Easy Greek Salad Recipe

Hey bakers, John from Preppy Kitchen here, and today I'm channeling all of my Greek heritage to make a classic Greek salad. This is a quintessentially pleasing salad that everyone should love. There's no filler in here, just flavor, and it comes together in a snap. Let's get started. Let's get to chopping, starting with one gigantic English cucumber. English cucumbers have really, really thin skins, so you don't need to peel them. They taste delicious. If you're using a regular cucumber, maybe peel it. It's kind of up to you. You can cut them in round slices, or you can cut the cucumber lengthwise, and then have kind of more manageable bite-sized half circles. My grandfather and his brother were Greek from Greece, and when I worked with them in our machine shop as a child, operating heavy machinery and making aircraft parts, we'd have a lunch break, and it would always be like a real Greek meal, and I have to tell you, a Mediterranean salad, at its simplest, will be cucumbers, tomatoes, vinegar and oil with whatever seasonings, and then you're gonna serve that with maybe some dried bread. Set the cucumber aside. Now let's chop up a red onion, nice thin slices. You want the acids that are gonna be in the dressing to kind of tamp down the bite of the onion, so it'll give you a lot of flavor without that crazy onion taste. So thin slices, lots of surface area. Chop like that. That's gonna go into my bowl of cucumbers. You can add as much or as little as you like. I'm gonna give you guidelines in this recipe and in the titles below, but if you love cucumbers and hate onions, make it work for you. It's your salad. Time for some Kalamata olives, my favorite. I'm gonna say to add in maybe a third of a cup. Just give them a chop in half. It's a good idea to still cut them in half, even if you love a giant piece of olive in your mouth, because even though it says pitted, every once in a while, one will sneak in that still has that hard stone inside, and you're gonna be calling the dentist if you chomp into it by accident. Well, that's a good half cup of olive, if I say so myself, I'm not gonna lie. I love olives, and I love that brininess they bring, so the more the merrier. Now for some tomatoes. I'm gonna add three tomatoes here, just giving them a chop into some reasonable-sized wedges. Salads are all about what will fit on your fork so that each bite can be perfect. And if you want, you could use cherry tomatoes for this as well. You know what? Two is gonna be good enough. I don't need that third tomato. Add those in as well. I'm gonna add some bell pepper in here as well. Remove those seeds, remove the ribs. Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. I've got seven ounces of feta here. I can reserve some for later, just to kind of sprinkle on top and make it really nice and pretty, but in the meantime, just crumble it over your salad. This gives you a nice creaminess, and it's also just delicious. I love feta cheese. It's a very strong cheese. Okay. Just toss that around with your fingers. My hands are clean. Okay, now for the fun part. Let's make that dressing. I'm gonna add in 1 1⁄4 cup of extra virgin olive oil. Gonna add in a little bit of lemon zest as well. The zest of half of a lemon. Gonna take some thyme, one of my favorites. I love to use fresh thyme, but dried works as well. Just strip the leaves off of it. I like to crush it in my fingers. It helps to release the oil. And then give it a chop. Okay, we can add that in there. Quintessential Greek herb, oregano. It's so beautiful, and I love the aroma. Once again, strip the leaves off of the stalk. You don't smell anything until you start crushing it, and then the oils are released, and you're in heaven. Roll the oregano around your fingers. Just crush it to help release those oils, and then we can give it a rough chop. I'm adding in about two tablespoons once it's chopped. Now I'm adding in about two tablespoons of red wine vinegar. About two teaspoons of honey mustard. It'll add a little bit of sweetness as well as some spice. Finally, some lemon juice. I'm adding in the juice of half of a lemon. Translates to maybe two tablespoons. Let's shake it up, emulsify, and have a taste test. Looks nice. I'm gonna add a little bit more lemon juice. And maybe another half teaspoon of salt. Take two. That's nice. This is not a perfectly balanced dressing because there are so many very strong flavors. The feta and the olives are gonna come and add in what's missing in this dressing. It's kind of light right now, but paired with the ingredients, it'll become very substantial and perfect. All we have to do now is dress our salad. Pour that on there. I have my one piece of cheese I'm reserving still. Give it a toss. Looks amazing. This is a perfect make-ahead salad too. It's not gonna wilt. And I think the flavors kind of come together after they sit for a while. For garnish, you can add on a couple more oregano seeds. And by a couple, I mean dozens. Once again, just crush them up. And then take some of the reserved cheese and sprinkle it on top. You're all done. Let's take a taste. That is very nice. Just what I would expect from a Greek salad. Little punches of lemon, lots of brininess. The cucumbers are so fresh and crisp and light. Oh, this salad is everything. I wanna have this more often. This is gonna be my dinner. All right, thanks so much for watching. If you like this video, check out my spanakopita. It is another Greek family recipe. It is not the spanakopita that you might find in Greece, it is slightly different and maybe better. 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