For a lettuce-free summer salad, go Greek

Summer means low-hassle, cool dinner salads. With the lettuce scares this year, I’ve been looking for lettuce-free salads. A brief search turned up Greek salad recipes using summertime’s abundant produce and NO lettuce.

Two similar Greek salad recipes seemed to be the answer: Daniel Gritzer’s on seriouseats.com and Jeanine Donofrio’s at loveandlemons.com.

As you may know, seriouseats.com is a very reliable recipe source. Donofrio’s loveandlemons was a new find. My Greek salad recipe is an excellent blend of the two.

Gritzer’s recipe taught me something that made this truly different: soaking the sliced red onions in red wine vinegar for 15 minutes before adding them to the salad, essentially pickling them. Then he used that same vinegar to make the dressing. Nothing wasted here.

Donofrio’s dressing recipe was more complex than Gritzer’s. Instead of using fresh garlic, as Donofrio did, I went with roasted garlic granules, making it easier to prepare and subtly better. Her dressing used a touch of Dijon mustard as a flavor bump.

There are three ingredients considered the cornerstones for Greek salads: cucumbers, tomatoes and feta cheese.

A feta cheese from Wisconsin turned out to be an excellent choice for my salad. This one was subtly sweet, yet perfectly salty. And since it was not imported, it was reasonably priced.

I went with English (sometimes called “hot house”), seedless cucumbers for their ease of preparation — no need to peel or remove seeds. Their bright green skin added eye appeal.

My choice for Kalamata olives was a splurge, since they were imported. It was recommended to go with whole olives for a better flavor even though it takes a bit of time to remove the pits. My handy olive pitter made short work of that.

Finally, the olive oil I used was an organic, extra-virgin olive oil my brother Robert had given me.

How did my combination Greek salad work out? Better than any restaurant Greek salad I’ve ever had, due to my ability to pick each of the ingredients.

Give it a try.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

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My Greek Salad

Serves: 4

⅓ cup (2 ounces) thinly sliced red onion

⅓ cup red wine vinegar

For the dressing:

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon roasted garlic granules

½ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

For the salad:

1 seedless cucumber, cut lengthwise and then crosswise into ¼-inch-thick slices

1 green bell pepper, stem end trimmed, seeds removed and cut into 1-inch pieces

2 cups (about 12 ounces) halved cherry tomatoes

4 ounces feta cheese, cut into ¼-inch cubes

20 whole Kalamata olives, pitted

In a small bowl, combine the onion with the vinegar and let soak about 15 minutes. Drain the onions, reserving vinegar for the dressing.

Make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, vinegar from the onion soak, garlic granules, oregano, mustard, salt and pepper. Set aside.

While the onions soak, prepare the salad ingredients:

Add the cucumber, green pepper, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and olives to a large mixing bowl. Using a large rubber spatula, stir and toss to combine. Add the onions, reserving the vinegar, and the feta cheese. Stir and fold to combine.

Drizzle the dressing onto the salad and fold the salad together until evenly coated with the dressing.

Nutrition values per serving: 314 calories (78.6% from fat), 27.4 g fat (7 g saturated fat), 10.6 g carbohydrates (7.5 net carbs), 6 g sugars, 3.1 g fiber, 6.2 g protein, 25 mg cholesterol, 943 mg sodium. SaltSense: Most of the sodium in this salad comes from the feta cheese (317 mg) and olives (333 mg); adjust as needed.

— Don Mauer, adapted from recipes on seriouseats.com and loveandlemons.com