Classic Greek Salad (Horiatiki)

Classic Greek Salad (Horiatiki)

The real village salad from Crete - no lettuce, just ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and good feta.

Prep 15 min
Cook 0 min
Total 15 min
Servings 4
Salads

Listen, this is not the Greek salad you get at American restaurants with iceberg lettuce and Italian dressing. No. This is horiatiki—the village salad, the way we’ve made it in Crete for generations.

My yiayia would laugh if she saw lettuce in a Greek salad. We use what grows in the garden: ripe tomatoes still warm from the sun, crisp cucumbers, sharp onions, and olives from our own trees. The feta sits on top like a little mountain—you don’t crumble it, you let people cut their own pieces.

And the olive oil? Don’t cheap out here. Good olive oil makes this salad. It’s the whole point.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Cut the tomatoes into large chunks—not too small, you want to taste them. Put in a wide shallow bowl or platter.
  2. Slice the cucumber thick, maybe half inch. We don’t peel it in Greece, the skin has flavor. Add to tomatoes.
  3. Slice the red onion thin, as thin as you can. Some people soak it in cold water first if it’s too strong, but I like the bite.
  4. Add the pepper rings and scatter the olives around. Don’t pit them—in Greece we serve olives with pits, it’s more honest.
  5. Place the whole block of feta on top. Don’t crumble it. Let it sit there like a proud little mountain.
  6. Sprinkle generously with dried oregano and sea salt.
  7. Pour the olive oil over everything. Be generous—this is Mediterranean food, olive oil is the point.
  8. Serve immediately with crusty bread to soak up the juices. This is important.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving (approximate)

    Tips from My Kitchen

    This salad is best in summer when tomatoes are ripe and sweet. Don’t refrigerate the tomatoes—cold kills their flavor. My mother always said: room temperature tomatoes, cold feta, good olive oil. That’s the secret.

    If you can find Greek feta made from sheep’s milk, even better. The taste is sharper, more authentic. And oregano—use Greek oregano if you can find it. It’s more aromatic than the Italian kind.

    Kalí órexi!

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