zucchini and green apple salad

Without a doubt my favorite new recipe so far this summer! This is beyond “a keeper” into the territory of “one of my favorite salads of all-time”! Happy to share this recipe from Didem Şenol‘s Aegean Flavours, which I read on a wonderful Turkish food blog called Pantry Fun. I’ll include both the original, and the version I made with what I had.

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MY VERSION:

1 large zucchini
1 large sour green apple like Granny Smith
a few spikes of garlic chives and a handful of mint leaves from my garden
half of a small container of goat cheese, crumbled
just a tiny bit of vinegar and olive oil
half a lemon, juiced
a sprinkle of nigella seeds, salt, and pepper

I sliced the zucchini and apple on a mandoline, tore the herbs by hand, and then added the other ingredients and mixed everything together.

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THE ORIGINAL:

2 green courgettes/kabak

1 green apple/yeşil elma

½ bunch of dill/dereotu

1 spring onion/taze soğan

a handful fresh mint leaves/nane

150g lor peyniri OR goat’s cheese/keçi peyniri

20g nigella seeds/çörekotu

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

juice of half a lemon

100ml vinegar/sirke

extra virgin olive oil/sızma zeytinyağı

Slice the courgettes and apple as finely as possible. I used a mandolin slicer. Place the apple slices in water with lemon to prevent them from discolouring. Finely chop the dill, spring onion, and mint and mix with the courgette, apple and cheese. Add the nigella seeds. Add the vinegar and salt, and then finally the olive oil and mix together. The recipe states that if you add the olive oil first, the salad won’t absorb the vinegar. I would say, go carefully with the vinegar and taste the salad as you add it. You don’t want it to be overpoweringly vinegary.

write-up by Claudia at Pantry Fun – original recipe by Didem Şenol

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Absolutely wonderful, fresh, delicious, and healthy. August is the perfect time of year for a no-cook recipe! The goat cheese and lemon are tangy, and the garlic chives and nigella seeds add just enough interesting flavor while still allowing the apple and zucchini taste to shine through. I didn’t have any dill in the house, but I can only imagine that the addition of fresh dill would make this salad almost too delicious to eat. I plan to eat this again and again!

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Looking for more healthy plant-based summer recipes? If you like fresh raw salads, fresh fennel and cucumber salad in yogurt sauce is a favorite of mine. Cucumber salads are so budget-friendly and infinitely adaptable, and of course cooling, refreshing, and hydrating in increasingly hotter summers. I love a charred onion and cucumber salad (vegan!) and a Sichuan style cucumber salad and, if you love the mint and lemon in the zucchini and green apple salad, you’ll love this five-minute healthy cucumber, lime, and mint salad.

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