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.
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.
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. 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.
Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 3 large chicken breasts
Instructions
- Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a medium mixing bowl. Then add the garlic, dried oregano, and olive oil. Whisk to combine.
- Cut the chicken into 2cm x 2cm cubes or are close to that as you can get them. Put the chicken in the marinade, and stir to coat.
- Put the chicken in the fridge and leave it to marinate overnight.
- Heat your oven to 400°f.
- Drain the marinade off the chicken, then spread it out onto a lightly oiled sheet pan. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then roast in the oven for 25 to 35 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.
- Alternatively, put the chicken on bamboo skewers that have been soaked in water for 1 hour, then grill on medium-high heat for 4 to 5 minutes per side.
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. 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-syle 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. 1. remove the seeds. 2. grate the cucumber. 3. salt the cucumber. 4. drain the cucumber.
To remove the seeds, cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop them out with a spoon. This will remove a lot of excess moisture, but it will also extend your tzatziki's shelf life because the seeds will spoil quicker than the rest of the cucumber. Grate the cucumber on the large setting of a cheese grater. This creates more surface area, allowing you to extract more moisture. It also helps to distribute the cucumber throughout the tzatziki evenly. Mix half a teaspoon of kosher salt into the cucumber. The salt will pull water out of the cucumber. Finally, put the cucumber in a strainer set above a mixing bowl. Let it sit for ten minutes, then discard the liquid.
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.
Ingredients
- ¼ English cucumber
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon chopped mint
- ¼ teaspoon dried dill
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- ½ a lemon, juiced
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
Instructions
- Cut the cucumber in half and remove the seeds. Grate the cucumber on the large holes of a cheese grater. Mix the grated cucumber with the salt and put it in a strainer set above a medium mixing bowl. Leave to sit for 10 minutes.
- Squeeze the cucumber to extract any remaining juice then discard the liquid in the bottom of the bowl. Put the cucumber in the bowl with the remaining ingredients, stir and serve.
- Keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
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.
Making the Greek Salad
To make the Greek salad, thinly slice half an English cucumber, 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.
Ingredients
- ½ English cucumber
- 1 green bell pepper
- 1 tablespoon chopped mint
- ½ cup diced feta cheese
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- ½ lemon, juiced
Instructions
- Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Thinly slice the cucumber and put it in a medium mixing bowl
- Remove the seeds and stem from the green pepper. Thinly slice the pepper and add it to the bowl with the cucumber.
- Add the remaining ingredients and stir. Serve right away or put in the fridge for up to an hour before serving.
Notes
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.
The Wrap Up
Greek food is one of my top 5 global cuisines. I love it, and I am so happy to share this meal with you. What is your favourite Greek food? Tell me in the comments below or on Facebook. Remember to share this post on Facebook or Pinterest if you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!
Anonymous says
Favorite Greek food? Well so far I've only had Gyros, Spanikopita and Baklava. Loved them all!
Chef Ben Kelly says
Those are all great choices! I especially really love spanikopita.