The Fun New Way To Enjoy Fattoush Salad Is To Scoop It With Pita Chips

If you're a foodie on TikTok you've certainly come across the trend of eating salads with a chip. It can all be traced back to the Green Goddess Salad from Melissa Ben-Ishay, or as you probably know her, Baked By Melissa. The video shows the teeny-tiny cupcake connoisseur finely chopping ingredients before tossing them into a spinach-infused dressing. But, rather than diving in with a fork, it's all sealed off with the satisfying, crunching sound of her biting into a green-goddess-topped tortilla chip. The salad was the number 6 top-searched recipe of 2022, but that chip shot alone changed the way that people eat salads for good.

No salad is complete without a little bit of crunch, and tortilla chips have always been a standard way of achieving that — Ben-Ishay's method of doing it is just a lot more fun, and it avoids the inevitable sogginess that happens when you toss them directly into your salad. The best part is that the TikTok chip-dipping method can be applied to any salad when the ingredients are chopped finely enough. In fact, salads like Fattoush, an Arabic salad made from leftover vegetables and pita from other meals, can benefit from a crunchy scoop. Rather than tossing the pita chips with the salad ingredients like you normally would, you can serve them on the side and simply dip them. It's a wonder how it took this long for any of us to think of it!

Originating in northern Lebanon, fattoush is a salad that imparts a fair amount of tradition — the majority of which has to do with the ancient history of pita. In fact, fattoush is derived from the Arabic word "fatteh" which means crumbs. The salad is a mixture of whatever leftover vegetables are on hand. Although it's traditionally made with cucumbers, cabbage, and chives, it can technically be made with anything — after all, it's the pita bread that makes fattoush, fattoush. Torn into pieces, fried in olive oil for a bit of extra flavor, and tossed into the salad with a dressing made from lemon, olive oil, and sumac, the day-old pita in your pantry doesn't go to waste with this dish.

With fattoush, the leftover pita bread that may have ended up in your garbage is made into a star ingredient. That is until it starts to absorb the dressing. In fact, most recipes recommend using extra dressing to account for how much the pita absorbs — but that doesn't do anything to help maintain the invaluable crunch it provides. While tradition is tradition, and you're more than valid in sticking with it, the best way to preserve your fattoush's crunchy factor is by serving it the "TikTok way": With the pita chips on the side. This way, your fattoush is almost like a salsa, and your pita is the chips that you can use to dip into it — giving you that good crunch each and every time.