MM's Cheap Eats: Greek salad

By Melanie Hughes

This is an easy recipe and it involves no cooking whatsoever! It’s a light meal that’s great in the summer and will help you shed the guilt of all the Easter chocolate you’ve consumed over the weekend.

Serves four as a starter or two as a main course

100g Feta cheese

40g black olives

100g cherry tomatoes

Half a cucumber, peeled

Half a bell pepper

1 ripe avocado (optional)

2 spring onions

1 small clove of garlic

15ml extra virgin olive oil

The only piece of advice I would give is that, if you can, try to get the best ingredients possible as then all the fresh summer vegetables will come through in all their glory.

Simply chop all the ingredients and place onto a small bed of mixed leaves. The colour of bell pepper is your choice, I would generally go for red or orange for the colour contrast but there’s no science behind it.

I don’t use any lettuce leaves in this recipe because the flavour of the fresh vegetables and cheese together is so nice but if you want to bulk it out with some lettuce then fresh crisp cos lettuce is the best for this salad.

You’ll notice that I have added avocado which is not a traditional ingredient in a Greek Salad but, I think it works really well and it also makes it more filling as a main course.

Crush the garlic and mix into the salad before dressing and season with some salt and pepper, if needed. The feta and olives are very salty so taste it first to check if it needs any salt at all.

Also, the amount of spring onion and garlic you use is completely down to your personal taste and how strong the onions/garlic cloves are so, check first before you go putting them in.

I like a simple dressing of extra virgin olive oil but a drizzle red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar also works well together with the oil or on their own.

Now all you have to do is serve with some crusty bread and enjoy some guilt-free foodie pleasure!