Greek Bulgur Salad with Chicken

Another great recipe for summertime! This is basically a tabbouleh salad with chicken and feta cheese added to it. Could not be bad!
It is refreshing, tasty and filling, perfect for the hot days when we don’t want to get involved with too much cooking. It works great with any kind of leftover chicken you may have roasted or grilled, besides the idea of using rotisserie chicken as the recipes states. And a good thing about this salad is that it gets even better as it sits, so making it ahead of time is a plus in terms of flavors here!
This makes a ton of salad, and the one in the picture I made for a picnic we had with Matheus’ school friends. It was a hit and many asked for the recipe, so we (Matheus and me) were not the only ones to like this one!
In the picture you may notice that there is no cheese, and it is so because a few of the friends were allergic to it, so I actually had the feta cheese in a separate bowl and people added to their salad as they liked. However, if you can eat cheese, by any means throw it in the salad because it sure adds nice flavor to it!
And since we are on the subject of pictures, I want to apologize about my latest photos, something is going on with the camera and the pics are almost all getting sort of blurry… we are trying to figure out what it is, in the meantime I hope you can still get a good image of the goodies.
Ana

Greek Bulgur Salad with Chicken
4 1/2 cups water
3 cups uncooked medium bulgur
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 lemons), divided
2 teaspoons salt, divided
2 1/2 cups chopped skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast
2 1/2 cups chopped peeled cucumber
2 cups halved grape tomatoes
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
1/2 cup (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup extravirgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
10 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped (I added more, as 1 olive per person seemed to little to me!)

Combine water, bulgur, ½ cup juice, and 1-teaspoon salt in a large saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Uncover and cool to room temperature.
Combine remaining ¼ cup juice, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining ingredients in a large bowl; toss to combine. Add cooled bulgur mixture; toss well to combine. Cover and chill.
Yield: 10 servings (serving size: about 1 2/3 cups)