Feta Salad with Roasted Eggplant

Name: Feta Salad with Roasted Eggplant, Olives and Arugula
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 15 min
Cuisine: Greek cuisine
Ingredients: Feta cheese 150 g; Mixed greens (lettuce, romaine, oak leaf, arugula) 1 bunch; Eggplant 1 (optional); Sweet pepper (red or green) 1; Sweet purple onion 1; Cucumbers 1-2; Black olives 15-20; Olive oil 50 ml; Balsamic vinegar 0.5 tsp; Lime or lemon optional; Salt, black pepper, oregano, sugar to taste

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15 mins

A vegetable salad with feta and an original dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar is an unbelievable appetizer with a delicate, pleasant flavor. Feta salad can come together very quickly if you skip the roasted vegetables or prepare them ahead. You can also chop all the ingredients in advance and toss them together right before serving.

Salad as a dish has ancient roots, and in most languages the word sounds almost the same. The term most likely comes from salato, meaning salted, since vegetable mixes were traditionally salted before being served. Appetizers and salads can have quite elaborate recipes. Salad dressings, too, range from very simple, like vegetable oil, to fairly complex, like mayonnaise and various cold sauces.

Along with fresh or roasted (or boiled) vegetables, salads often contain mushrooms, herbs, seeds, and spicy, aromatic additions. I really like composed cold appetizers that include different cheeses. The famous Greek salad, horiatiki, a colorful mix of fresh vegetables and feta, is something we make at home very often in summer.

We prefer to make a cold salad from a mix of different salad greens: lettuce, romaine, oak leaf. We try to add arugula for its light bitterness, plus olives and sometimes fresh herbs. To give the feta salad a slight kick, we add sweet purple onion cut into large rings. The dressing is usually very simple: the best olive oil with a few drops of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar.

In summer, when there are plenty of fresh vegetables, we add roasted eggplant or fresh sweet pepper to the feta salad. We usually roast the eggplant over an open flame rather than frying it, then cool it before adding it to the salad.

Feta is a traditional Greek cheese, although it is made almost everywhere and from different kinds of milk. It is very soft, even creamy, but cuts easily and barely crumbles. Feta is often replaced with similar cheeses such as brynza, mozzarella and other brined cheeses. When you are making this appetizer, feel free to swap the cheese as you like. Under EU rules feta can only be produced in Greece, so outside it the cheese goes by a different name.

Ingredients

2 servings

Feta cheese 150 g
Mixed greens (lettuce, romaine, oak leaf, arugula) 1 bunch
Eggplant 1 (optional)
Sweet pepper (red or green) 1
Sweet purple onion 1
Cucumbers 1-2
Black olives 15-20
Olive oil 50 ml
Balsamic vinegar 0.5 tsp
Lime or lemon optional
Salt, black pepper, oregano, sugar to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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How to prepare the ingredients

Feta goes back to ancient Greece. The first mentions of it appear several thousand years BC. In Greece this brined cheese is made from sheep’s milk, often with some goat’s milk added. It is a very aromatic white cheese with a slightly salty taste. Its firmness varies by type. To my taste, the ideal cheese for salad is soft and buttery. You can spread it on bread, yet it does not crumble.

Prepare the greens and vegetables. If the greens are a bit limp, soak them in cold water for a few hours beforehand. Then wash and dry them: the less moisture gets into the salad, the better. You can use a single kind of leaf, for example lettuce or romaine, as for Caesar salad. If you prepare a mix of different salad greens and add arugula and other herbs to your taste, the dish turns out incredibly good.
The vegetables for feta salad should be as fresh as possible. Wash and dry one large sweet bell pepper, red or green as you prefer. You will also need black olives, preferably small ones, pitted or not, a small purple sweet onion and 1-2 cucumbers. In our house we happen to prefer slightly overripe cucumbers for summer salads, but it is not essential.

How to roast the eggplant

We use roasted eggplant as a seasonal addition, but it is optional. Out of season, you can make the salad without it and it will be just as good. The time in the recipe does not include roasting and cooling the eggplant, so it is best to prepare it ahead. You can also add roasted pepper to the salad, as in bell pepper salad, using the same method.

Roast the eggplant over a flame or in a Bulgarian pepper roaster until the skin is black. You can bake the eggplant in the oven or microwave, but then you will not get that unique flavor and aroma of a roasted vegetable.
Peel the charred skin off the cooled eggplant and cut it into small slices or cubes. If the eggplant has formed seeds, it is better to remove them. Arrange the pieces on plates in a single layer and brush with lemon or lime juice. Or, alternatively, mix 0.5 tbsp olive oil with a few drops of balsamic vinegar and brush the eggplant with the mixture.

How to assemble the salad

Tear the washed and dried lettuce and arugula leaves into pieces with your fingers. They need not be very small, but do not use a knife: cutting releases a lot of juice, which is bad for the salad. If possible, remove the tough central ribs from the leaves. You can snap the stems off the arugula and leave the leaves whole.
Put the torn leaves in a bowl, sprinkle with a pinch of fine salt and toss. Peel the cucumbers and, if you like, remove the seeds if they are already clearly visible, then cut into large cubes and add to the salad bowl. Cut the seeded bell pepper into thin rings. Peel the sweet onion and slice it into rounds, then separate them into rings, discarding the center.

Gently toss all the vegetables so they mix evenly. The salt has already dissolved. I recommend adding a little freshly ground pepper to the vegetables, just a very little. Pile the salad on top of the roasted eggplant (without eggplant, directly onto the plate).
Take the feta out of the brine and cut it carefully, so it does not crumble, into cubes of about 15 mm. This is easy to do with a very thin ceramic knife or, if you have one, a wire cheese cutter, a very handy tool. Put the feta cubes on top of the vegetables, add the small black olives and sprinkle with a pinch of oregano.

How to make the dressing

Salads like this are most often dressed with plain olive oil or a vinaigrette: a mix of olive oil and wine vinegar. That is how we dress most green salads.

Mix 0.5 tsp balsamic vinegar with a pinch of sugar. Once the sugar dissolves, add the mixture to 50 ml olive oil and whisk vigorously with a fork. It emulsifies beautifully.

Serving

Once the feta salad is arranged on the plate and ready to serve, drizzle the vegetables and cheese with the prepared dressing and serve right away.
A light and tasty feta salad is an excellent appetizer. It goes wonderfully with a glass of dry wine. Do not make the salad ahead: it should be fresh and at room temperature. Alternatively, you can cut all the vegetables in advance and toss them together before serving. And one more thing, make some crispy bruschetta — an exceptional pairing. Enjoy!

Calories and macros

535 kcal

Serving ≈ 500 g

Protein15 g11% of kcal
Fat44 g75% of kcal
Carbs18 g14% of kcal

100 g107 kcalProtein 3 gFat 8.8 gCarbs 3.7 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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