Truly one of my favorite things to eat ever… a simple village-style Greek salad. When in Greece, I literally crave these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Lucky for me, Greek-style dining usually entails feasting on a plethora of plates, almost always including one of these delicious salads. You simply just cannot go wrong with a horiatiki salad (horiatiki = village-style, salata = salad). I don’t typically write posts about salads (especially not ones this simple), but I just can’t hide this lovely treasure from anyone, simple or not. 🙂
You’ll notice there’s no lettuce in this salad. Of course if you want some, add it in, but traditional Greek salads don’t have lettuce. Instead, they have an assortment of chopped veggies- usually tomatoes (okay okay, veggies and fruit!), green bell pepper (not usually something I add to salads, but in this, it’s perfect), cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese (good quality, of course), and a light oil and vinegar dressing. Sometimes, they’re topped with capers and/or oregano. I leave out the capers, and instead go with oregano, and if I have it lying around, some fresh dill. Since I had a colorful assortment of tomatoes, I used them, but good old classic red are common in Greek salads. Wild that something so simple could be soooo amazing, but not much beats a classic horiatiki salad in my book.
My mom just got back from Greece and brought me these delicious Greek kalamata olives. Most people don’t just happen to have olives hand-delivered from Greece lying around, so just find what you like at any grocery store near you. Kalamata olives are pretty easy to find these days it seems.
I made this a few days ago to go along with a turkey moussaka I made- a traditional eggplant and potato dish (recipe HERE). It was the perfect combo… felt like I was in Greece!
INGREDIENTS
You’ll notice there’s no lettuce in this salad. Of course if you want some, add it in, but traditional Greek salads don’t have lettuce. Instead, they have an assortment of chopped veggies- usually tomatoes (okay okay, veggies and fruit!), green bell pepper (not usually something I add to salads, but in this, it’s perfect), cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives, feta cheese (good quality, of course), and a light oil and vinegar dressing. Sometimes, they’re topped with capers and/or oregano. I leave out the capers, and instead go with oregano, and if I have it lying around, some fresh dill. Since I had a colorful assortment of tomatoes, I used them, but good old classic red are common in Greek salads. Wild that something so simple could be soooo amazing, but not much beats a classic horiatiki salad in my book.
My mom just got back from Greece and brought me these delicious Greek kalamata olives. Most people don’t just happen to have olives hand-delivered from Greece lying around, so just find what you like at any grocery store near you. Kalamata olives are pretty easy to find these days it seems.
I made this a few days ago to go along with a turkey moussaka I made- a traditional eggplant and potato dish (recipe HERE). It was the perfect combo… felt like I was in Greece!
INGREDIENTS1/2 large European cucumber (or other cucumber you like)
3-4 ripe tomatoes
1/2 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
8-10 kalamata olives
Greek feta cheese, good quality
dressing…
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil
salt & freshly ground black pepper
garnish…
dried oregano
fresh dill (optional)
DIRECTIONS
I realize it seems silly to write directions on how to make a salad haha, but for those who are visual,
I thought doing a step-by-step might be nice 🙂
Peel cucumber- you can leave some streaks of peel for color and texture
(European cucumbers don’t have to be peeled, but for this salad, I do)
Cut cucumber into bite-sized chunks…
I usually slice the cucumber lengthwise first- so it makes hexagonal wedges- and then chop it up
Cut the tomatoes into similar-sized bite-size pieces
Add the cucumber and tomato together in a salad bowl
Very thinly slice the bell pepper- you can make rings or long slices… your choice!
Lay them over the cuke and tomato
Very thinly slice the red onion… paper-thin is good!
Lay around the salad
Top with olives
I personally love that in Greece, horiatikis are often served with large chunks of feta, rather than little crumbles…
sometimes even just one huge chunk laid over the entire bowl!
For this, since I was serving three people, I decided to have three chunks of feta…
one for each (plus a wee crumble sprinkled throughout)!
Cut however you’d like 🙂
Lay the feta pieces in the center of the salad
To dress, drizzle some olive oil over the entire salad, followed by a light sprinkling of red wine vinegar
Then toss a pinch of dried oregano over the entire thing and
if you have it on hand, some chopped fresh dill if you’d like, too!
Refrigerate until ready to eat and enjoy!!
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