Many of us love salads and as a separate dish, and as a light snack to main dishes. Cooked from fresh seasonal vegetables, they have incredible nutritional value and low calorie content. Due to the variety of recipes and ingredients included in them, you can pamper your family and friends with salads not only during the hot season, but also in winter. Salad can be a separate dish, like, for example, Olivier, loved by all, and dietary if you cook it from greens, non-starch vegetables and season with a mixture of lemon and balsamic vinegar. Salad mixes can be warm, hearty - with meat, fish or cheese, fruit, light. For example, the calorific value of a Greek salad is very small, since it consists only of vegetables and cheese. In this case, there are several ways how to reduce its energy value to a minimum.
Greek salad, caloric content and classic recipe
To feel the mood of sunny Greece, you do not need to go on a trip. Prepare the Greek salad yourself, and the taste of fresh vegetables, light cheese, the aroma of olive oil and herbs will carry you for miles away from your house. Make this salad means not only chop and mix the ingredients specified in the recipe, but also prepare the correct dressing for it, the secret of which you will learn below. Caloric content of Greek salad is also low and amounts to about 200 kcal per serving, if we talk about its main recipe. Thanks to this fact, even those who follow a diet can afford this dish. So, let's start cooking. We will need:
- 150 gr of Feta cheese;
- 4 medium tomatoes, cut into pieces;
- 1 cucumber, cut into circles (no need to remove the peel);
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced;
- On half of the Bulgarian pepper of red and green flowers, cut in semicircles;
- 2 teaspoons of capers (without them, too, it will be delicious, given the rarity of the ingredient);
- 1 teaspoon ground oregano;
- 15-20 black olives (it is better with a stone, but it is possible and without);
- A few crackers;
- A few spoons of the best olive oil, lemon juice, dried mint and salt to taste.
Take a large deep salad dish and place in it pre-divided into cubes cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onions. Then add olives and capers (optional). Sprinkle oregano, pour a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and lemon juice to your taste (can be replaced with red wine vinegar). Garnish with crackers. Ready to serve. Do not forget to serve with a couple of slices of fresh bread, which is so tasty to choose the remaining refueling. It is important to remember that after the addition of oil, all ingredients should be thoroughly mixed with each other, since it has the property of settling on the bottom of the serving bowl and being bitter. If you do not have oregano at hand, you can replace it with black pepper. Also remember that the "Feta" cheese contains a lot of salt, so try the dish before adding salt in addition. Caloric content of Greek salad is so small that even having mastered a full plate, you can ask for supplements without harming the figure. And those who do not need calorie content, you can add a boiled chicken to the salad.
Greek salad with feta cheese. Calorie and cooking
If one of the components in a classic salad is feta, traditionally produced in Greece by patented technology, then in variations of the recipe, for example, when this kind of cheese is simply not at hand, it can be replaced with cheese or even tofu. By the way, with the latter the caloric content of the Greek salad will be significantly lower, because the famous Asian cheese contains few calories, and besides it is made from soy, not from milk or cream, that is, in this case salad can be eaten and adherents of the vegan menu. To further reduce the calorie content of the salad, make a special dressing of spices, lemon juice and red or balsamic vinegar. If you keep a figure, then without olive oil you can get by. It was a recipe for a Greek salad and its various variations, one of which you will definitely like to taste.