How to Make Greek Salad: Tips and Recipe

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

There are many examples in life that everything ingenious is simple. And even if sometimes life says the opposite, we find things and deeds, the implementation of which will not be difficult, and the result will bring the most desirable. If everything was “at the behest of the pike, at my will…”

Ah, fairy tales are wonderful, but world cooking is even more beautiful. It is thanks to the traditional classic recipes that we now own a whole encyclopedia of ways to cook a particular dish. Greek salad is considered one of the simple and hotly loved dishes around the world. How to prepare this dish? This is what the article will be about.

How to make a classic Greek salad? You will find recipes for its preparation in this article.

As a bonus, you will receive three sauce recipes to serve with this dish. You'll also learn how to serve a salad and unleash the limits of your culinary imagination as there's a lot of experimentation here.

How to make Greek salad at home?

Yes, very simple. Moreover, this is how he appeared - not in a restaurant, not in an eatery, but in a warm atmosphere of home comfort.

Greece is a country of picturesque landscapes, full of intriguing antiquities and the desire of people to create big and strong families. And what is a big and strong family? This is the constant standing at the stove. Moreover, home-made dishes, although simple, are in no way inferior to the famous delicacies of the royal courts. Cooked with a twinkle and without unnecessary frills, food becomes a unifying factor in the family. As you know, it is the ritual of eating food that brings people together and makes bonds stronger.

If you don't know how to cook a Greek salad, then it is from our review that you will learn the secrets of preparing an exquisite and at the same time simple dish that has become a brand of a loving country.

The special charm of the salad is low calorie content

According to the calculated data, there are approximately 130 kilocalories per 100 grams of ready-made salad, depending on the ingredients and dressing. You can reduce the fat content of the dish by cutting down on fatty dressing and cheese.

Classic of the genre

The classic Greek salad recipe (it's not that difficult to prepare this dish) will be presented step by step below. But before that, I would like to warn the hostesses that this option is far from the only one. Because there is an opportunity to change the salad recipe at any stage - from this he will not lose at allin taste, but, on the contrary, will acquire new appetizing qualities.

So, to prepare a Greek salad, you first need to stock up on the necessary ingredients:

• 2 medium cucumbers;
• 2 medium firm-fleshed tomatoes;
• 1 bell pepper;
• 1 medium blue Crimean onion;
• 20 big pitted olives;
• 100g soft feta cheese;
• half teaspoon oregano or oregano;
• two to three tablespoons of olive oil;
• one and a half tablespoons of lemon juice;
• pepper, s alt - optional.

How to make Greek salad: step by step recipe

Next, let's focus on the technology of cooking a popular Greek dish. So, how to make Greek salad step by step?

1. We take tomatoes and cucumbers. We wash and cut them on the board into large pieces (about 2.5 centimeters each). If the skin of cucumbers is too dense and hard, you can pre-peel them.

2. Next, you need to cut the blue onion at your own discretion: someone likes large rings, someone prefers modest half rings. If your family is not a big fan of onion dishes, try to chop them as thinly as possible.

3. Next, we proceed to clean the pepper from seeds and white membranes and cut it into large squares (size - 2.5 centimeters).

4. To prepare a Greek salad (in this case, we consider the classic recipe), then you need to take whole olives (if large, it is better to cutin half).

5. Then pour the vegetables into a larger bowl and mix everything gently. Two large spatulas will help you with this.

6. S alt and pepper the salad to taste. Here it is worth considering the fact that feta cheese can be quite s alty on its own, which already suggests that jokes with s alt here can lead to unpleasant results.

7. Next, whisk in the olive oil and lemon juice. This will be the dressing for the salad.

8. Cut the feta cheese into large chunks (along with the cucumbers) and arrange them in a creative mess style right on top of the salad.

9. It remains to add a little oregano, and the dish is ready.

Now you know how to make a Greek salad according to the recipe (see the photo of the dish above).

Variable ingredients

If you want to know how to prepare Greek salad in a different way, then the following recommendations are for you. There are many options here, and we will consider each one in particular.

First, bow

It can be pre-marinated. The easiest way here is to marinate chopped onions and a mixture of vinegar (3 parts) and granulated sugar (2 parts). It is also important to lightly s alt and insist the resulting composition for half an hour. After that, drain the juice and add sliced \u200b\u200bto other vegetables.

Onions can also be cut finely - in quarters of rings, for example. So its taste in the salad will be barely noticeable. To prepare a Greek salad, you can take several varieties of onions. For example, white and blue in a ratio of one to two, orequally. Also, experienced chefs advise pickling especially vigorous white onions to soften the taste.

You can vary the components here endlessly. Even replace a quarter of the onion with garlic cloves. One important nuance: it is better to chop the garlic with a knife (into a small cube).

Second, olives and cucumbers

They can be cut larger or smaller, you can even leave them whole, or even replace them with both olives and capers (yes, the very moment when the usual ingredient for the Greeks is something exotic in our country).

As for cucumbers, here you can safely play with cutting. And you can clean it differently for larger pieces: for example, alternate skinning in stripes. A manual peeler-peeler can handle this very quickly: you can remove one strip with it, and leave the other. And so on, you can alternate throughout the skin. As a result, we get a kind of zebra cucumber, the “back” of which in the salad will stand out in white and green.

Third, tomatoes

Sea of options: you can use other varieties, you can create combinations of several varieties, or you can focus entirely on cherry tomatoes cut in half.

Don't forget about color balance: you can create a really "tasty" picture if you vary tomatoes of different colors, for example, orange (yellow) and red. So the dish will not only acquire a more spectacular appearance, but also the corresponding fleshiness. Also, by including low-acid and rich orange tomatoes in the composition, you can significantly reduce the sourness in the dish.

Tomatoes can also be peeled, oddly enough it will sound for our population. Turns out it's incredibly delicious. Juicy, large, perfectly soft pieces of tomatoes - an option that hardly anyone will refuse.

Fourth, pepper

This is a real ode to multicolor. A particularly interesting option: cutting into a thin strip. Another unusual idea has been prepared for the readers of this article. And although it increases the complexity of the process a little, really rave reviews of those who have tried the dish in this performance at least once are devoted to it. To do this, you need to look at the thick-walled pepper that hides the fleshy flesh and understand one fact - it can also be peeled! It turns out that by cleaning you can get a really refined taste.

So, you will need a sharp knife or peeler cleaner. This cooking technology is very popular in southern cuisine, which adopted this Greek idea with a bang. Italy, Bulgaria, France, Kherson, Odessa, Crimea - in any of these places you can be served a classic "Greek salad" with peeled peppers and tomatoes. This technique allows you to achieve special tenderness and sublimity of the dish.

What can I substitute for feta?

A very popular substitute is the simple s alted feta cheese, which can be found in the vastness of any local market. Large pieces of processed cheese with a strong flavor (smoked meats, greens, but not tomatoes!) are also great for salad. By the way, processed cheese will have to be s alted, because, unlike homemade cheese,it is prepared with less s alt.

Great substitute: Dutch cheese to be cut into small pieces. Of course, there is already a discrepancy with pure classics here, but who said that it would taste bad? Perhaps personal inclusions in the recipe will create a new unique dish that will turn into a family recipe passed down from grandmother to mother, from mother to daughter, and so on. And conservative husbands will be even happier knowing that there is no “overseas rubbish” in their salad, but only natural and understandable ingredients.

Can I add meat?

Of course you can! After all, it is your cuisine and your taste preferences. The recommendations of the chefs here are limited only to cheese orientation. If you, for example, bought a more s alty cheese, it is better to use fresh boiled chicken. Have you taken a risk and made a salad with regular cheese? It is better to add smoked, well-s alted meat. However, you can make any meat component - at your discretion.

It is worth mentioning that such a salad will not be stored for a long time: the dissonance of fresh seasonal vegetables and smoked meats will not last long. In addition to meat, the salad can be supplied with another protein ingredient, which can often be seen in salads of various types: mushrooms. Both raw white, champignons, pickled mushrooms, and perky chanterelles are suitable for Greek salad. You just need to rinse the mushrooms from mucus and dry. An ideal dish during the hot season will save you from the great torment of standing atheated plate. Simplicity and your imagination are the key to the perfect dish!

Fill with sauce

Now you figured out exactly how to cook a Greek salad (photos of examples can be seen in the article). It remains only to choose a gas station.

In addition to variations with the classic sauce, you can spice up the salad with honey-mustard sauce. We prepare the sauce: we take mustard of weak vigor, olive oil and honey in equal proportions, beat everything with a whisk. If your mixture is too thick, you can add more oil.

If you opted for low-s alt cheese, you will need soy sauce for dressing. Prepare s alty and rich soy sauce: Whisk 2 tablespoons of olive oil with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon of medium or low mustard.

Garlic crushed through a garlic press with breadcrumbs and olive oil can serve as a dressing option.

In addition to all of the above, Greek salad goes great with scrambled eggs, shrimp, cottage cheese, Chinese cabbage and so on.