This is just the most delicious Greek salad recipe ever! This is probably my husband’s favorite salad and one we serve a lot for special occasions and for company. It is best if you can make up the salad and pour the dressing over all of it and serve it. Mixing all the dressing ingredients with all the salad and tossing for a few minutes really infuses the flavors into all the salad ingredients. But that only works if you have a lot of company who are going to be eating it because you really can’t save the leftovers once the dressing is poured over top.

I started with a recipe for Tomato-Feta salad from a good friend, Mimi Pownall, after we had eaten this recipe at her house in the early 80s. Her husband Ron was growing a huge garden in Florida and she was trying to get rid of some of the tomatoes so she tried the Tomato-Feta salad out on us. It was wonderful. A few years later I was looking through the ingredients and decided I wanted to try it more as a traditional Greek salad rather than just a tomato salad because the salad dressing is out of this world. This is the salad I came up with and have been making since the late 80s and early 90s.

Here’s what the recipe looks like before tossing.

Here’s what I did.

I started with 2 bags of pre-washed Romaine lettuce.

Cover the lettuce with sliced Roma tomatoes. I think I used 4 really large ones. Roma tomatoes are known to be not quite as juicy as regular beefsteak-type tomatoes. Using Roma tomatoes will help cut down on decomposition.

 Slice a cucumber and add it over the top. Notice I don’t slice the cucumber. This aids in preventing decomposition.

Add diced green pepper over top. You can slice it into rings but most people won’t bother eating green pepper that way and pick it out. This is a sneaky way to get them to eat a few pieces of green pepper in their salad! Also, you can interchange the green pepper for yellow, orange or red pepper if you’d prefer.

Add diced red onion. You can use thinly sliced red onion that has been separated into rings, but I’ve found onion diced fine is not as overwhelming in salad as the other way. People can manage a few bites of it but not a whole ring. Generally they will just leave it off their plate when it is prepared that way.

Add Greek Kalimata olives. You can use a cheap green or ripe olive if that’s all you have. But these have a really wonderful flavor. They are more expensive but the taste is really superior.

For this salad I added pepperocinis, but I also occasionally use mild salad pepper rings that I have patted dry. Both work excellently.

Top with 8-oz. Feta cheese and make up the Greek salad dressing.

Here’s the recipe.

TERESA’S GREEK SALAD

(My adaptation from a recipe from Mimi Pownall, when we attended First Baptist Church Indian Rocks, Largo, FL)

1 head romaine, or red or green leaf lettuce or a couple of bags of pre-washed, cut Romaine lettuce

6-8 Roma tomatoes, sliced

1 large cucumber, sliced

1 green pepper, diced

½ of a red onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings, or about 2 slices thinly diced

About ½ to 2/3 cup ripe Kalimata olives, drained

½ to 1 cup of pepperocinis, drained (I usually use the sliced salad pepper rings)

½-1 lb. Feta cheese (we like a lot and use more than the original recipe calls for)

Layer in above order. Add the dressing and pour over salad just before serving. This makes about 12 servings.

GREEK SALAD DRESSING:

½ cup olive oil

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

½ cup sugar (you can use a little less if you are trying to cut back)

¼ cup dried parsley

1 tsp. oregano

½ tsp. basil

½ tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

Stir together. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Stir REALLY well before serving as this dressing separates.

Here’s a bowl of it. 

Everybody loves my Greek salad. Here’s the picture of it.

Yum!

You may also like these recipes:

Greek Tomato Salad

Mandarin Spinach Salad

Spring Mix with Berries, Glazed Pecans, and Feta Cheese

Kiwi-Strawberry Spinach Salad