Classic Greek Village Salad (Horiatiki)

This salad is a classic when it comes to Greek cuisine and is great if you prefer less lettuce and more chunky vegetables in your salad. Many times you will visit a geek restaurant and the Greek salad will be lettuce onion and a sprinkling of feta and although that can also be delicious and has its place, this one is a more traditional styled Greek salad often listed as a horiatiki salad or a village salad on menus. If your looking for the simplest salad to make with a no fuss and uncomplicated vinaigrette - this is your salad.

This salad is such a great summer salad and always fills me with memories of my childhood. We would eat this salad almost everyday in the summer when we would harvest the juiciest plumpest tomatoes from my Dad’s garden. I was on watering duty in the evenings and often picking duty. Seemed like such a chore when I was a kid - now I wish that was all I did. I was also always on selling duty too - imagine a little small suburban home with a very small to medium back yard with a garden taking up half the yard yielding so many tomatoes - I would get sent out to sell them. Oh what I would do for that many tomatoes today - I would make sooo many things. Now you understand why this village salad was always on repeat in the summer.

It’s so easy to put together. The components don’t really change much unless you are using a different variety of olives, type of olive oil, or vinegar. You don’t even need to whisk your vinaigrette separately you just pour the oil and vinegar over the veggies and toss.

The beautiful thing about this salad is once salt hits those tomatoes they start to macerate a bit like berries in sugar. All their natural juices and flavours seep out and add to the vinaigrette itself and to the overall flavour of the salad. It’s just so delicious and the best part is enjoying it with crusty bread for dipping into those delicious juices created by the tomato and the rich olive oil and crumbled feta.

It’s a salad that I never tire of and is especially the best when you have the freshest ingredients. If you have never made it before now is your chance! Perfect as we head into tomato season. Enjoy!

Recipe

Ingredients

• 4-5 medium sized ripe Tomatoes chopped into wedges
• 1 medium sized English cucumber or 3-4 mini seedless ones washed and chopped (peeling skin is optional)
• 1 Sweet green pepper seeds and stem removed and sliced
• 1 Small red onion sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pinch of oregano
• ¼ cup Kalamata olives
• 200 grams of feta cheese whole and broken into pieces or crumbled
• 4 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar

Directions

1. Combine all the vegetable in a large bowl and top the salad with the olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and a good pinch of dried oregano and toss gently.
2. Then top with some Kalamata olives and a thick slice of feta that gets broken up during serving. Best served with a crusty bread to soak up the wonderful juices at the bottom. See my IGTV video for more details and how to make it.