Our quick and easy Greek lettuce salad recipe makes maroulosalata, a light and refreshing salad full of fresh flavours and textures. In its most traditional form, maroulosalata is a salad of finely shredded mixed lettuce leaves, spring onions and fresh herbs tossed with onion slices, and garnished with a handful of black olives. I use red onions, bump up the amount of olives and add crumbly feta cheese. It makes a fantastic side to grilled skewers, meatballs and roast chicken.
When you think of a Greek salad, the Greek feta salad called horiatiki with tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, and olives probably comes to mind. It’s the Greek salad I think of as it transports me back to summer in Greece, tucking into the salad at a beachside taverna within splashing distance of the sea. By contrast, this Greek lettuce salad, maroulosalata, takes me to a backyard lunch at a Greek friend’s home, smoky souvlaki grilling on a nearby backyard.
One of our best Greek recipes, this lettuce salad recipe for maroulosalata makes a quick and easy green salad that’s deliciously simple, light and refreshing — and that’s the idea. Maroulosalata is made for being eaten with grilled meats, such as skewers, although I also love to serve it with the Greek meatballs, keftedes, and plenty of crusty bread to mop up the salad juices. Terence’s olive sourdough with rosemary, thyme and sweet red capsicum is perfect.
I’ve adapted this maroulosalata recipe from Philoxenia, A Seat at My Table, a wonderful cookbook of vegetarian and vegan Greek kitchen recipes by Kon and Sia Karapanagiotidis, which I’ve been cooking from since I met the lovely Sia, Kon’s mum, at Bendigo Writers Festival last year. Kon writes in the recipe intro that every time Sia makes the salad, he’s left wondering at how something so simple can taste so incredible. Me too!
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Lettuce Salad Recipe for Greek Maroulosalata with Olives and Feta
We’ve spent a lot of time in Greece over the years, both for work and pleasure, doing everything from criss-crossing Greece by car on road trips, researching and updating Greece guidebooks for Lonely Planet and other publishers, to spending summer island-hopping by ferry. A Greek feta salad appeared on every restaurant menu, yet we rarely saw this Greek lettuce salad, maroulosalata, on a taverna table.
Yet this lettuce salad recipe for maroulosalata makes one of my favourite Greek recipes. And it couldn’t be easier, yet it tastes fantastic because of the crunchy texture of the shredded lettuce and onions and freshness of flavour courtesy of the fresh mint, dill and parsley. I love the addition of crumbly creamy feta and chopped juicy Kalamata olives.
Just as my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s garden salad went on the table for every weekend family feast, and in the Middle East, where we lived for many years, a family meal at home wouldn’t be complete without this farmers salad, as Kon writes in his book Philoxenia, this lettuce salad is a staple on most Greek lunch and dinner tables.
Maroulosalata is very much a home-style salad that varies from family to family, cook to cook. But it’s essentially a lettuce salad, so the key ingredients are lettuce, fresh herbs and a dressing, and many Greek home cooks wouldn’t use much more than that in maroulosalata. Maybe a handful of olives for garnishing. I add loads of olives and crumbly feta.
Sia and Kon include a diced tomato in their maroulosalata recipe. Friends in Greece add chunky cucumber pieces and green bell peppers. Kon suggests repurposing any leftover maroulosalata to create another salad by adding quartered tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, pitted olives, capsicums and feta, which would make a hybrid horiatiki-maroulosalata.
I only have a few tips to making this maroulosalata recipe for a Greek lettuce salad, as really it couldn’t be easier.
Tips to Making this Maroulosalata Recipe for a Greek Lettuce Salad
Just a few tips to making this Greek lettuce salad recipe for maroulosalata, as it’s quick and easy and comes together in 10 minutes or less. Let’s start with the ingredients.
Ingredients
Always use the freshest and best quality ingredients with a simple salad such as this lettuce salad.
Lettuce
And Maroulosalata is very much a lettuce salad. Kon and Sia use iceberg lettuce. I love a combination of iceberg and cos lettuce. You could use whatever lettuce(s) you have in the fridge but you want a crunchy lettuce for texture, as you’ll be shredding the lettuce.
Onions and Herbs
This Greek lettuce salad recipe calls for both spring onions or scallions and red onions, but a friend in Greece insists on spring onions only, as it’s a green salad, so there you go. I love the crunch and flavour of red onions or shallots. Fresh herbs are a must, and fresh dill, parsley and mint is the classic maroulosalata combination.
Olives and Feta
In my experience, most Greek lettuce salads don’t include feta and only garnish maroulosalata with a handful of black olives. I love to use loads of olives and sprinkle in some crumbly feta, and naturally the feta should be proper Greek feta and the olives should be Greek olives and juicy Kalamata olives are perfect.
Dressing
A Greek salad would traditionally be made with a Greek olive oil, but I have to confess that I tend to use Italian or Spanish olive oil more. Use the best quality extra virgin olive oil you can afford. Kon and Sia’s recipe only specifies white vinegar, but I love white wine vinegar in maroulosalata, and you need the juice of a lemon for extra zingy freshness.
Instructions
This Greek lettuce salad is so easy to make it barely needs a recipe. You’ll look at this once and never need to look at it again after making this maroulosalata.
Make the Salad Dressing
I make all my salad dressings in lidded jars, so after adding the ingredients I can screw the lid on and give them a good shake. Also because I eat so much salad I tend to make twice as much as my recipes specify, so that way I have leftover dressing to use on another salad.
So, to a small lidded jar, I squeeze in the juice of one lemon, add the three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and two tablespoons of white wine vinegar, and salt and pepper to suit your palate. I use a lot less salt than I used to due to my high blood pressure. Put the lid on, shake vigorously, taste, and adjust as needed.
Prepare the Salad
To a large salad bowl, add the shredded lettuces, sliced onion, fresh herbs, and spring onions, and almost all of the chopped Kalamata olives and half the crumbled Greek feta cheese, making sure you save a little of each for garnishing. Toss to combine well.
I tend to use a large salad bowl for preparing salads, and then tip the salad onto a plate into a mound for serving, Southeast Asian style. Think papaya salads. Fifteen years living in a region will do that to a person! But do as you like and go with a bowl if you like.
Serve the Salad
Just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad, toss it again, and garnish with the chopped olives and crumbled feta that you set aside. This is a fantastic salad to serve as a side to barbecued meats, skewers, meatballs, or roast chicken, with plenty of crusty bread for mopping up the salad juices. Home-baked sourdough is our preference.
If you’re serving up a Greek-style shared family meal, kick things off with a Mediterranean-style spread of meze or mezedes in Greece, such as dishes of taramosalata, tzatziki, the spicy roasted red pepper feta dip called htipiti, and artichoke dip with red peppers and green olives and a stack of pita bread.
For an even more generous Greek feast, you could add this pan-fried feta with honey and herbs, a few more salads, such as this eggplant salad called melitzanosalata, which can also be treated like a dip, and this dish of blistered cherry tomatoes on goat’s cheese and this watermelon and feta salad, which is wonderful when watermelon is in season.
And if you’re a fan of green herby salads and you’re a lover of Southeast Asian food, try this Thai style fresh herb salad recipe for yum chee by chef Chalee Kader of 100 Mahaseth restaurant, a casual nose-to-tail eatery in Bangkok‘s that’s one of the Thai capital’s most sustainable restaurants and one of our favourites. It’s what we call ‘same same but different’ in Southeast Asia!
Greek Lettuce Salad Recipe for Maroulosalata
Ingredients
- 1 lemon - juice only
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - good quality
- 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
- salt and pepper - to taste
- 1 small iceberg lettuce - finely shredded
- 1 cos lettuce - finely shredded
- 1 red onion - medium-sized, thinly sliced
- 4 spring onions - finely sliced
- ½ cup fresh dill - sprigs only
- ½ cup fresh mint - leaves only
- ½ cup fresh flat leaf parsley - leaves only, torn
- 12 Kalamata olives - pitted, roughly chopped
- 150 g Greek feta cheese - crumbled
Instructions
- Make the salad dressing: to a small lidded jar, squeeze in the juice of one lemon, 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp white wine vinegar, and as much (or as little) salt and pepper to suit your palate. Put the lid on, shake vigorously, taste, and adjust as needed.
- Prepare the salad: to a large salad bowl, add the shredded lettuces, sliced onion, fresh herbs, and spring onions, and almost all of the chopped Kalamata olives and crumbled Greek feta cheese, saving a little for garnishing. Toss to combine well.
- Serve the salad: just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad, toss it again, and garnish with the chopped olives and crumbled feta you set aside. Serve as a side to skewers, meatballs, grilled meats, or roast chicken, with plenty of crusty bread for mopping up the salad juices.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make our Greek lettuce salad recipe for maroulosalata as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
