A simple Greek Meal you can make at home

Greek-style chicken, village salad, and tzatziki with rice. This simple Greek meal is all you've ever wanted and more. Join me as I walk you through how to make it and share a few tricks from my time working in a Greek restaurant. Without further ado, let's get to it.

Jump to:

• Greek-Style Chicken
• Recipe
• Tzatziki
• Recipe
• Greek Salad
• Recipe
• Plating the Greek Meal
• Final Thoughts

Greek-Style Chicken

It's best if this Greek-style chicken is left to marinate overnight (two hours will be okay), so we will start with that. The marinade for the chicken is essentially a less acidic version of Greek salad dressing. If you want to, you can use Greek dressing, but it is a pretty simple marinade to make so why skip it?

Marinating the Chicken

To make the chicken's marinade, combine one tablespoon of minced garlic with one tablespoon of dried oregano, the juice of one lemon, and a quarter cup of olive oil. Mix well. Cut three large chicken breasts into 2cm x 2cm cubes and add to the marinade. Stir to coat the chicken. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for the night.

A quick tip on the marinade: the lemon juice does double duty here. It adds brightness and flavour, but it also helps tenderize the chicken. Just be careful not to leave the chicken in the marinade for more than 24 hours, as the acid can start to break down the proteins too much, turning the outside of the meat mushy. Overnight is the sweet spot. If you enjoy this style of flavouring, you will also love the chicken shawarma bowl -- it uses a similar approach with different spices.

Roasting the Chicken

To cook the chicken, first heat your oven to 400°f. Spread a few tablespoons of olive oil on a sheet pan, drain the excess marinade off the chicken, and spread the chicken out on the sheet pan. Make sure the chicken pieces are not touching each other -- crowding the pan will cause the chicken to steam rather than roast, and you will not get that golden colour. Season with salt and pepper, then roast for 25 to 35 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. The chicken is cooked when its internal temperature reaches 165°f.

For an alternative cooking method, thread the chicken onto bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water for an hour, then grill on medium-high heat for 4 to 5 minutes per side. The grill gives you those lovely char marks and a slightly smoky flavour that is hard to beat.

Recipe

Tzatziki

Tzatziki is like the secret weapon of Greek food. It can act as a dip for vegetables or bread, as a sauce for grilled or roasted meat, or as a spread for pita wraps. Oh, and it tastes fantastic. If you want to dive deeper into this wonderful sauce, I have a whole post dedicated to mastering tzatziki in 5 simple steps.

There are two things that you have to focus on to get the right consistency for your tzatziki. First of all, the yogurt. It has to be a thick Greek-style yogurt. Otherwise, you may end up with watery tzatziki. No one wants watery tzatziki. The second point to focus on is how you process the cucumber. Let's take a look at how you do that.

Salting the Cucumber

Cucumbers are mostly water. As the cucumber sits in the yogurt, a lot of that water is going to be pulled out, again, giving you watery tzatziki. There are four steps to process the cucumber to limit how much cucumber juice leaks into the yogurt:

• Remove the seeds -- cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop them out with a spoon
• Grate the cucumber -- use the large setting of a cheese grater for more surface area
• Salt the cucumber -- mix in half a teaspoon of kosher salt to draw out the water
• Drain the cucumber -- put it in a strainer for ten minutes, then discard the liquid

Removing the seeds does more than just reduce moisture -- it also extends your tzatziki's shelf life because the seeds will spoil quicker than the rest of the cucumber. Grating creates more surface area, allowing you to extract more moisture, and it also helps distribute the cucumber throughout the tzatziki evenly.

Finishing the Tzatziki

To finish the tzatziki, add one tablespoon chopped mint, a quarter teaspoon dried dill, one teaspoon minced garlic, the juice of half a lemon, and one cup of Greek yogurt to the cucumber. Mix well. You can use the tzatziki right away, but if you cover it and put it in the fridge for an hour or two, it will have more flavour.

The mint and dill combination is what gives this tzatziki its distinctly Greek character. Fresh mint is worth seeking out here -- dried mint just does not have the same brightness. If you cannot find fresh mint, increase the dried dill slightly to compensate.

Recipe

Greek Salad

You can't have a Greek meal without a Greek salad. When you think of Greek salad, you may think of cucumber, green pepper, red onion, cherry tomatoes, olives, all on a bed of romaine lettuce topped with feta and Greek dressing. That's a delicious salad, and one you will see in every Greek restaurant in North America, but it isn't what we're making today. Our salad is a more rustic version of the Greek salad. Gone are the tomatoes, olives, lettuce and red onion.

This style of salad is closer to what you would find on a family table in a Greek village -- simple, fresh, and focused on just a handful of quality ingredients. If you want to explore more Mediterranean-inspired salads, have a look at the Mediterranean chickpea salad with feta.

Making the Greek Salad

To make the Greek salad, thinly slice half an English cucumber, one whole green bell pepper with the seeds and stem removed, one tablespoon of fresh mint and about a half cup of feta. Put all of that in a bowl with one tablespoon of red wine vinegar, two tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of dried oregano, one teaspoon of minced garlic, and the juice of half a lemon. Mix the salad and serve right away, or put in the fridge for an hour to develop the flavour.

Choose a good quality feta here -- it makes a real difference. Look for feta made from sheep's milk if you can find it. It is creamier and tangier than the cow's milk versions, and it crumbles beautifully over the salad.

Recipe

Plating the Greek Meal

I served my Greek meal with basmati rice, which I've cooked on the blog a thousand times, so I didn't see the need to share the process. Put the rice on the plate, the salad beside it, then the chicken, tzatziki and a lemon wedge. The meal tastes as fresh as it looks.

When you are plating, think about colour and contrast. The golden chicken, the white tzatziki, and the green salad all play off each other beautifully. A squeeze of that lemon wedge right before you take your first bite ties everything together with a burst of citrus.

Final Thoughts

Greek food is one of my top 5 global cuisines. I love it, and I am so happy to share this meal with you. There is something about the simplicity of Greek cooking that I find really special -- a handful of fresh, quality ingredients, prepared with care, and you end up with something that tastes far greater than the sum of its parts.

This meal is one I come back to again and again, and it is one of those dinners that impresses guests without requiring hours of work. The chicken marinates overnight, the tzatziki and salad come together quickly, and the rice practically cooks itself. If Greek food is new to you, I would also recommend checking out my post on everything I know about Greek food for more inspiration. What is your favourite Greek dish? I would love to hear about it in the comments below.