Shopska Salad

At a glance

Source: Shopska salad¹

What it is

Shopska salad is a cold salad popular across Southeastern Europe and Bulgaria’s best-known salad. Its main ingredients are tomatoes, cucumbers, onion or spring onions, peppers and sirene. Sirene is a white brined cheese similar to feta, but milder in taste.¹

The vegetables are usually diced and salted, then covered with grated or diced sirene. The salad’s colours resemble those of the Bulgarian flag. The resemblance was reportedly coincidental, though it was later seen as a way to evoke national sentiment.¹

Ingredients and serving

A light dressing of sunflower oil, or sometimes olive oil, is commonly added. Vinegar may also be used, although it adds to the sour flavour already given by the tomatoes. Restaurants often serve the dressing separately. The salad is generally eaten as an appetiser.¹

Shopska salad is often accompanied by rakia. Food anthropologist Rayna Gavrilova says it is commonly served with a shot of apricot or another fruit brandy.¹

A tourism-era dish

Although the name refers to Shopluk, a region in western Bulgaria, the salad first appeared on the Black Sea coast. It was served at the Chernomorets restaurant in the resort of Druzhba, near Varna. The recipe is included in a state-approved cookbook from 1956.¹

In 1956, tourism organisation Balkantourist named its version Shopska salad. Balkantourist’s version was a variation on a Greek salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and feta, adapted and marketed as Bulgarian. The salad was initially served in Balkantourist hotels, and was approved as a national culinary symbol during the 1970s and 1980s.¹