Authentic Shopska Salad Recipe (2024)

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Recipe by Nora from Savory Nothings

5 from 6 votes

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Prep 15 minutes mins

Total 1 hour hr

Vegetables:

• ▢ 8 smaller tomatoes diced
• ▢ 2 cucumbers diced
• ▢ 1 large green pepper de-seeded and diced
• ▢ 1 large red pepper de-seeded and diced
• ▢ 6 green onions chopped

Dressing:

• ▢ ⅓ cup oil olive or sunflower preferred
• ▢ 2-3 tablespoons vinegar red wine or apple cider vinegar are best
• ▢ 2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt or more to taste
• ▢ black pepper to taste
• ▢ 150 g cheese either Bulgarian or Feta cheese

• Place all prepared vegetables in a salad bowl. Toss, then cover and chill well.

• Right before serving, remove salad from fridge and add dressing ingredients. Mix well. Serve salad with cheese for topping.

Tips

I use smaller tomatoes so there are less seeds (mine are just a bit bigger than a golf ball – they should yield about 1.5 pounds). If you only have large tomatoes, make sure to de-seed them or the salad will be watery.

The same goes for the cucumbers. I use pretty slim cucumbers without many seeds, again, around 1.5 pounds worth in total. If your cucumbers are quite watery/seed-y, definitely de-seed them to keep the salad from getting soggy.

By the way, there’s no need to combine the dressing ingredients separately before adding it to the salad (you can absolutely though if you’re bringing the salad with you to a BBQ – the dressing should be added right before serving). My husband comes from the Balkan region, and it’s completely normal to just throw oil, vinegar, salt and pepper on salad ingredients without making an actual dressing first ?

Ingredient notes

• green pepper: if you’re not a fan, feel free to use a second red pepper
• green onion: these really make the salad, but they can be pretty spicy if children are eating with you. I always serve them on the side when I make this salad for your family, and then the adults serve themselves chopped onion while the kids try to only eat cheese and call it a salad, sigh ?
• cheese: it can be pretty difficult to come across the classic Bulgarian cheese (or other Balkan cheese) traditionally used in this salad. Feta is a great substitute though! So don’t worry too much about finding an authentic cheese.
• oil: some regions make this with sunflower seed oil, and others with olive oil. I always use olive oil because that’s what’s traditionally being used in my husband’s home town. Both are completely fine here!