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The flavors of Greece in one simple and delicious Classic Greek Salad! Traditional Greek Salad consists of briny Kalamata Olives, creamy Feta Cheese Chunks, ripe peak season Tomatoes, and crunchy mild Cucumbers, topped with a simple Olive Oil Dressing. It’s the ultimate summer salad recipe! Pair this with your favorite grilled meat or fish for a perfect summer meal.

What great summer BBQ can you pair with this salad? Try our BBQ Leg of Lamb or our delicious Lemon Greek Chicken Kabobs. But truly, this salad goes with pretty much anything like our Mediterranean Meatloaf or Avgolemono Soup too. Or if you want to up the feta in this recipe then try our Marinated Feta.

Overhead shot of Greek Salad in a bowl with a wooden spoon.

Visiting Greece

I spent a summer abroad in Greece during college and fell in love with Greek Salad. It was served at nearly every restaurant I went to, and it quickly became my favorite lunch during my time traveling around Greece. To this day, I can’t take a bite of Greek Salad without immediately conjuring up visions of the Greek Islands.

Luckily, it’s a super simple salad to make at home! It’s my favorite salad all summer long, and it makes a delicious light lunch or a perfect side dish with grilled chicken or fish. I love to make it for picnics and dinners on the patio all summer long.

Helpful Items For This Recipe

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12-inch Catering Chef Food Salad BBQ Serving Utensils, Set of 2

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What are the Ingredients of Classic Greek Salad?

A lot of Greek Salads served outside of Greece will include lettuce or creamy dressings. However, traditional Greek Salad is so delicious because of its simplicity. When you use peak season ingredients, it is filled with both flavor and texture.

If you grow your own garden, this is an excellent recipe to show off your hard work. If you don’t, this is a great dish to help you make the most of a farmers’ market haul. Either way, it tastes like summer on a Greek Island, and you can’t beat that!

Greek Salad Ingredients

Fresh Vine Ripened Tomatoes – Choose the best tomatoes you can find! Plum tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and heirloom tomatoes taste amazing in this salad. Grape tomatoes and cherry tomatoes also work too.

Cucumber – Pick your favorite cucumbers. I like to use a Garden Cucumber, Persian Cucumber, or English Cucumber for this salad.

Green Bell Pepper – This adds a delicious crunch to the salad. However, in some places in Greece, they left out the bell pepper or replaced it with roasted red peppers.

Feta Cheese – Choose a block of Feta instead of crumbles, and cut it into large chunks. I am finding a creamier feta cheese in the market now, which is fantastic. Try a few to find your favorite.

Kalamata Olives – These are actually named after a city in southern Greece and are a staple in Greek Salads. They are salty and add incredible flavor to the dish. They’re easy to find in most grocery stores in the same place you’d find black olives. Make sure to choose pitted olives! I find they are much better in the deli section than they are canned.

Red Onion – Thinly sliced red onion adds both crunch and flavor to the finished dish.

Greek Salad Dressing – A traditional Greek Salad uses only a simple dressing of high quality extra virgin Olive Oil, fresh lemon juice, red wine vinegar, fresh oregano (or dried oregano in a pinch), a pinch of garlic powder, and salt and pepper. This simple combo really makes the peak season vegetables shine!

A fork holding a small cube of feta above a Greek salad.

How to Make Classic Greek Salad

Lucky for you, a Greek Salad recipe is so easy to make! By the time summer ends, I’ve made an easy Greek Salad so many times that I can almost make it in my sleep. Its simplicity is part of what makes it such a great summer side dish.

A whisk beside a small jar of dressing with a lemon and oregano.

First, combine all of the ingredients for the dressing in a small jar and whisk together.

Next, you’ll prepare the veggies for the salad. Core and seed the tomatoes and cut them into large wedges (if you are using grape or cherry tomatoes, you don’t need to do anything at all to them – just add them in whole). Peel the cucumbers and slice them into half-moon shapes. Remove the stem and seeds from the bell pepper and cut it into chunks. Thinly slice half of the red onion.

Greek salad before the dressing is added.

Place all of the prepared veggies and the olives into a shallow salad serving bowl. Add the dressing and toss to combine well. Sprinkle with feta chunks and serve immediately.

Now this is the summer salad of your dreams!!

Recipe Pro Tips!

Because this recipe has only a few ingredients and is fresh, these ingredients need to be of top quality. Make sure your tomatoes are bright red and perfect, along with all the other veggies. Also, the best feta and black olives you can find and afford. Going the extra step will make the best salad.

Visit your farmers’ market in the summer to get great produce and enjoy what summer has to offer.

If refrigerating the salad, then let it come close to room temperature before serving. Too cold of a salad will have less flavor.

Don’t cut the vegetables too small for the salad; they are much better in large pieces.

Don’t use crumbled feta but cubed feta for this salad.

Square photo taken overhead of a classic Greek salad.

WANT MORE GREAT SUMMER SALADS?

We have loads of wonderful summer salads or everyday salads for you to enjoy; here are a few of our favorites.

Pin it HERE!!

Pin it HERE!!