This keto salad recipe is an excellent ketogenic version of Turkish bulgur salad, also known as kisir. It is one of my favorite dishes.
Bulgur salad, which is unique to Mediterranean cuisine, is a very healthy salad. It is a wonderful dish that meets our daily vitamin, mineral and fiber needs with its abundant olive oil and fresh vegetable content.
There are many varieties of bulgur salad in Turkey. I will share other varieties with you over time. Kisir is a dish that we make once a week and enjoy as a family. That’s why I developed this recipe. Because I missed eating kisir so much on the ketogenic diet.
Regular bulgur is not used in Turkish style bulgur salad. We use thin bulgur, which has smaller grains than normal, which we call fine bulgur. Of course, it is not possible to eat small or large pieces of bulgur on the keto diet. That’s why I used cauliflower rice instead of bulgur in this recipe. But everything else was made according to Turkish cuisine.
Cauliflower rice is very similar to fine bulgur. Since Kisir is a very spicy salad. So the unique smell and taste of cauliflower is not noticeable.
This makes cauliflower rice an excellent thin bulgur alternative. So much so that if you don’t tell others the ingredients, they may think that this recipe contains bulgur like the original.
There is one more small detail about this recipe. I am from Gaziantep. It is located in southeastern Turkey and is a gastrocity. Gaziantep cuisine has been added to UNESCO’s “The Creative Cities Network,” including 47 cities from 33 countries. Gaziantep people have a unique taste. We use hot, sour and spices more. This recipe was, of course, prepared in Gaziantep style. There are lots of types of kisir in Turkish cuisine, really. But I like our style the most.
I hope you enjoy this keto salad recipe. This recipe is suitable for both ketogenic and gluten-free diet plans. I will also share the original kisir recipe on this site.
Ketogenic and Gluten-Free
If you’ve just started the ketogenic diet, everything goes well at first. But after a while you start to miss the flavors you are used to. This is very normal, of course. However, when we start keto, the foods we can eat are very restricted. So naturally the variety also decreases. In this case, you need to try new recipes with new ingredients. Otherwise, we can say that it would be very difficult to maintain such a diet. Even close to impossible. It is not possible to maintain the ketogenic diet for a long time. Unless you somehow adapt your favorite foods to your diet.
How to Make Cauliflower Rice?
We will use cauliflower rice for to make the keto salad. Making cauliflower rice is not a time-consuming and difficult thing to do. You can easily prepare it at home in 10-15 minutes. If you don’t want to bother making it at home, you can also buy ready-made ones.
If you use microwave at home, I will teach you a much more practical method. You can serve and consume the cauliflower you prepared using this method, either as a puree, or as rice with your protein.
Step by Step: Cauliflower Rice
- First of all, wash the cauliflower well. I used half of a medium-sized cauliflower in keto salad, it is approximately 500 grams.
- Put the cauliflower, which we cut into florets, into the blender to make the rice. If you don’t use a microwave, you need to pre-boil the cauliflower for about 15 minutes before blending. You can blend it after boiling. If you are using a microwave, you can blend it from raw and cook it later.
- Blend the raw florets until they are as small as fine bulgur.
- Then add 5 tablespoons of water and cover it with stretch film. Make sure to poke a few holes in the plastic wrap with a fork.
- Cook on the highest setting in the microwave (mine is 800) for 7 minutes.
- If you want, you can make this recipe without cooking the cauliflower.
- Let the microwaved or boiled cauliflower cool.
- If you don’t want to eat the bulgur salad hot, prepare the cauliflower in advance, and cool it. Later add the other ingredients and it will be ready quickly. Of course, there is no harm in eating it hot if you wish.
How to Make Keto Cauliflower Salad
Sauce and Spices:
- Let’s prepare the oily sauce of the kisir. Saute the finely chopped onions in olive oil. When the onions become transparent, add tomato and pepper paste and continue to saute for 30 seconds more.
- The sauce is ready. At the side, finely chop the parsley and spring onions.
- Add the parsley, spring onion, tomato paste sauce and spices (black pepper, red pepper, salt, cumin) to the cauliflower rice and mix them well.
- If you want, you can also add coarsely chopped lettuce leaves in it.
- You can adjust the sourness of the bulgur salad/kisir with sumac or lemon juice.
This keto salad recipe is really close to what I normally consume. Especially the next day, it tastes much better, probably because the spices and other ingredients are well mixed together. It is very difficult to distinguish it from the real thing.
Keto Salad with Cauliflower : Serving Suggestion
Pickles, greens and radishes can be consumed alongside the keto cauliflower salad. Since the carbohydrate content of vegetables decreases during the pickling phase (fermantation), it will not disrupt your diet. Of course, you should eat in moderation.
1 cucumber (200g) contains 6.2 grams net carbohydrates with its skin on, and 3 grams net carbohydrates when peeled.
2 small pickled cucumbers contain 1 gram of net carbohydrate,
1 cup of radishes is 2 grams of net carbohydrates.
1 serving of this keto salad has 7g net carbs which is very suitable for a satisfying lunch.
Enjoy your meal! Afiyet olsun!
For more detailed information on topics such as what is a ketogenic diet, who can do keto, etc. you can read my article titled “What Is a Ketogenic Diet“.
To see the foods you can eat on the ketogenic diet, see “Keto Friendly Foods“. There is a sample diet list, too.
Keto Salad – Turkish Kisir with Cauliflower Rice
Ingredients
- 500 g cauliflower
- ½ cup olive oil
- 1 onion small
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp pepper paste
- 3 tbsp chopped green onion
- 4 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp 7 spice optional
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp chili flakes or paprika
- 1 tsp salt add according to your taste
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
Cauliflower Rice
- Wash the cauliflower well. I used half of a medium-sized cauliflower, it is approximately 500 grams. Cut it into florets
- Put them into the blender to make our rice. If you do not have a microwave, you need to pre-boil the cauliflower for about 15 minutes before blending. If you are using a microwave, you can blend it from raw and cook it later.
- Blend raw florets until they are as small as fine bulgur.
- Add 5 tablespoons of water and cover it with stretch film. Make sure to poke a few holes in the plastic wrap with a fork.
- Cook on the highest setting in the microwave (mine is 800) for 7 minutes. Let the microwaved or boiled cauliflower cool.
Salad
- Saute finely chopped onions in olive oil.
- When the onions become transparent, add tomato and pepper paste and continue to saute for 30 seconds.
- At the side, finely chop parsley and spring onions.
- Add the parsley, spring onion, tomato paste sauce and spices (black pepper, red pepper, salt, cumin) to the cauliflower rice and mix them well.
- You can adjust the sourness of the bulgur salad/kisir with sumac or lemon juice.