Kachumber, a delicious and simple Indian salad made with tomatoes, onions, cilantro and lemon, adds a zing to dals, curries and rice dishes!
In this tasty kachumber, tomatoes and onions are tossed together with a simple and oil-free dressing of lemon or vinegar, salt, spicy chili peppers and fresh herbs like cilantro or mint. You can add other vegetables, like cucumbers or zucchini or bell peppers or avocados, as well. The resulting salad is tasty as can be with the ability to liven up any Indian meal.
This recipe concludes a classic trio of Indian Parsi dishes I've been sharing with you, including vegetable dhansak and Parsi brown rice.
I hope you will try these and be transported, for a few minutes, to a Parsi dinner table where the food is always king.
Table of Contents
What is kachumber?
A kachumber, pronounced kutch-oom-ber, is a very simple, everyday Indian salad made with onions and tomatoes and, sometimes, other raw veggies like cucumber. Although kachumber is often associated with Parsi cuisine, versions of this salad exist in nearly every Indian cuisine, called by names like kachumbari or koshimbir. It is usually served at a meal alongside Indian lime pickle and poppadum.
You can think of this simple Indian salad recipe as a more rudimentary version of a raita, minus the yogurt, and you can convert it to a raita simply by dressing it with yogurt instead of lemon.
Why you'll love this recipe
- Delicious. Albeit extremely simple, a Kachumber can provide the transformational zing to just about any simple Indian meal. This crunchy salad tantalizes your tastebuds and makes everything taste better.
- So easy to make. As you will see in the video it doesn't take much work to make a Kachumber. Chop up a few veggies and you are done, no cooking needed.
- Versatile. At its very basic a Kachumber needs just onions and tomatoes along with the lemon, salt and chile. However, you can make variations by add more veggies to it. See FAQs below for more on this.
- Healthy. It's a salad, so, of course it's healthy. But it is also naturally free of added fats because you don't need any oil in the dressing. You can even skip the salt--the lemon, cilantro and chili make it so vibrant, you don't really need any.
- Allergy friendly. The kachumber salad is naturally vegan, gluten-free, nut-free and soy-free.
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion. You can use a sweet red onion or a yellow or white onion. A more pungent variety of onion is fine if you can tolerate the heat.
- 2 medium tomatoes. Make sure they are perfectly ripe.
- ½ large or 1 small zucchini. You can sub this with an avocado or a cucumber or a bell pepper or 4-5 small radishes.
- 1 small or medium jalapeno pepper. Or any green chili pepper. You need about 1 tbsp, minced. Use less if sensitive to heat.
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro (coriander leaves). Fresh mint leaves are a fine substitute.
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Or lime juice. You can also use a tablespoon or two of vinegar instead.
- Salt to taste
How to make kachumber
- Chop all veggies to roughly the same size--a small dice is preferable. You should have roughly a cup of onions, a cup of tomatoes and a cup of zucchini.
- Add all vegetables to a bowl followed by the minced jalapeno, cilantro, lemon juice and salt.
- Toss well to mix. Let the kachumber stand 10 minutes for the flavors to marry, then serve.
Watch how to make kachumber
Serving suggestions
- Serve the kachumber with vegetable dhansak and Parsi brown rice, or with a simple dal, like dal tadka or Rajasthani panchmel dal. It can also add zest and zing to a rice dish like vegetable biryani, dum aloo biryani, soya pulao, navratan pulao or vegetable tehri.
- You can also add kachumber to burgers or roll it into wraps, like this vegetable frankie. Or scoop it up with chips, like a salsa!
Recipe FAQs
Any salad vegetable can be added to kachumber, including avocado, bell peppers, radish, cooked beets and green onions. If you use carrots or cabbage grate them or chop them really fine.
Kachumber is best eaten fresh, because the vegetables will express their juices once they've been cut and mixed with the other ingredients. For the best texture and flavor, make it no more than an hour before you eat it.
Leftovers can be stored in the fridge for a day or two but the vegetables will express their juices and become softer when stored. If using avocado, it is best to use up kachumber the same day because the avocado will discolor. This can be delayed a little but not completely by the lemon juice.
More tasty salad recipes
Recipe card
Kachumber
Video
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion (finely chopped)
- 2 medium tomatoes (finely diced)
- 1 small zucchini (or half of a large zucchini, finely diced)
- 1 small jalapeno pepper (minced. Deseed and remove ribs if sensitive to heat)
- 2 tablespoons cilantro (finely chopped. Mint is a fine substitute)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice (or lime juice, You can replace with a tablespoon or two of white vinegar)
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Chop all veggies to roughly the same size--a small dice is preferable. You should have roughly a cup of onions, a cup of tomatoes and a cup of zucchini, although it doesn't really matter if you go slightly over or under with one.
- Add all vegetables to a bowl followed by the minced jalapeno, cilantro, lemon juice and salt.
- Toss well to mix. Let the Kachumber stand 10 minutes for the flavors to marry, then serve.
Nutrition Information
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Firuza says
Very well explained....eagerly waiting to try it out.
Seems yummylicious.
Vaishali says
Thanks, hope you try it!
sudarsini says
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