Greek Salad with Homemade Greek Salad Dressing

It's getting warmer! Time to start creating wonderful summer salads to accompany food cooked on the BBQ. This is a delightful, fresh, classic Greek salad with a homemade Greek Salad Dressing. Bright zesty and fresh, this is a classic recipe everyone should know! It is also a wonderful accompanimemt to Greek Marinade Butterfly BBQ lamb

Ingredients 

Salad

• 3 tomatoes (size of a tennis ball)
• 4 Lebanese / Persian cucumbers (about 8"/20cm long)
• 1/2 small red onion (size of a tennis ball)
• 1 small green capsicum / bell pepper
• 8 oz / 250 g feta block
• 5.5 oz / 125g black kalamata olives (Note 2)
• 1 tsp dried oregano

Greek Salad Dressing

• 1 garlic clove , minced (about 1/2 tsp minced garlic)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp salt (or 1/2 tsp Kosher salt)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (preferably Greek!)

Instructions

Place Greek Salad Dressing ingredients in a jar and shake until well combined. Set aside for 20 minutes to let the flavours infuse.

Tomatoes: Cut each tomato into 6 wedges, then cut each wedge into 3 or 4 pieces. If the tomato is watery, scoop out the watery seeds inside with a teaspoon.

Cucumbers: Slice the cucumber into 1/2cm / 1/5" thick slices. Or if they are thick cucumbers, slice the cucumber in half vertically, then slice.

Onion: Peel and finely slice the red onion. I keep it in rings - you could cut it in half then slice. (Note 2)

Capsicum: Cut into short strips.

Feta: Cut into 1cm / 2/5" cubes.

Place the tomato, cucumber, onion, feta and olives in a bowl, sprinkle with oregano then pour over dressing. Toss to combine. Serve immediately!

Notes

1. Kalamata olives are the classic olives that go into a Greek salad. I personally like to use the ones with seeds inside them, I find it keeps the olives juicer. But you can use pitted if you want.

The blacker the olive, the better! Fresh black olives in olive oil purchased over the counter at delis are best, but otherwise, get a good quality olive pre packaged olives. Look for olives that look plump and are a dark black colour - you will notice that many in the jars have lost some of their colour.

2. If you don't like the rawness of red onion (noting that red onion is not as sharp as other onions), place the sliced onions in a bowl of water for 15 minutes or so. This will soften the sharpness of the onion.