Excellent recipes for the popular Balkan salad full of tasty vegetables. Get inspired!

Do you love cold cuisine and regularly prepare a side dish for grilled or roasted meat? Try the recipes for šop salad.

It is a classic that has a firm place in our kitchen and we prepare it regularly.

Try different variants and find out what you and your loved ones will like the most.

Don’t hesitate to make this delicacy at a meeting with friends, they will surely lick their lips.

Classic šop salad

This delicacy has been a favorite for many generations and is enjoyed by everyone. After all, it is an excellent dish suitable on its own, for example as a snack, but it can also be a tasty dinner, or a side dish with meat.

If you are a fan of cold cuisine and like to enjoy real gems, try simple recipes for potato spreads . You lick all ten of them.

Ingredients:

• 1 salad cucumber
• 1 medium red onion
• 1/2 large green pepper
• 2 large ripe plum tomatoes
• 1/2 cup black olives (Kalamata variety)
• 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
• 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Salt to taste
• 1 package of Feta cheese

Method:

• Wash the cucumber and use a scraper to create a striped pattern on it by scraping the skin every 2 cm. Halve and cut into slices.
• Put it in a bowl and add the cleaned and diced onion.
• Remove the seeds from the pepper, cut it into cubes of the same size and put them in a bowl as well.
• Chop the washed plum tomatoes and add them to the other vegetables together with the olives and parsley.
• Whisk the olive oil with the wine vinegar and pour into a bowl.
• Mix thoroughly so that the liquid reaches all the pieces of vegetables.
• Add salt, pepper, crumbled Feta cheese and mix once more. Finally, let the salad cool for at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.
• Then just divide into salad bowls and serve.

A simple summer Bulgarian salad

Tasty and extremely quick, that’s exactly what this recipe for a cold cuisine delicacy is. If by chance you don’t have an ingredient at home, simply replace it with another one, you won’t lose the taste and you’ll have something special again.

Ingredients:

• 1 large fleshy tomato
• 1 field cucumber
• 100 g of Balkan cheese
• 1 red bell pepper (can also be yellow or green)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley for garnish

Method:

• We start by cleaning all the vegetables and washing them carefully.
• Cut the tomato and cucumber into pieces and put them in a bowl.
• Dice the pepper and add it to the tomato and cucumber.
• Season with salt, pepper and drizzle with olive oil.
• Mix, and finally grate the Balkan cheese on a coarse grater over the entire surface.
• Garnish with parsley and refrigerate for 2 hours.
• If we don’t want to wait for it to cool down, we serve the salad immediately after it’s finished.

Chopsticks with Feta cheese

A traditional Bulgarian side dish in the form of this salad is quick, good and full of the best ingredients. It contains only fresh vegetables and the increasingly popular Feta cheese. The recipe is gluten-free and also vegetarian.

Ingredients:

• 3 large tomatoes
• 1 field cucumber
• 1 green pepper
• 1 medium red onion
• 1/2 cup black olives
• 1 cup of grated Feta cheese
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Cut the tomatoes, peppers and onions into cubes, cut the cucumber in half and then into slices, olives into pieces of the same size.
• In a large bowl, mix tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper and red onion.
• Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt.
• Add the chopped olives and mix thoroughly.
• Finally, sprinkle with grated Feta cheese and serve immediately.
• If you want, you can let it cool for an hour.

Balkan mix

You can come across Šopa salad anywhere, even during your vacation, for example in Serbia. Everyone makes it differently and the recipe can vary a lot from country to country, even if the base remains the same. However, someone uses a different cheese, another another type of tomato, and you immediately have a different taste.

Ingredients:

• 6 large bush tomatoes
• 1 red bell pepper (optionally yellow)
• 1 medium salad cucumber
• 1 small white onion
• 1 small red onion
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 cup goat cheese
• 2-3 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley

Method:

• Cut the tomatoes into small wedges.
• Clean the red pepper and cut it into pieces, cucumber into slices.
• Peel the onion and finely chop it. If we don’t want a lot of onions, we only put half of each.
• Place the vegetables in a large bowl and drizzle with olive oil.
• Add wine vinegar and mix.
• Add salt, if you want, you can also add ground black or red pepper.
• Mix again and put in the fridge to cool for 2-3 hours.
• Before serving, sprinkle with grated goat cheese and parsley.

Light salad

Almost everyone loves Šopák for its excellent taste and ability to refresh. It can be prepared practically all year round, although of course it tastes best when the vegetables it contains are in their prime season. The preparation is quick, simple and the resulting dish will please everyone.

Ingredients:

• 4 large Roma tomatoes
• 1 large salad cucumber
• 2 green peppers
• 2 red peppers
• 1 large kitchen yellow onion
• 2 green spring onions
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 – 1 cup crumbled Feta cheese

Method:

• Cut the tomatoes, peppers and yellow onion into cubes, while the cucumber and spring onions into slices.
• Put oil, vinegar, salt, pepper in a sealable jar, close it tightly and shake as much as possible to combine all the ingredients.
• Once we are done, pour it into the bowl with the vegetables and mix carefully.
• Put it in the fridge and let it cool, ideally overnight.
• Before serving, sprinkle with crumbled cheese and serve.

Vegetable mixture

This classic summer side dish is easy, unpretentious and yet tastes absolutely great. Try preparing it for a barbecue in the garden, for example.

Ingredients:

• 12 cherry tomatoes
• 2 field cucumbers
• 1 large green pepper
• 1 large red pepper
• 6 spring onions
• 1/3 extra virgin olive oil
• 2 – 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
• 2-3 tablespoons of fresh parsley
• 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of salt
• A pinch of ground black pepper
• 150 g of Balkan cheese

Method:

• Clean the vegetables, cut them into cubes and put them in a bowl.
• Add extra virgin olive oil, apple cider vinegar and salt to another bowl and mix thoroughly.
• Put the dressing and vegetables in the fridge for 2 hours.
• Then take it out, cover the vegetables with dressing, salt and pepper and finally sprinkle with crumbled Balkan cheese.

Bulgarian salad bowl

This šop salad is light and very tasty. With its taste, it will please every gourmand who enjoys the delicacies of cold cuisine and especially those containing vegetables.

Ingredients:

• 1 English cucumber
• 4 large tomatoes
• 1 medium red onion
• 1 green pepper
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup Feta cheese
• 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Method:

• Cut the cucumber into slices, chop the tomatoes into pieces, and chop the onion and pepper into small cubes.
• Place in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, cover with olive oil and sprinkle with grated Feta cheese.
• We can consume it immediately or let it cool for an hour.

What exactly is a shack?

It is one of the traditional Bulgarian dishes and is served as an appetizer in most restaurants. It can be said that there is hardly a restaurant in Bulgaria where this salad is not part of the menu.

It has gained great popularity in our country, even though Balkan cheese, which has a characteristic and completely unmistakable taste, is used almost everywhere.

Balkan cheese is actually a soft, typically salty cheese that has a fine texture and a white color. It is a popular ingredient not only in Šopské, but practically any vegetable salad.

Basically, it is an alternative to the classic Greek Feta cheese and Bulgarian Sirena. These were originally produced from sheep’s, goat’s and cow’s milk, although today the predominant production is from cow’s milk.

Necessary raw materials:

• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Raw or roasted paprika
• Feta cheese (or any Balkan-type cheese)
• Parsley

When it comes to spices, a spice called Čubrica is a completely indispensable ingredient in Bulgaria. This is the name of saturejce, which is a popular herb, but also a mixture of spices in Balkan cuisine.

It is actually a mixture of dried saturjeka, to which salt, hot pepper, but also flour from roasted corn and fenugreek seeds are added.

This spice is mainly used in the preparation of legumes, but lovers of baked vegetables will also find it useful.

What spirits are usually drunk with salad?

• Vodka
• Mastic – which is a very strong anise liqueur
• Rakije – alcoholic drink, or brandy, which is the national drink not only in Bulgaria, but also, for example, in Kosovo, Serbia, etc. It is produced by distilling fermented fruit.

By the way, you can take a look at the production of Rakija in the following video.

Making Rakija