Shopska Salad – Easy Bulgarian Summer Salad Recipe

This super quick Bulgarian Shopska Salad is one of the easiest, coolest, and tastiest three ingredient salads in the world! All you need is fresh tomato, cucumber and Bulgarian feta or sirene cheese. It’s the perfect side salad or light, refreshing lunch.

Why We Love This

Full of juicy tomatoes and crunchy cucumber, shopska is a popular Bulgarian cold salad. It’s famous throughout the Balkans for being super refreshing and quick and easy to prepare. Versatile and delicious, it’s perfect as a light lunch or colourful side dish for barbecues, potlucks and family gatherings. 

We love that shopska salad is also a budget-friendly dish, transforming low cost everyday ingredients into an delicious summer salad you’ll love to share with friends and family. 

Related: Cevapi / Japanese Potato Salad

What is Shopska Salad? 

Shopska Salad (aka shopska salata) is a cold salad traditionally made with chopped tomatoes, cucumber and a very generous sprinkling of sirene cheese, which is pretty similar to feta in both taste and texture. It’s quite similar to a traditional greek salad, but with a surprisingly different flavour and texture from the grated or crumbled feta.

If you can’t find any sirene or feta near you, you could try sourcing some online or you can even make your own sirene cheese if you’re feeling adventurous!

If you want to kick things up a notch, feel free to throw in some diced capsicum / bell peppers and your favourite marinated olives. We once even threw in some salami for all the meat-lovers out there!

How to make Shopska Salad:

1. Pop your diced tomatoes and cucumber in a serving bowl and give everything a stir until evenly mixed.
2. Optional step: Add in any extra ingredients to suit your taste, such as red pepper, olives, olive oil, vinegar, and salt & pepper if you’re using them, then stir through again.
3. Let it snow! Grate the cheese right over the bowl until well and truly covered.
4. Serve immediately (or store for around 30 mins in the fridge).

Wandercook’s Tips

• For an extra cooling salad, keep your ingredients in the fridge right up until you’re ready to prep. You can even pop them in the freezer for a few minutes to cool them down even further.
• For an even more refreshing experience, serve your shopska salad with rakia (Bulgarian fruit brandy) or a frosty beer!
• If you have leftover cucumber and tomato, turn it into a Greek salad next round.

FAQs

Variations & Substitutes

• Sirene Cheese – Substitute with Bulgarian feta, or any firm feta cheese that can be grated.
• Add Flavour – Serve your shopska salad with side dishes of balsamic or red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt or fresh parsley. You and your guests can then tweak the flavours just how you like. 
• Tweak the Texture – Chop the tomato and cucumber extra small, then sprinkle with salt and pepper to season and draw out the liquid. See this in action on Eileen’s self saucing salad recipe.
• Make it a Meal – Try adding chopped cucumber and diced salami. This will quickly transform your side dish salad into a more satisfying main meal.

Want more cooling salad recipes? Here are some of our favourites:

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