REAL Greek Salad

There is one major problem with most "Greek Salads" in this country...they have lettuce! Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with lettuce and I consume copious amounts of lettuce salads, but I don't care how much olive oil and feta you put on them, they cannot be called Greek Salads.

A real Greek salad is amazingly easy to make. These are the ingredients that you need: tomatoes, cucumber, onion, olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and oregano. Yup that's it! The other sanctioned ingredients in a Greek Salad are feta cheese and kalamata olives, so feel free to add those too if you have them.



First things first. Lets slice our cucumber. I prefer the seedless European cucumbers, but only because they are closer to the ones we eat in Greece than the conventional cucumbers.



No go ahead and throw your sliced cucumber directly into your bowl. If you're like me, you'll have to slice twice the amount that you actually need since you'll eat about half of that during this process. In fact, I sometimes don't even get around to making the actual salad. I just eat the cucumber and serve a tomato salad. I'm sweet that way.



Now we're going to cut our tomatoes into wedges. If I have tomatoes to spare, I'll usually snack on one like an apple and sprinkle a little bit of salt on every bite. It's no wonder that Greeks eat multiple lbs. of produce a day, I swear it's in our blood!



Add your beautiful tomato slices directly into your bowl so that they can start slow dancing with your cucumbers.



Ok, now let's slice up our onions. I usually use about a quarter medium-sized onion and I like it sliced not diced.



Add the onion into your bowl as well. Now, we're going to add the rest of the ingredients. Let's start with the olive oil. I generally eyeball it, but 3-4 tablespoons would probably be a good place to start.



Now we're going to add the vinegar and I usually add half of the amount of olive oil I used (so 4 tablespoons of olive oil would need 2 tablespoons of vinegar, etc...)



Finally, let's add a healthy pinch of salt, pepper and oregano. We mix it all together and we're done! If you want to throw in some feta and olives, feel free to do so. Unfortunately, I ate our feta and olives (you guessed it) by themselves and right out of the container, so they never made it to the salad. Listen, I never claimed to be perfect and I have a certain weakness for, well, a large number of things including fresh produce and salty Greek products. I'll have to look into whether a support group exists for people like me.



Now run off, be Greek Salad making machines and educate the masses!