parsley herb salad with bulgur. The parsley makes the flavor.

Kisir is a bulgur salad where parsley and other spices are added. In Kisir, the leading role is really reserved for Bulgur. But parsley and bulgur are the main ingredients. Therefore it’s also known as Turkish tabbouleh.

Ingredients to prepare this Turkish Bulgur wheat Salad

A full list of ingredients can be found at the end of this blog.

• Bulgur - Bulgur is produced from durum wheat (cracked wheat) and comes in many varieties. You can often find the coarse bulgur wheat version in the supermarket. In Turkish cooking the coarse version is often used for bulgur pilaf. If you look further and go to the middle eastern grocer, you will also come across a fine bulgur wheat variant. And this whole grains bulgur is exactly the one you traditionally use to prepare kisir. If you can't get hold of the fine version, you can just use the coarse version. Cook the latter according to the instructions on the package
• Pomegranate molasses - This product is prepared by slowly boiling pomegranate juice until it is sticky. The taste is sweet and sour. It contains many antioxidants (mainly vitamin C). You can also replace this with lemon juice, verjuice (sour juice of unripe grapes)or balsamic vinegar (or a combination of these). You can buy pomegranate molasses in the supermarket. In the middle eastern grocer it's called nar eksisi.
• Tomato puree - An ingredient often, but not always, added to kisir. But because it gives a delicious flavor dimension, which is a great addition, I use it hearI chose to use it here.
• Spring Onion, Tomato and Parsley - Finely chopped the fresh herbs, chopped green onions, fresh parsley and cubed juicy tomatoes adds extra flavor to the salad.Red pepper - Adds a bit of spice to this salad. If you don't have red peppers, add ½ teaspoon of red pepper flakes or chili flakes.

How to prepare this Kisir recipe?

You can find a recipe that you can easily print at the bottom of the blog.

1. Place the thin bulgur in a large salad bowl (heatproof) and pour in enough boiling water to cover (make sure you’ve got about ½ inch (1cm) of water above the top of the bulgur. Let stand for 10 minutes
2. Mix the tomato paste, olive oil, pomegranate molasses and lemon juice in a bowl.
3. Mix the pomegranate - tomato sauce mixture with the bulgur.
4. Cut the tomato into cubes and the pepper into strips. Add it to the bulgur salad.
5. Chop the parsley finely and add that to the bowl as well.
6. Finally, cut the spring onions into fine strips and mix them with the kisir. You can serve this salad warm or you can keep it in the fridge a couple of days and serve it cold when it's time.