בס''ד

Delicious Salads to Adorn Your YomTov Table.

After you have served all the traditional Seder foods from the Hagada, it is now time to serve the Seder meal.

In Israel, it is customary to serve several different types of salads at Yom Tov meal with the entrée or first course. The salads go great with matza and chraine.

Colorful salads will dress up your Yom Tov table. Israelis love to make salads using cucumbers, tomatoes, different color sweet peppers and some chopped purple onion. When preparing an Israeli vegetable salad use fresh vegetables and cut the vegetables in very tiny pieces. Your salad can be dressed with an oil, vinegar and lemon mixture. Eggplants and colorful peppers both hot and sweet are very popular vegetables used when preparing salads.

Preparing cooked salads can be time consuming, but when you are preparing food for YomTov, it becomes a pleasure.

These salads are also wonderful to serve on Shabbos.

My daughter, who is a great cook and married to a Tunisian, has shared some of her Israeli salad recipes with me over the years since my family and I made Aliyah almost 15 years ago. Usually I make my salads a few days before I want to serve them so that they can marinate.

Here are a several salad recipes.

Eggplant and Tomato salad.
1 large or 2 small eggplants
1 small and ripe tomato
1 large onion
1 small red pepper
2 garlic teeth pressed
oil – for frying
¼ cup vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons tomato paste
¼ cup hot water
salt to taste

1] Cut all the vegetables into small pieces and fry until golden brown. Drain the oil well.
2] Place fried vegetables in a large bowl and add
sugar, garlic, tomato paste, salt and mix well.
Add vinegar, hot water and mix well.
3] Store in container and chill before serving.

Imitation Israeli Chop Liver salad.
1 large eggplant cut in small chunks
2 very large onions
3 raw eggs
oil – for frying
salt and pepper to taste
2 pressed garlic teeth [optional]


1] Fry eggplant and onions until they are golden brown.
Remove from fry pan and drain well.
DO NOT pour out the oil left in the fry pan.
2] Put the eggplant back into the fry pan and add beaten
eggs. On a low heat, stir constantly so that the mixture
does not stick to the bottom of pan.
3] When the mixture is dry [no more raw egg] place in a
container, add salt, pepper.
4] When cooled, put thru grinder to look like chopped liver.

Sweet Pepper Salad
6/7 roasted red/ yellow/orange peppers [mixture]
2 pressed garlic teeth
¼ cup oil
¼ cup vinegar
2 tablespoons hot water
1 tablespoon lemon
salt to taste

1]Roast peppers on a bar b’que or gas stove fire until well done. 2]Place in plastic bag for 1 hour [to make peeling easier]. When cooled, peel, slice and put peppers into a container.
3]Add all the other ingredients. Mix very well. Chill before serving.

Mushroom Salad

½ cup oil
½ cup vinegar
¼ cup water
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. garlic powder or 3 teeth of garlic
¼ tsp. white pepper
¼ cup sugar
Combine all of the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil.

Add
2 small cans of mushrooms or 1 large can
1 cup diced red peppers
1 cup diced yellow peppers
1 cup diced green peppers
1/2 cup onions sliced in circles.
Simmer for 5 minutes

Remove from heat and add 2 tsp. basil [optional]
Chill overnight for the best taste.

And now for those who are not faint of heart. This next salad is very HOT. If you are not used to eating hot salads, taste with caution.

Nishweya salad [Hot pepper & tomato salad]
NOTE: cooked hot peppers can burn your skin. Hold by the stem and use a knife and fork.

10 straight hot peppers [mixture of red and green]
2/3 ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoon olive oil
6 sliced garlic teeth
juice from whole lemon
salt to taste.

1]On each hot pepper make a small x with a knife to keep the peppers from exploding and then roast on all sides on a bar b’que or stove fire.
2]Repeat with tomatoes.
3]Place all the cooked vegetables in a plastic bag for 1 hour. [makes peeling easier]
4]When cooled, carefully peel and dice the peppers and grate the tomato.
Add all the other ingredients and mix well. Chill overnight for best taste.

There are many delicious salad recipes and if you would like any additional recipes, please contact me thru the comment section at the end of this article.

Enjoy the salads. Feel free to pass the recipes around.

Have a good Pesach!

Miriam