Greek Salad

A true Greek salad — horiatiki — has no lettuce at all. It is a sunny chop of ripe tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and briny Kalamata olives, crowned with a thick slab of feta and showered with oregano and good olive oil. Simple, fresh, and endlessly refreshing, it tastes like a Greek summer.

Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

0 mins

Total time

15 mins

Servings

4 servings

Calories

280

Ingredients

• 4 large ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 1 English cucumber, sliced into half-moons
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 3/4 cup Kalamata olives
• 7 oz (200 g) block feta cheese
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

1. Combine the tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and bell pepper in a large shallow serving bowl.
2. Scatter the Kalamata olives over the top.
3. Lay the whole block of feta over the salad — in Greece it is served as a slab, not crumbled.
4. Drizzle with the olive oil and red wine vinegar.
5. Sprinkle generously with oregano and sea salt.
6. Serve immediately with crusty bread for mopping up the delicious juices at the bottom of the bowl.

Pro tips

• Use the ripest tomatoes you can find — out-of-season tomatoes will make a bland salad no matter what else you do.
• Keep the feta as one slab on top; it looks traditional and lets everyone take as much as they like.
• Do not refrigerate before serving if you can avoid it — cold dulls the tomato flavor.
• A pinch of sugar on underripe tomatoes can rescue the sweetness.

Frequently asked questions