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Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad)
Fine bulgur simmered in a brick-red sauce of onion, tomato, tomato and pepper pastes and lemon, left to swell and cool, then heaped with spring onion, parsley and red pepper and scooped up with lettuce or lavash.
Armenian · easy · serves 8
prep 20 min · cook 45 min · plus 1 h hands-off time
~276 cal · 8g protein · 43g carbs · 10g fat · 8g fiber · 7g sugars · 1g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Eetch, also spelled eech or itch, is an Armenian salad, red with tomato and pepper paste. It is served warm or at room temperature as an appetiser, on the meze table or as a side, and because it holds no meat or dairy it is a standby of the Armenian Church's many fast days, above all in Lent. Armenians sometimes call it "mock kheyma", a meatless answer to kheyma, the Armenian raw meat and dish.
It is often compared with tabbouleh, but the balance is the other way round. In tabbouleh the parsley is the star; in eetch it is the , which cooks in and soaks up a tangy sauce of onion softened in olive oil, crushed tomato, tomato paste, red pepper paste and plenty of lemon. The herbs, spring onions and fresh pepper go on top at the end.
Recipes pass down through families, and every grandmother's is a little different: some add cumin or Aleppo pepper, some chopped walnuts. It keeps well and tastes even better the next day, so a big dish of it is made ahead.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 2 medium onions, finely chopped, plus 1 small onion, finely chopped, to stir in with the bulgur
- 2 tbsp red pepper paste
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 can (800 g) crushed tomatoes
- 1/4 cup (about 1 large lemon) lemon juice
- 2 tsp salt, or to taste
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes or Aleppo pepper, to taste
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups (about 320 g) fine
- 1 bunch spring onions, chopped
- 1/2 bunch (about 30 g) flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
- 1 medium red bell pepper, finely diced
- 1 head romaine lettuce leaves, to serve
Instructions
- 1Heat the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan over medium heat and cook the 2 chopped onions for about 5 minutes, until soft and lightly golden.
- 2Stir in the red pepper paste and tomato paste, then add the crushed tomatoes, lemon juice, salt and pepper flakes. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- 3Add the water, the bulgur and the remaining small chopped onion and stir well. Cover and cook over the lowest heat for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the bulgur has absorbed the sauce and is tender. It should be thick and soft, like porridge.✎ Chef’s noteIf it looks dry before the bulgur is tender, add a few more spoonfuls of water.
- 4Taste and adjust the salt, lemon and heat. Spread it in a wide dish, cover and let it cool for at least 1 hour, or chill it.
- 5Just before serving, scatter the spring onions, parsley and diced red pepper over the top. Serve at room temperature or cool, with lettuce leaves or lavash for scooping.
Armenian home tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Yerevan. Ghapama is festive before it is seasonal, made mostly for New Year's Eve and the run up to Armenian Christmas on 6 January. The name means cooked in a covered pot, the pumpkin's own top goes back on as the lid, and the dish is loved enough to have a folk song attached to it.
🗺️
Armenia. Lavash was inscribed by UNESCO in 2014, and the inscription describes the whole practice: groups of women rolling the dough thin, stretching it over an oval cushion and slapping it onto the wall of a tonir, the conical clay oven sunk into the ground. It dries flat and keeps for months, and it is laid across the shoulders of newlyweds as a wish for prosperity.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Armenia
Ghapama (Stuffed Pumpkin)A whole pumpkin packed with rice, dried apricots, walnuts, and honey, baked until the shell is a spoonable bowl.
KhorovatsArmenian barbecue: marinated pork or lamb grilled over vine coals with fire-roasted vegetables.
Zhingyalov HatsThin flatbread stuffed with a dozen or more chopped herbs and greens, griddled until blistered.
Browse all Armenia recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Skillet or frying pan.
Storing it: Best assembled just before serving. Prep the components ahead and dress at the last moment so it stays crisp.
Make it an Armenia meal
Tan (Armenian Herbed Yogurt Drink)Drink
Ghapama (Stuffed Pumpkin)Dessert
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad)?
Fine bulgur simmered in a brick-red sauce of onion, tomato, tomato and pepper pastes and lemon, left to swell and cool, then heaped with spring onion, parsley and red pepper and scooped up with lettuce or lavash.
Where does Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) come from?
Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) is an Armenian dish from Yerevan, Armenia.
Can Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Eetch (Armenian Tomato and Bulgur Salad) take to make?
About 2 h 5 min in all: 20 minutes prep and 45 minutes cooking, plus 1 h of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 8.
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