There are no more than 130 kcal per 100 grams of salad. If desired, this figure can be reduced, especially when serving vegetables, cheese and dressing separately.

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Cooking classics of the genre

First, we will describe the Greek salad according to the classic recipe with photos step by step, and for the appetizer we will leave secrets, tricks and variations. There will be a lot of them! Each stage contains the opportunity to do it differently - with the same appetizing, but new result.

We need the following vegetables -

Let's estimate piece by piece to get the proportion for quick cooking at home:

  • Cucumber - 2 pcs. (not small)
  • Tomato - 2 pcs. (not large, variety with dense pulp)
  • Bell pepper - 1 pc.
  • Crimean onion (blue) - 1 pc. (the average size)
  • Olives - 20 pcs., large, pitted
  • Feta cheese - 80-100 g
  • Oregano (oregano) - ½ teaspoon of dry herb
  • Extra virgin olive oil - 2-3 tablespoons
  • Lemon juice - 1-1.5 tablespoons
  • Salt, pepper - to taste

How to cook:

  • Cut tomatoes and cucumbers into large pieces (2-2.5 cm). You can peel the cucumbers if the skin is too hard for you.
  • Cut the blue onion into rings or half rings. For a family where raw onions are treated with caution, the cuts are thinner, into quarter rings.
  • We clean the pepper from seeds and internal white membranes and cut into large squares - about 2-2.5 cm.
  • The olives can be left whole. Very large ones - cut in half.
  • Place the vegetables in a large bowl and stir gently. Two large spatulas will help. Salt and pepper to taste, not forgetting how salty the cheese is.
  • Whisk olive oil with lemon juice to create a sauce. Dress the salad and sprinkle with oregano - a pinch at a time, slightly rubbing the herb in your fingers.
  • We cut the feta cheese into large pieces, comparable to slicing cucumbers, and place them in a picturesque disorder on top of the salad. One last pinch of oregano and the salad is ready - amazingly simple!

What else can you do with the ingredients?

Onions: pre-marinate. The simplest way is to sprinkle chopped onions with a mixture of vinegar (3 parts) and sugar (2 parts), add a little salt, let stand for 25-30 minutes, drain the juice and add the slices to other vegetables. Or cut the onion smaller - into quarters and eighths of rings. Or take two varieties - white and blue in a ratio of 1:2, or even 1:1 (especially vigorous white onions in this case should be softened by pickling). Or replace a quarter of the onion with garlic cloves. A nuance is important here: chop the garlic into small cubes with a knife.

Olives: cut larger or smaller, do not cut at all, replace with olives or capers (this is the case when something exotic for us is an everyday ingredient for the Greeks).

Cucumbers: naturally, play with the cutting. Or otherwise peel for large pieces, alternating between removing the skin in strips. It is especially quick to work with a manual vegetable peeler using a peeler: remove a strip, leave a strip, and so on in a circle. We will get a zebra cucumber, and the “back” of each piece in the salad will be white and green.

Tomatoes: take another variety, several varieties, or focus on cherry tomatoes, cutting them in half. Let's not forget about colors: for example, let's combine red and orange tomatoes. This not only looks more impressive, but also gives the salad meatiness, reducing the sourness - thanks to the rich and low-acid orange tomatoes. Plus, you can peel the tomatoes! Yes, yes, just imagine: large, juicy, immaculately soft large pieces - who would refuse this option?!

Pepper: again an ode to multicolor, which is most interesting when cut into thin strips. We also have an unusual idea in store. It slightly increases the labor intensity, but breaks all records for the delight of people who have tried this option. So, take a look at the red, fleshy, thick-walled pepper as an object for cleaning. You will need a sharp knife or a sharpened peeler. This approach is very popular in sophisticated southern cuisine, where the idea of ​​the Greeks has long been adopted by itself. The south of France, Italy, Bulgaria, Odessa, Kherson and Crimea: if they want to give a classic Greek salad an elevated and delicate taste, they start by peeling peppers and tomatoes.

How to replace feta cheese

Salted cheese, including goat cheese, which is easy to find at any market.

Or large pieces of processed cheese with a strong flavor (greens, smoked meats, but not tomatoes!), with a little more salt.

The option with Dutch cheese is also good, but make the pieces smaller. Yes, this will not be a pure classic. But who knows, maybe your family won’t like it much more? Husbands are often conservative, and they understand Dutch cheese and goat cheese much more than overseas feta.

Is it possible to add meat and what kind?

Personal taste rules the show! It's best to rely on the cheese you use: the saltiest one is fresh boiled chicken.

Did you risk depriving your salad of traditional cheese? Something smoked, well salted. But such a salad will not store well; the dissonance between fresh vegetables and smoked meats is too great.

In addition to meat, you can add mushrooms to the salad: not only champignons, but even the simplest pickled chanterelles. The main thing is to thoroughly rinse them from mucus and dry them. The perfection of a simple base and your imagination are the best team for creativity!

Submission tricks

Pros of serving in large pieces: those who don’t like olives can easily remove them. The same goes for thick onion rings.

Sometimes the salad even looks like the simplest cutting of vegetables with cheese, so large slices are placed on a dish - without much stirring.

Portion serving in Greek restaurants is often extremely laconic: you get a deep plate with no sliced ​​cheese. All the feta lies in a piece - right on top of the vegetable slices, leaving you to choose what to do with it.

You can serve the sauce in the same way - in a separate container for each serving. There’s a convenient, everyday twist to this: as long as the salad isn’t covered in sauce, it keeps better.

Helpful advice

It is beneficial to dress the salad only after serving portions. This way you can keep the slices in the refrigerator longer if your family doesn’t get enough of the vitamin happiness at one time.

Olive oil, lemon juice and oregano- the classic Greek salad began with this sauce, which we reflected above in the recipe with step-by-step photos. But don't be afraid of other seasonings and herbs! The dish will easily accept coarsely torn leaves of curly lettuce and thin strips of wild garlic. You can add basil, thyme and parsley if you prefer.

And now let’s smile intriguingly... And fill up the next portion honey mustard sauce. It’s easy to prepare the sauce: mild mustard (can be with grains), honey and olive oil in a ratio of 1:1:2, whisk. If the sauce is thick, add more oil.

The culinary hallmark of Greece is so inviting to variations that you will inevitably come to try less salty cheese, for example, by preparing a salad with lightly salted feta cheese. And here the third recipe for dressing will come in handy - with soy sauce, traditionally salty and rich.

Cooking, as before, is simple - whisk the ingredients. We need: olive oil 2 tablespoons + soy sauce 1 tablespoon + apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon + mustard (medium or mild) 1 teaspoon.

What else is added to Greek salad toppings and dressings?

  • Other oils (mustard, corn sesame - for the sake of aroma);
  • Bread crumbs or fried salted crackers (crushed by hand with a rolling pin);
  • Garlic pressed through a garlic press (by the way, one of the most despised methods from cooking gurus who consider chopping garlic at any opportunity to be the first sign of a master). Well, a guru is a guru, who else suits a peacock’s tail?!... You say the same! (c) And do it your own way.

Our carefully collected ideas for the culinary brand of Greece await additions in the comments. Which option do you like? Shrimp, pieces of fluffy omelette, grainy cottage cheese, Chinese cabbage. All of them also work well with the universal Greek salad, the classic recipe for which with step-by-step photos is always waiting for you at the beginning of the article.

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(5 out of 5)

The classic Greek salad recipe is the most popular and easiest to prepare. This dish is often served in cafes and restaurants. It can also be easily prepared at home.

The main advantage of this wonderful dish is that its ingredients do not require heat treatment. All you have to do is chop the vegetables coarsely, add cheese and season all the ingredients with delicious butter and lemon juice.

Tomatoes and cucumbers for Greek salad should be dense and meaty. Ideally, onions should be sweet, without a pronounced smell. Crimean (blue) onions are perfect for salad. If desired, it can be marinated in water with the addition of a small amount of vinegar.

Ingredients

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Calorie content

Calories per 100 g
188 kcal

Squirrels
3.9 g

Fats
17.8 g

Carbohydrates
3.4 g


Preparation

  • Step 1

    Peel the bell pepper from the seeds and cut into large pieces (squares, about 1.5 - 2 cm). Place it in a large bowl in which it would be convenient to mix vegetables.

  • Step 2

    Cut cucumbers and tomatoes into large pieces. It is advisable to choose large and dense cucumbers. If the skin on them is too hard, it is better to remove it and cut the cucumber itself into cubes or half rings - as you like.

  • Step 3

    We also peel the onion and cut it into half rings. If it has too strong a smell, it is better to marinate it in cold boiled water with the addition of a small amount of table vinegar.

  • Step 4

    Typically, the classic recipe contains whole pitted black olives. However, if desired, they can be cut in half or cut into rings.

  • Step 5

    Mix all the vegetables, salt and pepper to taste. Please note that the cheese will add its saltiness to the dish, so it is better to salt the vegetables moderately.

  • Step 6

    We are preparing the dressing. To do this, mix olive oil and lemon juice in a separate bowl and whisk thoroughly with a fork.

  • Step 7

    Pour the sauce over the salad and sprinkle it with oregano.

  • Step 8

    We place our dish on serving plates and add feta cheese cut into large pieces on top. If desired, it can be replaced with fetax or feta cheese.

  • Step 9

    Sprinkle the salad with a little more oregano and serve. The finished Greek salad looks very appetizing and is rich in vitamins. You can eat it as a separate dish or together with meat dishes and even fish. Bon appetit!

How to replace Feta cheese in salad

    Feta cheese is typically used when preparing a Greek salad. This cheese has a pleasant curd flavor and goes well with vegetables and olive oil.

    If you don’t have Feta cheese on hand, you can easily replace it with pickled cheeses. For a Greek salad, you can use feta cheese instead of feta. However, do not forget that feta cheese is usually saltier, so you should salt vegetables in moderation.

    By the way, removing excess salt from cheese is also quite easy. So, it can be placed in milk or cold water (mineral water can be used) and left for 12 hours.

    Some housewives prefer to add Imeretian or Adyghe cheese when preparing Greek salad. Fans of vegetarian dishes can add tofu - it will be not only tasty, but also healthy!

Simple, appetizing and delicious Greek salad has long been loved by our compatriots due to its ease of preparation and its beneficial properties. Indeed, the salad, the recipe for which we will consider today, is a real vitamin bouquet with a rich taste and excellent appearance.

In fact, there are quite a lot of recipes for traditional Greek salad. They may differ in the composition of vegetables, types of cheese and, of course, types of dressing.

Another significant advantage of Greek salad is its low calorie content. So, 100 g of this product contains no more than 135 kcal, which will especially please people watching their figure.

You can easily prepare a classic Greek salad at home. We have selected for you some of the best Greek salad recipes that are suitable for preparing a tasty and healthy lunch for every day.

The idea of ​​adding croutons to the salad is rather borrowed from the traditional Caesar recipe. Nevertheless, this option also has the right to life. Crautons make Greek salad more nutritious. In addition, they go well with the taste of cheese and add new flavor notes to the dish.

Ingredients:

  • Fresh cucumbers – 1 piece
  • Olives – 7 pcs.
  • Cherry tomatoes – 10 pcs
  • White bread – 50 g
  • Olive oil – 100 ml
  • Lemon juice – 20 ml
  • Spices, herbs - to taste
  • Salt - to taste

Preparation:

  1. Making a salad with croutons is very simple. First, cut white bread into large pieces and fry the bread in olive oil in a frying pan. If desired, you can squeeze a clove of garlic into the frying pan to give the crackers a pleasant aroma and piquant taste.
  2. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. Cut the cucumbers into thin strips.
  3. Place vegetables on serving plates and add olives.
  4. Season our dish with olive oil, add lemon juice and sprinkle with spices and herbs. If desired, the salad can be lightly salted.
  5. Place croutons on top of the salad and serve immediately. Bon appetit!

Remember that crackers get soggy quickly. That is why they should be added immediately before serving the dish!

Greek salad with lettuce leaves

If you want to add some zest to your Greek salad, try making it with pine nuts. Such nuts will not only make the dish more nutritious and healthy, but will also add new flavor notes to it.

Ingredients:

  • Meaty pepper – 1 piece
  • Tomatoes – 2 pcs.
  • Large cucumber – 1 piece
  • Lettuce leaves – 5 pcs.
  • Feta cheese – 100 g
  • Olive oil – 50 ml
  • Salt, pepper - to taste
  • Spices (oregano) - to taste

Preparation:

  1. Cut the bell pepper into large pieces and place in a deep bowl.
  2. Add chopped cucumbers to the pepper (can be cut into cubes, half rings or even rings), as well as tomatoes.
  3. We tear the lettuce leaves with our hands and add them to the vegetables.
  4. Add cheese.
  5. Season the salad with olive oil. Add salt and spices to taste.

In the classic version, Greek salad is seasoned with oregano (oregano). However, you can use any other spices or herbs you like, such as parsley, dill, cilantro, ground pepper, etc. By the way, if desired, olive oil can be mixed with 1/3 teaspoon of mustard or 2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice. It will be even tastier!

Classic salad recipe with cheese and olives

If you don’t like the options with feta cheese, you can prepare an equally tasty and more nutritious Greek salad with feta cheese and olives. Cheese cheese will give the dish a more piquant taste and make it even more interesting.

Ingredients:

  • Bell pepper – 1 piece
  • Tomato – 3 pcs.
  • Cheese cheese – 150 g
  • Olives (olives) – 100 g
  • Blue onion – 1 piece
  • Olive oil – 100 g
  • Salt - to taste

Preparation:

  1. Wash, remove seeds and cut the pepper into rings.
  2. Cut the tomatoes into slices and place in a deep bowl.
  3. Cut the onion into rings. If desired, marinate.
  4. Add the diced cheese.
  5. Olives can be left whole or cut into slices.
  6. Add oil and mix thoroughly. Salt if desired.

The salad with cheese turns out very tender, beautiful and tasty. It can be served as a separate dish or along with meat dishes.

Making a classic Greek salad dressing

In Greece, a very simple sauce based on olive oil and spices is usually prepared for dressing. Let's try to prepare a traditional Greek salad dressing.

Ingredients:

  • Olive oil – 120 ml
  • Lemon juice – 60 ml
  • Salt, ground pepper - to taste
  • Oregano – ½ teaspoon

Preparation:

  1. Pour olive oil into a small bowl or bowl.
  2. Add freshly squeezed lemon juice, salt and pepper.
  3. Grind the dried oregano and add it to the oil.
  4. Mix thoroughly with a fork.
  5. Season the salad with the resulting sauce and serve.

By the way, many chefs prefer to add spices and salt directly to the dish before serving. The sauce is prepared by mixing oil and lemon juice.

Low-calorie Greek salad dressing

This type of dressing has little in common with the traditional one. However, many housewives, especially those who watch their figure, prefer to use it because of its low calorie content. So, a similar salad sauce is made from natural yogurt. Lemon juice and wine vinegar are another way to get rid of extra calories.

Ingredients:

  • Natural yogurt – 150 ml
  • Lemon juice – 2 tbsp. spoons
  • Garlic – 1 clove
  • Wine vinegar (red) – 10 ml
  • Salt, pepper - to taste

Preparation:

  1. Pour yogurt into a bowl or deep plate.
  2. Add fresh lemon juice to it.
  3. Squeeze out a clove of garlic.
  4. Add wine vinegar.
  5. Salt and pepper if desired.
  6. Mix all ingredients thoroughly and season the salad.

Greek salad with natural yogurt turns out tender and light. It tastes in no way inferior to the traditional one, but helps get rid of extra calories. By the way, if you don't like garlic, you can simply omit it. You can also add finely chopped fresh dill to the sauce, which will make the dish even more aromatic and tasty.

Spicy sauce for Greek salad

If you want to give your Greek salad a new flavorful twist, try making a special spicy sauce for it. Spices can be selected according to your own taste. You can also add a little herbs, such as parsley or cilantro, if desired.

Ingredients:

  • Garlic – 1 clove
  • Olive oil – 70 g
  • Ground pepper - to taste
  • Salt - to taste
  • Honey – 1 tsp
  • Lemon or lime juice – 1 tbsp. l

Preparation:

  1. Pour olive oil into a bowl or plate and squeeze in lemon or lime juice.
  2. Add a little honey. Honey will neutralize the acid and make the sauce more refined and delicate.
  3. Squeeze a clove of garlic and add ground pepper to taste.
  4. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Salt to taste.

The prepared spicy sauce can be immediately added to the salad or left in a closed container in the refrigerator. If desired, during dressing, you can chop a little greenery and mix it with the resulting sauce.

Another delicious dressing recipe includes mustard, honey and lemon juice. By the way, you can also use it to season other vegetable salads.

Ingredients:

  • Vegetable oil – 100 g
  • Ready mustard – 0.5 teaspoon
  • Honey – 20 g
  • ½ lemon
  • Salt, pepper - to taste

Preparation:

  1. Pour vegetable oil into a bowl.
  2. Add mustard and juice of half a lemon.
  3. If the honey is liquid, immediately add it to the rest of the ingredients. It is better to preheat the candied honey so that it becomes liquid.
  4. Mix all ingredients and taste. Add salt and ground pepper if desired.
    Pour the prepared dressing over the salad and serve. It turns out very tasty! Bon appetit.

Soy sauce based salad dressing

Soy sauce is perfect for dressing vegetable salad. To do this, you need to mix it with lemon juice and olive oil, and if desired, add a little honey to adjust the acidity.

Products:

  • Honey – 20 g
  • Soy sauce – 40 ml
  • Lemon juice – 25 ml
  • Olive oil – 90 ml

Preparation:

  1. Mix olive oil, soy sauce and honey in a bowl.
  2. Squeeze lemon juice and mix all ingredients thoroughly.
  3. Let's taste it. Depending on the salinity level of the soy sauce, you can adjust the flavor of the dressing by increasing the amount of lemon juice or honey.

We dress our salad and serve. Bon appetit!

What is a real Greek salad? If you ask this question to your friends, you will not hear a single identical answer. Maybe once this name hid only one recipe, but today several versions of this salad can be called classic. There is even a version of Greek salad for the winter in a jar. The Greeks would have choked to hear about this.

So let's look at a real classic version of Greek salad, and then move on to variations.

Step-by-step recipe for classic Greek salad with photos

The classic recipe contains neither crackers nor mayonnaise. This is a purely vegetable salad with olive oil dressing.

Ingredients:

  • Cucumbers - 3 pieces medium size
  • Tomatoes - 3 medium size
  • Sweet bell pepper - 2 pcs.
  • Pitted olives - 1 can (420 g)
  • Green salad - 100 g
  • Feta cheese, fetaxa, fetaki, sirtaki or other similar
  • Salt, pepper - to taste

For refueling:

  • Unrefined olive oil - 100 ml
  • Small lemon - 1 piece
  • Basil - 1 teaspoon
  • Rosemary - 1/2 teaspoon
  • Oregano (oregano) - 1 teaspoon

Preparation:

1. Wash cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers and cut into large pieces.

The peculiarity of the salad is that the vegetables are chopped coarsely. They are supposed to be strung one at a time on a fork and eaten, dipped in dressing.

The cucumber can be peeled or left unpeeled. Just remember to cut off the ends.


Bell peppers must be cleared of seeds and membranes. The color of the pepper does not play a special role. It's just that red and yellow are a little sweeter than green.


We cut the tomatoes into pieces, after removing the stems.


2. Place the vegetables in one bowl and add olives to them

Olives are the same olives, only black. Green unripe fruits are called olives, and ripe ones turn black and are called olives. Such division exists only in our country

Mix.


3. Place the lettuce leaves on a serving plate and carefully place the vegetables on it.


4. Prepare the dressing.

Squeeze lemon juice into a bowl (we no longer need the lemon itself) and add olive oil to it.


Add rosemary, basil and oregano and mix well. The gas station is ready.


5. Carefully cut the cheese into cubes.

To prevent the knife from sticking to the cheese, wet the blade with water before each cut.


6. Place the cheese pieces into the salad. Salt, pepper and pour the prepared dressing over it.

There is no need to stir anything, otherwise the cheese will fall apart.


Salad ready. Bon appetit!

How to cook Greek salad with feta cheese and Chinese cabbage

In this recipe we will replace fetaki cheese with feta cheese, and lettuce with Chinese cabbage. And if replacing cheese does not greatly affect the final appearance and taste of the dish, then using cabbage will have a rather strong effect. It is not a decoration element, but an equal ingredient that turns the salad into the most dietary one.


Ingredients for 1 serving of salad:

  • Chinese cabbage leaves - 2 pcs.
  • Cucumber - 1 pc.
  • Bell pepper - 1 piece
  • Garlic - 3 cloves
  • Olive oil – 50 ml
  • Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
  • Dry herb mixture - 1 tsp

Preparation:

1. Cut the cabbage leaves into strips about 1 cm wide.


2. Peel the bell pepper from seeds and peel and cut into thin strips.


3. Chop the cucumber finely too.

This recipe calls for fine chopping so that you can fit several different vegetables on your fork at once.


4. Cut the cheese into cubes. This cheese has a rather crumbly structure, so let’s not try to preserve it and try to cut into perfect cubes - it will still fall apart.


5. Combine all the ingredients in one bowl and add olives or olives to them.

By the way, if olives are black, this does not mean that they are ripe fruits. Sometimes manufacturers take green ones and dye them black using a special chemical reaction.


6. Prepare the sauce.

To do this, mix the oil with lemon juice and dry herbs. You can choose the herbs according to your own taste; anyway, there is little left of the traditional Greek salad.

Add garlic squeezed through a garlic press and mix.


7. All that remains is to pour the sauce into a bowl with vegetables and mix everything well.


Dietary Greek salad is ready. Bon appetit!

Classic Greek salad: video recipe with fetax like in a restaurant

While we have not yet gone very far from the classics, I suggest you see how the creators themselves prepare it. Pay attention to how coarsely the ingredients are cut.

Greek salad with croutons and chicken

Well, now a non-standard recipe, which, over time, nevertheless became a classic. A version of this salad can be called Greek due to the presence of olives and pickled cheese. If you think the main ingredients are croutons and chicken, then call it Caesar with olives. It doesn't matter. The main thing is that it is very tasty.


Ingredients:

  • Chicken fillet – 100 g
  • Olives (pitted) - 70 g
  • Half an onion
  • Cucumbers – 2 pcs.
  • Sweet pepper - 1 pc.
  • Tomatoes (medium) - 2 pcs.
  • Lettuce leaves - 5-6 pcs.
  • Feta cheese or feta cheese – 100 gr
  • Olive oil - 3 tbsp
  • Salt, Provençal herbs - to taste
  • Bread - 4-5 slices

Preparation:

1. Pre-boil the chicken breast for 15-20 minutes and then cut into cubes.

You can fry the breast after cutting it into pieces, but then the salad will turn out to be too greasy


2. Prepare crackers.

Cut off the crusts from the bread and cut it into cubes 1-2 cm in size.


Fry the bread in a preheated frying pan with olive oil until golden brown (literally 2-3 minutes).


3. Wash the lettuce leaves well and then dry them just as well with paper napkins. Then place them on the plate in which the salad will be served.


4. Cut cucumbers and tomatoes into cubes or slices and place directly on lettuce leaves.


Greek salad will be even more beautiful if you use purple or red onions.

And the last ingredient is sweet pepper, cut into cubes, after removing seeds and membranes, and add to the salad.


At this stage, you can add a little salt to the salad, but we will not mix it.

6. The next step is to add boiled and chopped chicken and olives to the salad.


7. Cut Fetax cheese (or any other similar cheese - Feta, sirtaki, feta cheese) into cubes, put it in the salad and sprinkle with croutons.


8. The last step is to sprinkle the salad with olive oil and add a pinch of dry Provençal herbs or oregano.


Greek salad with chicken and croutons is ready. Bon appetit!

Well, I hope the article was useful to you and you found the option that you prefer.

Thank you for your attention.

“Greek” salad, which came to us from the country of the same name, is a frequent guest on the table, whether festive or ordinary. The Greek salad recipe at home is easy to prepare, it only takes 10 minutes maximum. A tasty, cheap, and also very healthy snack is Greek salad with croutons. Treat your family to this treat, cook with us!

One recipe for this salad includes vegetables, creamy Feta and dressing. The dish turns out to be light, but at the same time satisfying due to the cream cheese, which, together with the butter dressing, provides the main calorie content.

What you need for Greek salad:

  • Tomatoes – 140 g;
  • Fresh cucumbers – 130 g;
  • Sweet pepper – 110 g;
  • Olives – 80 g;
  • Cheese – 150 g;
  • Purple onion – 90 g;
  • Green salad leaves – 140 g;
  • Sunflower oil – 40 ml;
  • Salt - 12 g;
  • Black pepper – 6 g;
  • Juice of half a lemon.

Greek salad - a simple recipe:

  1. Fresh vegetables must be prepared in advance for further cooking. Processing vegetables involves washing each product and then drying it so that there is no excess moisture in the dish.
  2. Cut the tomatoes into slices, not forgetting to get rid of the stalk, cucumbers - into rings, not forgetting to trim the edges of the fruit.
  3. The pepper should be separated from the seeds and chopped into thin strips.
  4. Peel the onion, cut in half and chop into half rings.
  5. Tear green lettuce leaves into large leaves with your hands.
  6. First put green leaves in a large bowl, then tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, purple onions, pour olives from a jar.
  7. Feta crumbles very well, this cheese is difficult to cut into even cubes, so you need to break it into pieces and add to a common bowl.
  8. To make the dressing, mix the oil and lemon juice, add salt and pepper.
  9. Season the salad with the resulting sauce and mix.

Greek salad - a simple recipe

In fact, a “Greek” salad can look quite simplified, include very few products, but at the same time remain just as tasty and rich. The most important thing is to know the required proportions and ingredients.

Ingredients needed (for 4 servings):

  • Tomatoes – 230 g;
  • Cheese – 140 g;
  • Greens – 50 g;
  • Salad – 60 g;
  • Sweet pepper – 110 g;
  • Olives – 90 g;
  • Vegetable oil – 50 ml;
  • Salt – 13 g;
  • Dry oregano – 22 g.

Simple Greek salad - preparation:

  1. Wash the tomatoes and wipe with paper napkins. Cut into large pieces.
  2. Rinse the bell pepper, remove seeds from the fruit, and chop coarsely.
  3. Rinse greens and lettuce leaves and dry.
  4. Tear lettuce leaves into pieces.
  5. Break the cheese into pieces.
  6. To season with olive oil, add dry oregano and salt.
  7. Place tomatoes, peppers in a deep bowl, pour in olives, add washed herbs to your liking, add cheese and lettuce pieces.
  8. Pour over the dressing and stir.

You can also try cooking, the preparation of which will not take much of your time.

Delicious Greek salad - recipe

Avocado has a wonderful, buttery taste and delicate texture. Many people love adding this fruit to salad, and in combination with cream cheese, the result is simply wonderful.

Ingredients required (for 4 servings):

  • Tomatoes – 120 g;
  • Fresh cucumbers – 140 g;
  • Sweet pepper (yellow) – 130 g;
  • Pitted olives – 70 g;
  • Cheese – 110 g;
  • Sweet onion – 80 g;
  • Green lettuce leaves – 130 g;
  • Avocado – 120 g;
  • Vegetable oil – 40 ml;
  • Salt - 12 g;
  • Black pepper – 6 g;
  • Juice of half a lemon.

Greek salad step by step:

  1. Vegetables need to be processed in advance. It is worth rinsing them under running water and then drying them with paper towels. Be sure to disassemble the salad into leaves, and only then wash it so that no dirt remains near the root.
  2. Cut the tomatoes into slices, without the stalk, cucumbers into rings, cutting off both sides.
  3. The bell pepper needs to be peeled and chopped.
  4. Peel the onion and cut into halves of rings.
  5. Cut green lettuce leaves into arbitrary segments.
  6. Peel the skin from the avocado and scoop out the ripe pulp with a spoon. Then you need to cut it into cubes.
  7. Place salad on a serving plate, then tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, sweet onions, add olives and avocado.
  8. To make the dressing, mix the oil with lemon juice, add salt and pepper.
  9. Grind the cheese and put it in the sauce, let it brew for a while.
  10. Pour the dressing over the salad and stir all the ingredients.

Greek salad without olives has a huge number of variations, each of which is sure to find its consumer. After all, the classic dish recipe is loved by many, and varieties of snacks with original additives are sometimes so unusual that they can surprise anyone, even the most inveterate gourmet.

Encyclopedia of Greek salad: ingredients, dressings, rules, tips, classic Greek salad recipe and its many modifications:

The most famous Mediterranean salad

Let's start with the incredible: in Greece there is everything except... Greek salad! No, of course, in numerous restaurants aimed at welcoming and entertaining foreign tourists, the staff has learned well that when asked whether they have the above-mentioned salad on the menu, they should answer in the affirmative and at the same time vigorously nod their heads to hide their own attitude to such a widespread myth. However, the truth is that what we call Greek salad, in Greece itself (as well as in many other Mediterranean countries) is called dozens of different names, among which there is not only the one to which we are accustomed.

The most common local "name" that a hero bears today’s article is “village salad” (in the original language - χωριάτικη σαλάτα, “horyatiki salad”), which very eloquently, accurately and completely reflects the essence of the treat served to guests: natural products, affordable, amazing in quality. The second common name is banal and obvious: vegetable salad. However, they say that over the past few decades, another name for Greek salad has come into use among Greeks - Russian salad: apparently, our compatriots order it en masse in restaurants, tightly linking the Greek dish with their own customs.

To avoid any further confusion, let's just agree that Let’s allow ourselves to make allowances for our own traditions and call a dish of fresh vegetables and cheese, which is widely prepared in Mediterranean countries, a Greek salad, however, at the same time, we will certainly keep a small notch in our minds as a reminder of how correctly it should be called.

So, let's go over the basic components of a Greek salad, shall we? Special The value of this dish is due to the fact that it contains almost everything that a person needs: proteins, fats, carbohydrates. A portion of a delicious salad, rich in taste and charming in its color saturation - and we can consider that a full meal has taken place. The salad recipe is optimal: such a lunch not only gives you a feeling of fullness for a long time, but also normalizes metabolism, delicately cleanses the intestines, and saturates the body with useful substances and microelements.

Ingredients for Greek Salad

Tomatoes

If you think that Greek salad can be made from semi-plastic, tasteless and odorless greenhouse tomatoes that lie in neat, beautiful rows on supermarket shelves, you are committing a crime against the entire Greek healthy eating culture.

A prerequisite for a real Greek salad is aromatic tomatoes grown in the open ground, preferably farm or village tomatoes. Ideally, tomatoes grown with your own hands in your personal garden.

There are no restrictions regarding the variety of tomatoes. Depending on your personal preferences, you can choose fleshy red tomatoes, juicy pink ones, rich black ones, or discreet yellow ones.

cucumbers

The rule regarding the method of growing tomatoes is equally true for cucumbers: the fruits should be fresh, firm, juicy and very aromatic. Limp green sticks, which are offered in abundance in modern stores, are absolutely not suitable for Greek salad.

If a crazy thought runs through your head to peel the skins from the fruit, take a good old broom and shoo it away. No self-respecting Greek would deprive cucumbers of their important component!

bell pepper

We remember again that Greek salad is a rustic and simple dish, and we pass by the ideal bell peppers that can be purchased at the supermarket. If you don’t have access to a private garden, your destination is a farmer’s market, where grannies with string bags, sturdy grandpas on bicycles, and lively, rosy-cheeked young ladies in colorful scarves come.

Choose elastic fruits with a fresh stalk: if it has wilted, this indicates that the pepper was picked several days, or even weeks ago. They can be used for stuffing or making sauces, but they are completely unsuitable as a component of Greek salad.

Feta

Do you want to make a Greek salad or a salad similar to Greek? This point is very important when it comes to cheese. The fact is that, according to a decision approved in 2007 in the EU, feta can only be called cheese of Greek origin, made from cow's or sheep's milk. Anything you buy in stores with that name that is not made in Greece is not feta.

Thus, it turns out that an authentic Greek salad can only be prepared using cheese brought from a distant and sunny country on the Mediterranean coast. You can buy real feta in supermarkets, but few people dare to spend a lot of money on something that has domestic analogues that are no less worthy and of high quality. Which cheese to buy to make a real Greek salad, of course, is up to you to decide.

Olives

To make a Greek salad, you will need quality pitted olives. When choosing a product, try to avoid anything canned in metal cans with attractive labels; look for small shops that specialize in selling goods from Italy or Greece - it is in these shops that you can buy pickled olives and black olives of the highest quality. You want juicy, firm fruits that are a beautiful chocolate color with a distinct eggplant tint. Options with filling inside are good and tasty, but are completely unsuitable for making a real Greek salad.

Olive oil

Many famous chefs believe that high-quality olive oil is a third of the key to success: it is what unites disparate components into a single whole, enveloping them in the extraordinary spirit of the Mediterranean. Naturally, we are talking about extra virgin olive oil, which is obtained by mechanical extraction.

This oil does not contain any additives, has a rich taste and aroma and is extremely beneficial for human health. Please note that the color of Extra Virgin Olive Oil should not be close to yellow and amber tones, but rather green - thick, rich and grassy. The taste of this oil is very characteristic - it is barely perceptibly bitter, stunning with a mixture of salty, sour and sweet, striking in its richness, surprising in its subtlety.

Onion

Those in the know say that the perfect taste of a Greek salad largely depends on how you prepare the onions. Yes, yes, just cook it - there are a lot of recipes for Greek salad on the Internet, but only a few sources lift the veil and say that before adding onions to the salad, you should remove bitterness, harshness and anger from it. The taste of this dish should make you love the world and enjoy people, so you need to peel the onion, cut it into rings and put it in the marinade prepared in advance for a couple of minutes: a little hot water, salt, a spoonful of sugar. When removing the onion from the marinade, under no circumstances should we squeeze it or deform it; it should remain intact and beautiful.

Oregano

Oregano is the main Greek culinary herb, it is added wherever possible - the taste of many Greek dishes has an "oregano" accent. You can, of course, season the salad with Italian basil, French rosemary or Georgian cilantro, but it won't be quite a Greek salad, or even a Greek salad at all. Oregano (although it is nothing more than oregano) is a magical herb, do not neglect it if you decide to experience the true taste of an authentic classic dish.

Classic Greek salad recipe

Of course, there is no need to talk about any clear recipe with the exact amount of each ingredient, however, a certain formula-proportion can be derived. A basic Greek salad recipe is needed for orientation - once you feel the overall balance of ingredients, you can experiment and play with additives to suit your own taste.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cucumber;
  • 1 tomato;
  • 1/3 bell pepper;
  • 1/2 blue onion;
  • 5-7 olives;
  • 80 g feta;
  • salt, a pinch of dry oregano;
  • 50 ml olive oil.

How to make Greek salad

Wash the vegetables, cut them into large pieces. Place in a salad bowl.
Peel the onion, cut into half rings, and marinate a little if desired. Place in a salad bowl.
Add olives without brine.
Salt. Mix carefully.
Place a few slices of cheese on top of the vegetables. Even more correctly - solid - one! - hunk. This is an old village tradition. Different from the modern fast food style of cutting feta into cubes.
Sprinkle with oregano.
Drizzle the salad generously with olive oil and serve. Can be with a slice of lemon.

Dressings and dressings for Greek salad

The classic Greek salad is dressed with premium olive oil, however, variations are also allowed that will diversify the taste of the salad and make it interesting and unusual.

Try making a dressing using olive oil and lemon juice. You can add a little white wine and balsamic vinegar. A drop of honey, soy sauce, narsharab, a little grain mustard, and orange zest will make the dressing even more original.

The main rule for preparing salad dressing is that the sauce should be very rich in taste, but pleasant. If you have prepared the dressing, but you don’t like it (yes, you must try it first!), the salad will not fix it; rather, it will ruin the salad itself.

Ways to diversify a classic recipe

There are many options that allow you to diversify the usual village salad. In some recipes, it certainly includes lettuce. Lightly salted salmon and canned tuna, boiled cold pasta and baked bell peppers, cooked lentils and raw cauliflower, capers and anchovies, avocado and mushrooms - everyone chooses additives according to their taste and budget.

By the way, another option is endive leaves. They are good not only for their extra flavor - they are great for serving salad in portions. It turns out unusual and stylish.

Serving options

Greek salad is so popular all over the world that numerous experiments in serving it became a natural progression of the development of this dish.

Many chefs of famous restaurants build “towers” ​​of vegetables, alternating them with cheese. It can be served in “boats” of bell pepper or lettuce, in pita bread and on toasted slices of bread, in small glasses in the style of verrines and huge bowls, the contents of which can feed half of China.

Vegetables are laid out on a plate in bright multi-colored rows, alternated in appetizing layers in a salad bowl, roughly cut into a couple of pieces, carefully cut into small cubes - there are a lot of options for serving Greek salad, and it seems that every day chefs from all over the world come up with new and interesting ways to treat their guests with a delicious dish of fresh vegetables and delicate soft cheese.

5 rules for a real Greek salad

To summarize, I would like to write separately about the basic and very important rules, without which you will prepare anything but a Greek salad.

1. The ingredients for the Greek village salad are chopped coarsely. No, not just large, but as large as possible - they must hide maximum taste, plus it is unacceptable to spend more than 5 minutes on preparing the most ordinary everyday dish.

2. Do you prepare salad for yourself and your family? Then put your doubts aside– and mix the contents of the bowl with your hands. Ru-ka-mi! This will not only add soulfulness to the salad, but will also allow you to keep the vegetables intact without crushing or even crushing them.

3. When adding olive oil, you should not only pay attention to its quality (only the best, only proven!), but also to the quantity. The canonical Greek salad should be oily, very oily - no real Greek woman will spare olive oil, because she knows that after the salad bowl is empty, there will be a delicious “juice” from the vegetables, cheese and dressing at the bottom. Greeks dip pieces of freshly baked bread into this liquid and enjoy the extraordinary taste of homemade food.

By the way, for this process the inventive people of the sunny country even invented a separate word - “ladobukies” (“butter pieces”), which means a completely indecent, but incredibly tasty dipping of bread in salad sauce.

4. Don't cut the cheese. Limit yourself to one large slice, which is laid out on top of the vegetables. It’s more beautiful, tastier and more “Greek” this way.

5. Greek salad is prepared immediately before serving, and when served, it is eaten immediately. It does not need to be infused; the products should be as fresh as possible and just chopped.

The history of Greek salad

They say that the birth of salad occurs in the 20-30s of the 19th century. The fact is that tomatoes, one of the main components of Greek salad, appeared on the territory of this country only in 1818 - and it was after they almost instantly gained popularity and popular love that they began to be used in salads.

However, history claims that it was only a prototype of the modern Greek salad - let's say, its distant genetic ancestor, nothing more. At the time when the first tomatoes and onions appeared in Greece, these vegetables were not cut into pieces, but were eaten exclusively whole. Only almost a century later, with another wave of emigrants, one of the Greeks came to the United States, who figured out how to prepare their favorite dish in a slightly modified format - after cutting vegetables into small pieces.

In Greece, among other things, there is a proverb: if you know the village salad, you get to know Greece (or another wording: the village salad is all of Greece in one plate). Enjoy the taste of fresh vegetables and soft cheese and get to know Greece!