Greek Salad with Homemade Salad dressing
This quick, easy, and tasty Greek salad is loaded with tomatoes, cucumber, feta, and Kalamata olives, and it’s all tossed in a tangy lemon herb vinaigrette that you’ll love! It’s easy to prepare ahead of time and dress just before serving for a delicious supper at any time.
Homemade Salad Dressing
Salad dressings are quite simple to make at home, and I believe that learning to make your favorite dressing in your own kitchen is a valuable skill to have. It will save you money and also it is a healthier option.
When you prepare your salad dressings in your kitchen you have total control over the ingredients. If you looked at the ingredient list on store-bought salad dressings many of them contain artificial colors, tastes, and far more sugar and salt than is essential.
Vinaigrette = 3 parts Oil – 1 part vinegar
The most basic salad dressing is 3 parts of oil to 1 part of acids such as lemon juice or vinegar (Red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, etc. Then mix with black pepper, salt any other flavorings you like. You can add flavorings such as Dijon mustard, yogurt, honey, garlic, fresh or dried herbs, a bit of spice, or other items to this basic mix and you get a variety of salad dressings.
The idea is to create this in a jar and shake it vigorously, which will cause the oil and vinegar to emulsify, which means they will combine and thicken, coating your salad nicely. You can always adjust the ingredients based on how much you want to make.
What are the Ingredients needed for Greek Salad Dressing?
- Lemon
- Redwine vinegar
- Olive oil extra virgin
- Dijon mustard
- Black pepper
- Salt
- Oregano (dried or fresh)
- Thyme (dried or fresh)
- Lemon Zest
Lemon zest from half of lemon, this give nice aroma to the dressings
Oregano, so beautiful and love the aroma. Remove the leaves from the stack. Crush the leaves with your finger and that releases the oil and make it more aromatic. Then roughly chop.
Thyme, if it is fresh, remove leaves from the stack. Crush with fingers and chop.
Is Greek Salad Healthy?
YES! It is loaded with nutrients, fibre, and vitamins. If you want to reduce the calories per serving even further, reduce the amount of Feta used and also less salad dressing.
How to Make Greek Salad?
The basic Mediteranian Salad can be made with just cucumber, tomatoes, vinegar, oil and any other seasoning. It is often serve with bread.
Cucumber – If it is english cucumber then it has thin skin. You don’t need to peel them and it taste delicious. If it is regular cucumber you may want to peel the skin off. You can either cut thin round slices or cut lengthwise, then slice in to half circles.
Use the ingredients just as a guideline and you can remove or add based on your taste. When you cut veggies consider what can fit in to your fork. You don’t want too big pieces.
Olives, Kalamata olives has nice flavour
Feta cheese give a nice flavour to salad, it also give salty taste to salad.
Greek Salad with Homemade Dressing
Ingredients
- Mixed Green
- 1 English cucumber
- 2 Mixed Bell pepper
- 1/2 cup Red onion
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes or 2 medium tomatoes
- 4 ounces feta cheese
- 2 tbsp olives
For Salada Dressing
- 1/2 Lemon (2 tbsp lemon juice)
- 1 tbsp Lemon zest
- 2 tbsp redwine vinegar
- 1/2 cup olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tsp dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp thyme
Instructions
- Slice red onion thin and add this to cold water, set aside.
- Wash, core, and dice mixed red pepper into bite-sized squares.
- Slice cherry tomatoes in half. If you're using regular tomatoes cut into bite-size pieces.
- Cut cucumber half legthwise, then cut thin slices
- Chop Kalamata olives in half. Strain the onion from cold water and dry with a paper towel.
- Add mixed green, tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, onion, olives into a large bowl. Cut the feta cheese into cubes or crumble over salad.
- Pour dressings and toss just before serving so it taste fresh. You can garnish with more fresh herbs oregano, thyme.
Prepare the Salad Dressing
- In a small jar, combine the extra virgin olive oil, redwine vinegar, dried oregano, thyme, lemon juice, lemon zest, black pepper, Dijon mustard, and salt to make your dressing. Mix thoroughly and set aside.