Shopska Salad Topped with Lukanka

Shopska Salad Topped with Lukanka

Recipes with Lukanka

Bulgaria's national salad — diced tomato, cucumber, raw onion, and roasted red pepper buried under a snowdrift of grated sirene cheese — finished with a fan of thin lukanka slices on top. The lukanka adds a salt-and-spice anchor that turns the salad into a one-bowl summer lunch. Twenty minutes from board to table.

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

0 min

Servings

4

Difficulty

Easy

Ingredients

  • 4 ripe tomatoes, diced 1 cm
  • 1 cucumber, peeled and diced
  • 1 small red onion, finely diced
  • 2 roasted red peppers, peeled and torn
  • 150g Bulgarian sirene cheese (or French feta)
  • 100g Lukanka, sliced thin on the bias
  • 3 tbsp extra-virgin sunflower oil
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • Salt and a small pinch of sugar
  • 1 tsp dried summer savory (chubritsa)
  • Handful fresh parsley, chopped

Steps

1

Toss the diced tomatoes with a pinch of salt and the sugar in a bowl. Let them sit five minutes so the juices come out — that liquid is the start of the dressing.

2

Add the cucumber, onion, and torn roasted peppers. Drizzle with vinegar and sunflower oil. Toss once, gently.

3

Tip the salad into a shallow serving bowl. Press flat with a spoon.

4

Grate the sirene on a coarse box grater directly over the salad — you want a thick, even layer that covers the vegetables completely. This is the defining gesture of a shopska.

5

Fan the thin lukanka slices over the cheese layer in a wagon-wheel pattern. Scatter chopped parsley and a pinch of chubritsa across the top.

6

Serve right away with crusty bread and a cold beer or a small glass of rakia. The cheese settles into the dressing within ten minutes; the salad is at its best for the first hour.

Tips

The grated-not-cubed cheese is what makes a shopska, not a Bulgarian Greek salad. Use the coarsest holes on a box grater. If you cannot find roasted peppers in a jar, char a red bell pepper directly over a gas flame, sweat it in a paper bag for ten minutes, then peel under cold water. The lukanka is the modern twist — older shopska recipes serve it on the side as a separate meze.