How to make an authentic Greek “Xoriatiki” Salad
Opa! And thank you for this time Greece!
This is my last day in Greece for this summer and this year it feels a bit extra weird leaving my second home country, to return home back to Sweden again. I’m totally thankful for getting to Greece and being able to stay here, and mostly seeing my pappou (greek grandpa), but now it’s time to say goodbye. However, I do have some more Greek recipes I’d like to give you though. One of them is the Greek, traditional, xoriatiki salad. This salad is known worldwide but yet, many people do it wrong. In this post I will learn you how to make an authentic Greek salad without complicate things. You who have followed me for a while might recognize some parts of this text from before, but now it’s just renewed and even better.
THE DO’S AND DONT’S
1. The first thing that drives me crazy is when I see that people have put lettuce, Romano sallad, spinach or any other kind of green “leaves” into the Greek salad. No, really no. A Greek salad does not consist of any green leaves - it only consists of lots of tomato, cucumber, onion and in some cases green pepper for the base ingredients. No green leaves! In Sweden (or touristy areas around the world… and Greece) they add salad to the Greek salad to fill it out, to make it look like there’s “more” in the salad. But a traditional Greek salad should really NEVER include any green leaves.
2. Don’t be cheap on the olive oil. We love olive oil in Greece and not least in or Greek salad. Don’t be cheap in the amount but also in the quality when making a Greek salad. Go for a high quality Greek olive oil and add loads of it to the salad.
3. The olives usually used in a Greek salad are the Greek black Kalamata/ Kalamon olives. Meaning, that it’s the olives coming from Kalamata in Greece, and I personally think these are my favorite ones. You can buy these, in pretty much, any supermarket or deli boutiques today.
4. Dried oregano is the herb and it suits so good with the remaining ingredients! Ironically though, I’m using parsley in this recipe but it was only because we didn’t have any oregano left. But traditionally, go for oregano. It really makes it lit!
5. Feta cheese and not “salad cheese” made out of cow milk. There’s a reason why Greece has patent on feta cheese and that is because feta cheese has to be based on goat or sheep milk. Salad cheese is however based on cow milk. It’s a huge difference in flavor so if you want to do it right - go for traditional Greek feta cheese.
Kitchen Props I recommend for a Greek Salad:
Sharp quality knives are so so important to be able to cut your vegetables nicely. Tap here to get some.
Looking for a beautiful salad bowl? You just have to check out this salad bowl. I want this myself.
If we have a salad and a bowl, we of course also need something to serve our salad with - salad servers. Check out these wooden salad servers.
Last but not least, something to store our olive oil and vinegar in. Every Greek kitchen has something like this, and I thought these modern ones were very pretty. And now I want them myself. Check them out.
The following post includes adlinks but all adlinks are my personal recommendations and things I have or want myself.
Greek Traditional “Xoriatiki” Salad
INGREDIENTS:
1 big (or two smaller) ripped tomato
1 small cucumber (like the sort piccolino)
1/2 small green pepper
1/2 red onion
approx 5-8 kalamata olives
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
some pinches dried oregano
sea salt
1/2 block feta cheese (á 150 g)
HOW TO MAKE:
Cut the tomato in big chunks. Peel the cucumber and slice it. Slice pepper and onion.
Place all these veggies in a bowl and top with olives, oregano, salt, feta cheese (in smaller cubes or as one big block) and at last olive oil and vinegar.