Arabic Salad (Salata Arabiyeh)

Arabic Salad (Salata Arabiyeh) : A Dish Shared Across Lands and Claimed by Many

Across the Arab world, there’s a certain salad that feels both universal and intimate, a bright mix of tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, olive oil and lemon that accompanies almost every meal. It appears under different names and with small variations, but its spirit remains the same: freshness, simplicity, and the celebration of what the land provides.

From Palestine to Egypt, from Lebanon to Jordan, the Arabic salad has taken on countless forms. In Cairo, it is tangy and garlicky. In the Blad Al-Sham, it’s sharper, fragrant with mint and parsley, sometimes mixed with pomegranate or sumac. Yet across borders, it speaks a common language, the language of the Mediterranean sun, of produce picked in season, of tables that welcome abundance.

This type of chopped salad isn’t unique to the Arab world either. Many cultures have a version of it, a reflection of the shared human desire for freshness and color on the plate. In Afghanistan, there’s the Afghan salad, with cucumber, tomato, onion, and coriander, dressed in lemon and salt. 

In East Africa, kachumbari offers the same lively mix, brightened with chili and lime. India’s kachumber brings together cucumber, tomato, onion, and a squeeze of lemon, served to cool the heat of spiced curries. Across the ocean, Mexico’s pico de gallo mirrors the same rhythm — finely chopped tomatoes, onion, chili, and lime. And in Iran, the Shiraz salad (salad-e shirazi) uses cucumber, tomato, and onion, dressed in lemon juice and dried mint.

The resemblance between these dishes is striking, proof that certain flavors transcend geography. Wherever you go, people instinctively reach for what’s fresh, chop it fine, dress it with lemon and oil, and share it around the table.

When Food Becomes Appropriated

In Palestine, this salad is known simply as salata ʿarabiyya, Arabic salad. It’s an everyday staple, a dish that feels too ordinary to even name, yet it carries centuries of tradition and belonging. But in recent decades, this humble salad has been stripped of its roots and repackaged under another name: Israeli salad.

The so-called “Israeli salad” is, in truth, the same Arabic salad that has been eaten across Palestine and the wider region for generations. Its rebranding is not about innovation but erasure, part of a broader pattern where Palestinian and Arab foods, from hummus to falafel to tabbouleh, have been claimed as Israeli inventions.

Food appropriation is not a simple question of shared ingredients. It’s about power, history, and the politics of visibility. When a colonized people’s cuisine is renamed and marketed by those who displaced them, something deeper is taken, the story, the memory, the connection between people and land. 

Calling it Israeli salad does more than rename a dish; it rewrites a history. It suggests that Palestinian culture was absent before 1948, that these foods somehow sprang from nowhere.

In contrast, Arabic salad is deeply rooted in Palestinian life. It’s part of the rhythm of the kitchen, chopped daily, eaten with every meal, served from the hills of Nablus to the coast of Yaffa. It’s made from what the land yields: tomatoes ripened under the sun, cucumbers grown in backyard gardens, olive oil pressed from family trees. To name it honestly is to honor that lineage.

The Nablusi Way

Within Palestine itself, every region prepares Arabic salad a little differently. In Gaza, it’s spiced with chili and lemon; in Jerusalem, it often includes more parsley and sumac. The version from Nablus, where this recipe comes from is known for its brightness and balance, enriched with pomegranate and mint, and dressed generously with extra virgin olive oil.

A salad this fresh deserves an olive oil with character. For this recipe, we used Suri early harvest olive oil from Nazareth, a bold, peppery oil pressed from ancient Suri trees that have grown on those hills for generations. Early harvest Suri carries grassy notes and a lively bitterness that lifts the acidity of the lemon and complements the sweetness of the pomegranate. It doesn’t disappear into the salad; it brings the salad to life.

This choice of oil is intentional. Arabic salad is simple, but simplicity demands quality. The Suri variety is one of the oldest cultivars in Palestine, and using an early harvest oil honors the way our ancestors cooked: with ingredients that taste of the land itself.

To make Arabic salad the Nablusi way is to taste the generosity of the land and the continuity of culture. Because food, like memory, cannot be taken. It lives in the hands that prepare it, in the tables where it’s shared, and in the flavor of a simple salad that carries a whole history within it.

And this is why naming matters. Why honesty matters. Why we must be clear about where our food comes from and who it belongs to.

 When we call our dishes by their true names: Arabic salad, Palestinian salad, salata ʿarabiyya, we protect more than a recipe. We protect a story. We protect the kitchens of our grandparents, the taste of our land, and the traditions that shape who we are.

If we are not careful, others will continue to rename our foods, claim them, and erase the people who created them. But when we hold our dishes close and speak their origins with confidence, we ensure that generations from now, our children and grandchildren will not have to search for their heritage. 

They will know exactly where their food comes from, whose hands taught them to chop mint, whose olive trees pressed the oil, and whose stories live inside every bite.