Shepherd Salad is an easy Turkish salad recipe that is mix with cucumber, tomatoes, feta cheese, olive oil, and olives. It is a healthy and delicious vegetarian salad that can be served alone or with other meat or rice dishes.
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Although this is a Turkish salad, it is commonly found and eaten in the Levant and Arab Countries. If you visit countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Syria or Iraq, they all have their variations of Middle Eastern Salad.
In Turkey, the locals called it as "coban salatasi" but in other countries we are mostly familiar with the term "shepherd salad." It is one of the most delicious and healthiest salad I tried in my life. Also, it is simple to make since no cooking is needed in this recipe.
In this post, I will be showing you the best and easiest Turkish salad Coban Salatasi recipe you can make at home.
Recipe Ingredients
There are several ingredients you need when making Coban Salatasi which is very easy and straightforward.
Firstly, I am using cucumber, tomatoes, and red onion as my 3 main ingredients for my salad.
Secondly, I am using both green olives, black olives, and feta cheese since it gives a mild saltiness of my salad. That way, you don't need to add any salt since you get its natural saltiness from the salad.
Lastly, I am using extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice (optional) as my salad dressing. It will help enhance the flavor of my salad. Also, it is nutritious, healthy, and high in antioxidants.
Cooking Instruction
Making Turkish shepherd salad is an easy and quick step since no cooking is needed in this recipe.
Firstly, chop all the cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onion into smaller pieces. Make sure you remove all the seeds from the tomatoes and cucumbers to prevent making the salad watery.
Later, chop the green & black olives and feta cheese into smaller pieces. You can optionally leave the olives as it is. Transfer all the vegetables and the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl. Lastly, pour olive oil and lemon juice in the bowl and stir to mix using the spoon.
Serve it with any meat or rice dish, or you can eat it alone.
Variation: You can add chopped parsley, lettuce or green bell pepper in this salad.
What to serve this salad with?
In my experience, I like to serve this salad recipe with my Middle Eastern meat rice dish. When you are eating Middle Eastern or Mediterranean food, salad is very important in a meal.
Here are delicious Middle Eastern rice dish that blends well with my shepherd salad recipe:
A. Chicken Majboos
B. Chicken Maqluba
Recommended Salad Dressing to Use
In this recipe, I am using extra virgin olive oil as my salad dressing since it is healthier, and it taste delicious.
In addition to that, I sometime use Lemon juice, Caesar dressing or Yogurt garlic sauce as my salad dressing. In my experience, they blend well in this salad recipe, and it taste really good.
Related Vegetarian Recipe
If you are looking for vegetarian recipes, here are other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes you may like to try making at home.
📋 Recipe Card
Coban Salatasi (Turkish Shepherd Salad)
Ingredients
- 1 Piece Large Cucumber
- 3 Pieces Medium Tomatoes
- ½ piece small red onion
- 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 4 tablespoon lemon juice (Optional)
- ¼ cup black olives
- ¼ cup green olives
- ¼ cup feta cheese
Instructions
- Chop the cucumber, tomatoes and red onion. Remove the seeds from the cucumber and tomatoes to prevent having watering salad.
- Cut the feta cheese, green & black olives into smaller pieces.
- Transfer all the vegetables and the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl.
- Pour olive oil and lemon juice. Mix to combine using the spoon.
I love this recipe! It reminds me of the salad I get at my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant but with olives and lemon - yum!
This is almost similar to Arabic Salad. As a matter of fact, this salad recipe is popular in the Middle East. Thanks for liking the recipe.
Delicious salad! So many good flavors combined in one bowl!
I love hearty salads like this and the olives and feta combo is out of this world!
Thank you Beth. I appreciate your comment.
Such an easy recipe with wholesome ingredients. Can’t wait to try this recipe.
I adore salads like this one, I'm going to make a big batch for my lunch this week!
Thanks Sue. Let me know if you make one.
Healthy salad and nice description with pictures which makes it easy to follow!
Thanks Nisha. I am glad you find post helpful. That's why I love adding pictures so my readers can understand.
We ate at a restaurant outside of Petra recently, they had a dish that we had also had at another Jordanian restaurant. It was on the salad bar and looked and tasted like a spicy gazpacho, very soup like with fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and ??. When I asked one of the servers what it was called he said "Turkey Salad". It was much more soupy (red soup) without olives and feta as your salad has. Do you know what this might have been and do you have a recipe?
Hi Pastor Rhonda
Based on your description, this is a "variation" of a turkish recipe called Ezme salad. The red sauce is probably harissa sauce which is actually spicy, or just red pepper.
It may served as part of the salad sections, but they are mostly used as a dipping sauce for kebab or even eating it with pita bread (kuboos). Since you said it is soupy, that is not technically a salad but a similar dipping vegan dish like hummus or baba ganoush.
I hope this answers your question.