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Fattoush might just be the reigning champion of Middle Eastern salads, and it's pretty clear to see why. Crisp za'atar and sumac roasted pita chips crash into a pile of fresh veggies, all doused in a sweet-and-sour pomegranate molasses dressing that makes your family actually super-pumped about eating salad. Winner, winner, salad dinner!
Recipe tips tailored to what matters most to you:
Swap in gluten-free pita or even corn tortillas for the chips here, everything else in this salad is already gluten-free.
Grab a bag of store-bought pita chips instead of baking your own, you'll skip the oven step entirely and still get a good crunch.
Use up stale, day-old pita for the chips instead of buying a fresh bag, it crisps up in the oven just the same.
Cut the olive oil in the dressing back a bit and add a splash of water to loosen it, still bright and citrusy without all the oil.
No sumac on hand? Extra lemon zest plus a little lemon juice gets you in the neighborhood flavor-wise.
Torn pieces of pita have rough, uneven edges that catch more oil and crisp up with better texture than clean knife cuts.
Once the chips hit the dressing, they start softening immediately, so toss them in right as you are carrying the bowl to the table.
Warm pita chips will steam themselves soft the moment they hit a bowl of cold vegetables.
Oodles more tips, step-by-step recipe photos, info on weird ingredients, and FAQs are all still here. I just tucked 'em out of the way so you can start cooking sooner.
The other thing fattoush is doing that most Middle Eastern salads (think: Shirazi salad, ezme, cucumber beet salad, and Kisir) are not: leaning way all the heck into sour. Sumac in the dressing, sumac on the pita, lemon juice, and pomegranate molasses all stacked together into a bright AF acidity masterpiece. Hit super-ripe sweet tomatoes and crunchy radishes with that, and you have yourself a bunch of veggies that are in-your-face flavorful and hard to stop loving the living daylights out of.
Now, a warning. Like any ol' time bomb you've ever set in your strange life as the bad guy from the 1994 blockbuster Speed, this salad has a clock on it. The moment the pita chips hit the dressing, the countdown starts and Keanu Reeves is gonna be hella stressed out. You have got maybe 10 to 15 minutes of peak crunch before they surrender and go soggy AF.
So you toss the chips in at the very last second, right before it goes on the table and not one moment sooner or Sandra Bullock will be pissed and not eat any salad with you on a speeding bus.
I leave out the radishes, garlic, and dill when I make this and it's as delicious as delicious can be! In fact, I'm going to enjoy this right now!
Jump to:
🥰 Why you'll adore this fattoush salad recipe
✊ Vegan AF: Not a single ingredient in any of my Middle Eastern recipes ever had a heartbeat or an opinion. Just vegetables, herbs, and pita bread commingling in peace and yumminess together.
🍞 Born From Stale Bread: The origin story of fattoush salad is that it was invented so nobody had to waste day-old pita. The most delicious form of thriftiness ever devised, and it still slaps many centuries later.
⏰ Fast As Anything: Bake some pita, chop some vegetables, whisk a dressing, done. You are 25 minutes out and most of that is just chopping while you zone out. Heck, you can even make the thing with store-bought pita chips if you are a lazy bum and don't want to customize the flavor as much as I do.
Tested and Approved Worldwide: I don't post any of my vegan recipes until my team of over 1,000 recipe testers have had their way with it. The only complaint anyone had was that they ran out of fattoush too damn fast. Make extra. Learn from their incredible pain.
I'm on my knees staring weirdly into your eyes, asking you in a soothing voice to be my taste-testing partner in crime. Sign up for the recipe testing crew and get early access to new recipes before they're published.
🥙 Lebanese Fattoush Ingredients
Pita Bread
Rip the pita into bite-size pieces with your hands rather than slicing it, since torn edges grab more oil and get delightfully crunchy.
Stale or day-old pita is perfies here, and honestly it is the whole reason fattoush was invented. My kuboos recipe, or Turkish bazlama are the move if you are making it from scratch. Both are super-fluffy, and turn into a stellar batch of chips. Even leftover manakish work to make the chips, and there's generally no need to add additional za'atar if you use that stuff.
Za'atar and Sumac
Za'atar and sumac are the dynamic duo running this salad. Za'atar coats the chips; sumac shows up on the chips and in the dressing too. Za'atar is your thyme-and-sesame guy, sumac is your citrus-tasting one. Neither has a real swap, but if you have some amchur, that's probably the closest thing I can think of to sumac.
Got leftover sumac after making this and no plan? Throw it into cranberry ezme, batata harra, piyaz, or pearl couscous salad. Extra za'atar? Use it in vegan kofta, on the eggplant of a sabich sandwich, or sprinkle some on top of roasted beet hummus or roasted red pepper hummus.
Pomegranate Molasses
Pomegranate molasses keeps it from being just another basic-ass vinaigrette. This stuff is thick, dark, fruity, and a wee bit bitter, and it plays off the sumac in a way that is genuinely hard to describe until it is in your mouth and the lightbulb goes off in your brain.
Buy a bottle, it lasts approximately forever. And if it ends up loitering in your pantry, put it to work in khoresh bademjan, muhammara, or Turkish çiğ köfte.
The Cucumbers
For most of the salads I mess with, Persian cucumbers are all I want. They are thin-skinned, basically seedless, and super crunchy, so they stay crisp instead of turning to mush the second they hit the dressing.
English cucumbers are a decent second place, but use one or fewer because they are huge next to Persian ones.
Got more cukes and want some fun ideas of what to put them to work in? Send them straight into my Korean cucumber salad, Japanese cucumber salad, or Filipino cucumber salad.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
Fattoush with Purslane
Toss in a couple handfuls of fresh purslane, which is the traditional green in a lot of Lebanese fattoush recipes and is criminally underused. It has a lemony, slightly succulent quality that fits the sour theme perfectly. Check farmers markets for the stuff, since it pretty much never shows up at big grocery stores.
Grab my easy-yo-use app that builds your whole week with real, chef-tested vegan dinners in 30 seconds, customized to your budget, time, and taste, with a shopping list sorted by aisle.
📖 How to make Fattoush
The hardest part of this is chopping (uh, I guess), and the hardest part of THAT is not eating half the cucumbers while you go. Follow the steps and tips below, or jump straight to the printable recipe card if you are already hungry and past the point of reading.
Step One
Sumac Daddy Make You Jump, Jump:
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Add the torn pita pieces to a mixing bowl along with the olive oil, za'atar, salt, and sumac. Toss until every piece is coated in the seasoning.
Step Two
Bake to the Future:
Spread the pita out in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake until crisp and lightly browned, flipping the pieces once partway through so they brown evenly. Move them to a cooling rack or plate and let them cool completely.
Step Three
Gucci Romaine:
Add the romaine, red cabbage, radicchio, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, pomegranate seeds, red onion, parsley, fresh mint, and dill to a large serving bowl.
Step Four
Sumac Ac Ac Ac Ac Ac, You Oughta Know By Now:
In a separate bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, garlic, sumac, salt, and black pepper.
Don't stress if you don't have a tiny whisk. The tines of a fork are fine for mixing up small amounts of dressing.
Step Five
Tossed and Found:
Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until everything is evenly coated.
Step Six
Pita Pan:
Add the crispy pita chips right before serving and toss gently.
💡Serving Ideas
Fattoush is a side that quietly steals the spotlight, so give it some good company.
Warm kuboos or bolani with bowl of toum or lebanese baba ganoush is never a bad accompaniment.
It also goes hard next to anything grilled or roasted. A pile of harissa chickpeas or some harissa cauliflower brings smoky heat that the cool, sour salad totally balances out. Mujadara or vegan kofta with a drizzle of tarator sauce is a ridiculously good pairing if you want a more filling meal.
👉 Top Tips
- Tear the Pita, Do Not Cut It: Torn pieces have rough, uneven edges that catch more oil and crisp up with better texture than clean knife cuts. It also just feels weirdly therapeutic, so let yourself have this.
- Add the Pita Chips at the Last Possible Second: This is the whole ballgame. Once the chips hit the dressing, they start softening immediately, so toss them in right as you are carrying the bowl to the table. Not 20 minutes before. Not while you finish something else. Right then and there.
- Let the Chips Cool Completely: Warm pita chips will steam themselves soft the moment they hit a bowl of cold vegetables. Spread them out and let them cool all the way down before they go anywhere near the salad.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
There's no perfect substitute since sumac has a specific tart, fruity, lemony quality. Extra lemon zest plus a little lemon juice gets you in the neighborhood flavor-wise, but you will lose that gorgeous deep red color. Amchur (dried green mango powder) is another decent stand-in for the tartness, though not the color.
Honestly, very few dry ingredients bring real sourness, and the ones that do are not always a fit here (tamarind powder, for example, would take the flavor somewhere weird). It is worth just ordering sumac online.
🧊 In the Fridge
Once dressed, fattoush does not keep well AT ALL since the greens wilt and the chips go soggy on ya. Eat it the same day. If you have undressed leftovers, store the chopped vegetables in an airtight container for up to 2 days, and the dressing in a separate container.
Cooled pita chips keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container at room temperature. Do not refrigerate them, since the moisture will soften them right back up.
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Fattoush Salad Recipe
Equipment
- baking sheet
Ingredients
For the Pita chips:
For the Salad:
- 3 cups romaine lettuce chopped
- 1 cup red cabbage shredded
- 1 cup radicchio chopped
- 2 Persian cucumbers diced
- 1 cup tomatoes small diced
- 5 radishes thinly sliced
- ½ cup pomegranate seeds
- ½ cup red onion thinly sliced
- ½ cup parsley roughly chopped
- ½ cup mint roughly chopped
- ¼ cup dill roughly chopped
For the Dressing:
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
- 2 teaspoons garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons sumac
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Place the pita pieces in a mixing bowl and add the olive oil, za'atar, sumac, and salt. Toss until the pita is evenly coated.
- Spread the pita pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes until crisp and lightly browned, flipping the pieces once during baking for even browning. Transfer the pita chips to a cooling rack or plate and allow them to cool completely.
- Place the romaine, red cabbage, radicchio, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, pomegranate seeds, red onion, parsley, mint, and dill in a large serving bowl.
- In a separate bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, garlic, sumac, salt, and black pepper. Whisk until the dressing is thoroughly mixed.
- Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until the vegetables and herbs are evenly coated.
- Fold in the pita chips immediately before serving.
Notes
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Dushenka Silberfarb says
I leave out the radishes, garlic, and dill when I make this and it’s as delicious as delicious can be! In fact, I’m going to enjoy this right now!