Name: Greek Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Greek
Ingredients: 600 g Ripe tomatoes; 300 g Cucumber; 100 g Red onion; 150 g Red bell pepper; 100 g Kalamata olives; 200 g Feta; 3 g Dried oregano; 60 ml Extra-virgin olive oil; 10 ml White wine vinegar; 4 g Fine sea salt

About this dish

Horiatiki means village salad, and the village version has no lettuce in it — the leaves are a later addition for restaurants that needed to make the plate look bigger. What it does have is a slab of feta laid whole on top rather than crumbled, which is both how it is served across Greece and a practical decision: crumbled feta dissolves into the oil, while a slab stays cold and salty and you break off what you want. The dressing is olive oil and oregano. Vinegar appears in some households and not others, and both sides are certain they are right.

Vegetarian
Gluten-free
Not vegan because of Feta
Contains dairy because of Feta

Ingredients

4servings

600gRipe tomatoes
300gCucumber
100gRed onion
150gRed bell pepper
100gKalamata olives
200gFeta
3gDried oregano
60mlExtra-virgin olive oil
10mlWhite wine vinegar (optional)
4gFine sea salt

Instructions

Cut the tomatoes into thick wedges and the cucumber into chunky half-moons. Put them in a shallow bowl.
6 min
Tip: Wedges and chunks throughout. This is a salad of large pieces eaten with a fork and bread, not a chopped one eaten with a spoon.
Add the onion in thin rings, the pepper in rings and the olives, whole and unpitted.
4 min
Tip: Unpitted olives keep their texture and taste of far more than the pitted kind. Say so when you serve it, and put out a small dish for the stones.
Season with the salt, pour over most of the oil and the vinegar if you use it, and turn once.
2 min
Tip: Salt the vegetables, never the feta — the cheese brings plenty of its own, and salting both is the single most common way this salad goes wrong.
Lay the feta on top in one piece and scatter the oregano over the cheese.
2 min
Tip: Crumbling it is the other common mistake. Whole, it stays distinct and cold; crumbled, it turns the oil cloudy and disappears into the bowl within a minute.
Trickle the last of the oil over the feta and serve with bread.
1 min
Tip: The bread is not a serving suggestion. What is left in the bottom of the bowl — tomato juice, oil, oregano and feta brine — is the best part of the dish and needs something to carry it.