If you’re looking for a delicious salad made from basic ingredients, this Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad) With Olives recipe is for you. The green salad and tangy dressing come together in just minutes.
For more ideas, check out all of our recipes.
We have salad with almost every dinner. Usually, it’s a simple salad, which consists of opening a box of salad mix and putting it into bowls. We get the benefits of all those greens, so it works.
But honestly, that’s pretty boring. And if you’re trying to eat more vegetables and salad, boring isn’t going to excite you enough to actually eat those salad greens before they go bad and get thrown away.
So, fancy salads are the way to go. But fancy doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, this Maroulosalata — a Greek lettuce salad — is so easy. It’s made with simple ingredients, which I always have at home in our fridge or pantry, so you probably always have as well.
The salad itself made from lettuce, green onions, dill, and feta cheese. The dressing ingredients are simple too: olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and oregano.
That’s the traditional way to make this classic Greek lettuce salad .
I’m not Greek and so, I don’t feel bound to be completely authentic. So I add sliced kalamata olives. Which are Greek and delicious and add such a great extra bit of flavor to the salad.
Also, quick note about the olive oil. You want to use a good quality extra virgin olive oil in this dressing. Much of the flavor of this salad comes from that, so you don’t want to use a cheap olive oil that can taste a little bitter.
This Maroulosalata is just one of the salad recipes we have on Drugstore Divas. We have other unique and classic salad ideas in our list of Quick Vegetarian Salad Recipes.
Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad) With Olives Recipe
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Maroulosalata With Olives Ingredients:
- 1 head of romaine lettuce
- 2 green onions
- 1/4 cup fresh dill
- 2 oz. feta cheese
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 cup sliced kalamata olives
How To Make Maroulosalata With Olives:
Finely chop the romaine lettuce into thin strips (so you’re cutting the width, not the length, of the lettuce).
Put the lettuce in a bath of cold water to keep it crisp while you’re chopping the other ingredients.
Chop the green onions.
Chop the dill.
Cut the feta cheese into slices, then rough chop those slices into small chunks.
Drain the lettuce and dry it with paper towels. Add it to a large mixing bowl. Add the green onions, dill, and feta.
In a small bowl, add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and dried oregano. Whisk it together until the ingredients are combined to make a simple vinaigrette.
Side note: I use bottled lemon juice because it’s always in my fridge, but you could use fresh lemon juice if you prefer.
Pour the vinaigrette dressing over the salad.
Toss with tongs to combine.
The traditional Greek salad is served this way. However, we really like the extra flavor of adding sliced kalamata olives at this point and tossing them into the salad. For purists, maroulosalata doesn’t have olives. And I respect that. However, our personal preferences is the salad with olives.
You could also add grilled chicken breasts or tuna salad on top of the salad if you wanted to serve this as a main course instead of a side dish.
Maroulosalata with Olives: Frequently Asked Questions
Maroulosalata (pronounced mar-rue-sa-la-ta) is the Greek word for lettuce salad.
Maroulosalata is best served fresh for the best flavor.
If you do need to make it ahead of time, make the salad and the dressing and then keep them separate until you’re ready for dinner. Then, dress the salad and let it marinate for about 10 minutes before serving.
Our recipe calls for a single bunch of romaine. That makes three hearty servings. If you want more, you can use two romaine lettuce hearts. Double the rest of the ingredients except the olive oil. With that, you just want to increase it from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup.
Fresh dill is going to add a lots of taste to the salad. You really can taste the flavor of the dill. You wouldn’t really get that same taste from dried dill, so we recommend fresh dill.
Also, quick side note, but my rule of thumb is fresh herbs when you’re eating them raw and dried herbs when you’re cooking (or using them in a salad dressing).
You’ll usually be able to find a block of nice, creamy feta cheese in the deli section of your local grocery store. It takes just a minute to cut it into pieces. Plus, a block of feta cheese is usually cheaper than the crumbles.
Yes, you can purchase crumbled feta cheese at the grocery store as well, but that cheese is usually drier and harder than the block of feta. If that’s all you can find, it will work in this salad, but it will be a better salad if you take the extra minute to cut a block of cheese.
Goat cheese looks similar to feta cheese, but it’s not the same. We don’t recommend using goat cheese in this recipe.
Store any leftover maroulosalata in an airtight container in the fridge. You want to eat it the next day, maybe for a light lunch. After that, it’ll start to get soggy.
More Greek Recipes:
If you’re looking for some Greek cuisine to serve with this classic Greek salad, check out our Spanakopita or our Spanakopita Puff Pastry Bites. You can pair it with our Greek Orzo Salad as well. If you want some dips, our Tzatziki Sauce and Spanakopita Dip recipes are for you.
Of course, you could also pair this with classic Greek dishes like gyros and Greek lamb chops.
Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad) With Olives
If you’re looking for a delicious salad made from basic ingredients, this Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad) With Olives recipe is for you. The green salad and tangy dressing come together in just minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 head of romaine lettuce
- 2 green onions
- 1/4 cup fresh dill
- 2 oz. feta cheese
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 cup sliced kalamata olives
Instructions
- Finely chop the romaine lettuce into thin strips.
- Put the lettuce in a bath of cold water to keep it crisp while you’re chopping the other ingredients.
- Chop the green onions.
- Chop the dill.
- Cut the feta cheese into slices, then rough chop those slices into small chunks.
- Drain the lettuce and dry it with paper towels. Add it to a large mixing bowl. Add the green onions, dill, and feta.
- In a small bowl, add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and dried oregano. Whisk it together until the ingredients are combined to make a simple vinaigrette.
- Pour the vinaigrette dressing over the salad.
- Toss with tongs to combine.
- Add sliced kalamata olives at this point and tossing them into the salad.
Notes
The traditional version of this salad is without olives.
Nutrition Information
Yield
3Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 296Total Fat 28gSaturated Fat 6gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 20gCholesterol 17mgSodium 508mgCarbohydrates 10gFiber 5gSugar 4gProtein 6g
Have you tried this Maroulosalata (Greek Lettuce Salad) With Olives recipe? Let us know how it went in the comments.