Arabic Pickles for Shawarma (Lebanese Mukhalal)

Arabic pickles, often referred to as Lebanese pickles or shawarma pickles (mukhalal), are a popular and essential condiment served with shawarma and other Middle Eastern fare like falafel and kebabs.
They are typically vinegar-based and are known for their tangy, slightly sweet, and salty flavor with a satisfying crunch.
Appearance (Pink Pickles): The most iconic variety is the pink pickled turnip. The turnips, cut into sticks, get their vibrant pink or magenta color from adding a few slices of beetroot to the pickling brine.
Texture: They are intended to be crisp and crunchy, providing a textural contrast to the soft bread and rich meat in a shawarma wrap.
Common Vegetables: While the pink turnips are the star, other vegetables frequently pickled in a similar style include:
Beetroot (primarily for color)
Cucumbers
Carrots
Green chili peppers or garlic are often added for a subtle kick and flavor.
Flavor Profile: The pickling liquid (brine) is a mixture of water, white vinegar, salt, and often a little sugar for balance. Spices like garlic, peppercorns, coriander seeds, or bay leaves are sometimes included to enhance the flavor.
Purpose in Shawarma: The pickles cut through the richness of the meat, the creaminess of the sauce (like toum or tahini), and the warmth of the spices, adding a vital element of sourness and brightness.
Please check out my shawarma recipes also on YouTube.
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Today I’m sharing a handy recipe for Arabic pickles. These are tangy and crunchy pickled vegetables that are traditionally served with shawarma falafel and grilled meats across the Middle East. It’s a really quick recipe, but before that, I’d like to share these kitchen countertop adjustable racks that I recently purchased for the countertop. It helps me to organize my things. This one is adjustable in size. It’s quite sturdy and you can stack one on top of the other and organize your things so that you can get a little bit more counter space and just keep everything tidy. And this one is different. It’s non-adjustable, but it has a nice wooden finish. And I like that one, too. It’s even sturdier. And I like this for the corners. So, I like to move things around. Sometimes I put them in the kitchen cabinets, and that works well as well. You can stack them, and you can put your spice bottles above and below. It saves space and it looks nice. So, I just thought I’d share that if you’re looking for some quick storage or organizing ideas. Back to the recipe. So, for this traditional Arabic pickle recipe, we have some turnips, carrot, beetroot, chili, and garlic that’s going to be pickled. We have two mediumsized turnips here that I have peeled about 500 g. And we’re just going to cut them into similar size sticks like this. For the traditional Arabic pickle, the turnip is indeed the star. The carrots and green chilies are traditional in many families. And the beetroot is mainly for the rosy color. So next I have one carrot or one or two depending on the size peeled and cut into similar size sticks. Try to get the sticks as similar in size as possible. Sometimes we will end up with some odd ends. I just end up munching on these while I’m cooking. These pickled vegetables look beautiful on the countertop, so try to keep the pieces as uniforms sized as possible. Next, we have one small beetroot. And this, as I mentioned earlier, is mainly to add the rosy color to those turnips. So, we’ve chopped that as well into similar size sticks. And everything’s ready. But we also have some garlic and green chilies. This is mainly to flavor the vegetables. I have five large cloves of garlic. I’m slightly bruising them with my knife. And five or six medium-sized green chilies. Remove the stems. And you can cut through the green chilies if you want a spicier pickle or you can leave them whole. Now that our vegetables are ready, we can make the brine. To a saucepan, add 2 and 1/2 cups of water along with 1 and 1/4 cups of vinegar. [Music] Just going to turn on the heat. And we want this to come just to a boil. To season the brine, we’re adding 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of salt and about 1 tbsp of sugar. Stir till everything dissolves and bring it just to a brief boil. And then switch off the heat. And we want this to cool down. We want it to be a warm mixture, not hot, because we don’t want to cook the vegetables. Meanwhile, to a sterile glass jar, we’re going to add in those sliced vegetable sticks. And make sure they’re in layers so you have layers of turnip and carrot and beetroot along with the chili and garlic so that the color and the flavors distribute evenly in the brine. And then we can pour in the cooled brine. Remember, it’s just warm. it’s not hot. And then we can cap the jar loosely and leave it on the countertop for 3 days. After which I like to put it in the refrigerator. And if kept chilled, it lasts well over 2 weeks. These crunchy pickled vegetables are delicious along with your favorite shawarmas or falafil or falafel wraps or grilled meats. I hope you try the recipe. Thank you so much for watching. See you next time. Bye.