Moffat Mungazi
THIS Mediterranean Salad comes together with just a handful of ingredients for an easy chopped vegetable salad. This great salad recipe works as a side dish, but also makes a great full meal.
If you are looking to eat healthier this year, you can’t beat this Mediterranean Salad. Made with chopped vegetables, olives, cheese, and the simplest light dressing, this dish makes a great lunch or dinner side dish.
How to make Mediterranean Salad
Chop the vegetables. I like this recipe best with my cucumbers unpeeled, my red onions sliced thin, and the tomatoes and cucumbers in 1/2 inch pieces.
Add in kalamata olives and cubes of feta cheese. While this does call for a block of feta cheese cubed, you could also use crumbled. I just like the look of the blocks.
Dress the salad. This salad has a really simple dressing that can be made right over the vegetables. Sprinkle the ingredients with red wine vinegar, olive oil, Greek oregano, salt, and pepper.
Toss the salad to combine and enjoy.
Red wine vinegar
Half the dressing in this recipe is made from Red Wine Vinegar. Red Wine Vinegar is a really common ingredient in Mediterranean cooking. As the name implies its base ingredient is red wine. Despite that, because the wine is turned into vinegar and is acidic, it contains almost no alcohol.
Like many vinegars, it is very acidic on its own. But when you balance it with the olive oil, oregano, salt, and pepper, it is perfection.
Variations for this Mediterranean salad recipe
Make it a Mediterranean pasta salad. To stretch this into a whole meal, add in half a pound of bow tie pasta. Taste it, and adjust seasonings. You may choose to double the dressing.
Make it a Mediterranean Chickpea Salad. To make this a filling lunch add in a can of garbanzo beans drained and rinsed.
Make it a simple Mediterranean Quinoa Salad. Toss this salad with 2 cups of cooked quinoa to make a low carb meal. As with the pasta variation, you may want to double the dressing.
Mediterranean chickpeasalad
My favourite variation by far is adding in garbanzo beans. They are such a natural fit with the rest of the ingredients. A 15 ounce can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, can be tossed in with the vegetables. There is no need to change any of the other ingredients. This will add in 385 calories, 70 grams of carbs, and 18 grams of protein. It will also stretch this from four lunches to six.
Storing leftovers
This Mediterranean cucumber salad is best when eaten right after it is made. That being said, it will still be delicious as left overs. Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.
Please note that the longer it sits the more the vegetables will soften and break down.
This is fine from a food safety perspective, but you might not enjoy it as much. Tastes do vary, so it might turn out you enjoy it more.
This Mediterranean Salad comes together with just a handful of ingredients for an easy chopped vegetable salad. This great salad recipe works as a side dish but also makes a great full meal.
Ingredients
1 English cucumber cut into 1/2 inch half moons
4 tomatoes cut in half and then cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 red onion cut into thin slices
1 cup kalamata olives pitted and cut in half
4 ounces feta cheese cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
dash freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Combine the cucumbers, tomatoes, onion, and feta in a large bowl.
Season with the olive oil, red wine vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper.
Toss to combine and serve. — https://www.simplejoy.com/
