Macedonian Salad
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Macedonian Salad is a vegetarian dish that makes a perfect lunch on a low-carb diet. If you’ve been low-carb for a while this salad offers a refreshing change! Full of roasted eggplant, fresh vegetables, a flavorful dressing, and tasty olives, it delivers a low-carb vegetarian punch on a lower-carb diet.
Low Carb Vegetarian from Moosewood Cookbook
I love a good cookbook and one of my favorites is Molly Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbook. It’s a classic and just so much fun to read. Let ALONE cook from!
This recipe is based on her Macedonian Salad from that cookbook. The cookbook may be old, the recipes are delicious and some are true staples of a vegetarian lifestyle.
But if you’re eating meat then pair this with my Greek Turkey Meatballs and you’ve got one delicious dinner in store.
Winter staples for Macedonian Salad
Eggplant seems to be on sale during the winter months. They’re plentiful so this is the time to grab one and make a delicious marinated salad.
I would suggest roasting the eggplant the day before you plan to eat the salad so it has time to marinate. Roasting it mellows the flavor and then when you marinate it overnight then it’s just really next level eggplant.
Is eggplant Bitter?
Eggplant CAN be bitter. You can combat this bitterness by cutting it up and letting it soak in salty cold water for half an hour or so. When I’m crunched for time OR SPACE I slice it up, salt it, set it on a plate, and let it sit. After 15 minutes or so I rinse the eggplant in cold water and use it in recipes.
What do I need to make this Macedonian Salad?
One of the best things about this salad is that you can more or less of any ingredient. You can add more eggplant, peppers, olives, and if you need to just make more dressing.
- Eggplants
- Salt
- White wine vinegar, BUT really any vinegar or even lemon juice will work
- Garlic
- Thyme
- Olive oil, light works just fine!
- Parsley
- Olives, green, black, or greek, or a combo
- Bell pepper, any color will works
- Ripe tomato
- Optional *Crumbled feta
- Optional *chopped cucumber
- Optional *chopped zucchini
Macedonian Salad
Ingredients
- 1 pound of eggplant cubed–about 1 inch squares
- water for soaking
- 2 TBSP salt
- 4 TBSP olive oil divided
- 1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic granules OR one clove of garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon dry thyme or fresh will work
- pinch salt
- pinch pepper
- 1/4 cup parsley
- 1/2 cup green olives
- 1/2 sweet bell pepper diced
- 1 ripe tomato diced
- 1/2 cup feta crumbles *optional* tastes best WITH cheese but can be made without
Instructions
- preheat the oven to 350˚
- mix the water and the salt in a large bowl
- add the eggplant to the bowl and soak for 15-20 minutes, this will help remove the bitterness of the eggplant
- drain, rinse and pat dry
- toss with a TBSP of oil
- roast on a shallow pan for 20-25 minutes
- when a knife slips easily in to the eggplant it is done
- meanwhile mix up the dressing ingredients, in a jar combine the remaining oil, vinegar, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and parsley, and shake well
- when the eggplant is done scrape it into a bowl and pour the dressing over it
- stir to combine(resist eating now!! so good)
- refrigerate at least 4 hours overnight would be awesome too
- an hour before serving toss together with the sweet pepper, olives, and tomatoes
- let it rest for an hour before serving, toss with feta before serving (if using)
Hi Laura! This recipe sounds so good. I hear such good things about the Moosewood Cookbook, I really want to get hold of a copy! I never used to like eggplant, but now I'm a huge fan, and I know I'd love this salad. Thank you for hosting.
A lot of my favorites in that salad, it looks AMAZING~! Gotta try this someday soon. Eggplant is so inexpensive yet so filling!
That salad looks right up my alley. That would make an excellent lunch for me!
Laura,
Thanks for this recipe! I've added it to the Farm Fresh Feasts Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me who love to eat from the farm share.
I appreciate your help in making this index better!