Whilst spring is in the air I decided to make something a bit more light and summery. I love tabbouleh and have used lots of different recipes in the past so this takes inspiration from all of them. In Dr Greger’s cookbook recipe he subs the usual bulgur wheat for quinoa and cooks in turmeric. I’ve decided to go for half and half. I found a lovely bulgur and quinoa blend in Tesco which uses red and white quinoa along with bulgur. The red quinoa adds a little crunch (similar to black quinoa) but I dislike using either red or black quinoa on their own. Jamie Oliver’s tabbouleh recipe uses pomegranate and sumac which I’ve added to this recipe. I’ve kept the tomato, onion, mint and parsley as one would expect from a traditional tabbouleh recipe. I omit oil wherever possible as I dislike processed foods. I’d rather eat whole foods that contain oil although most scientists behind whole food plant based diets caution against too many high fat foods. Dr Greger has lots of information on nutritionfacts.org that uses only high quality, peer reviewed articles from reputable sources. He takes the hard work out of literature reviews and really only references studies which are randomised, double blind controlled trials of decent size.

Suitable for batch cooking and will keep well in the fridge for around 3 days

Serves 4

Takes around 30 minutes

Ingredients

300g bulgur wheat or quinoa, or a mix of the two

1 tsp vegan bouillon powder

1 tsp turmeric

2 firm medium Tomatoes, finely diced

1 red onion, finely diced

3 spring onions, finely sliced

1/2 medium cucumber, finely diced

1 handful mint leaves, finely diced

2 handfuls of parsley leaves, finely diced

2 handful pomegranate seeds (I used frozen)

1 lime, juice of

Large pinch salt

1 tsp sumac

Method

1. Cook the quinoa and bulgur according to packet instructions. I added 1 tsp bouillon powder and 1 tsp turmeric to the cooking water. If using an instant pot, I cooked for 1 minute in high pressure with 12 minutes natural pressure release. I used a ratio of 1:1.25 for grains to water (I.e equal water to grains plus 25% so 370ml water in this recipe).

2. Whilst the grains cook, finely chop any ingredients needing to be diced or sliced. Finely chopping everything makes for the best tabbouleh.

3. Allow the grains to cool. Combine all the ingredients and serve! I enjoyed eating this with red gem lettuce leaves.