Healthy Mediterranean Chopped Salad

5 from 5 vote

Healthy Mediterranean Chopped Salad

Enjoy this Healthy Mediterranean Chopped Salad made with cucumber, tomatoes, red onions, Kalamata olives, and a light lemon-olive oil dressing! It is ready in just 15 minutes. Delicious on its own or paired with your favorite protein.

Prep Time15

Course: Dinner, Lunch

Cuisine: American

Keyword: detox, healthy recipe, paleo, Salad, Whole30

Servings:

Calories: 251kcal

Author: Lora

Ingredients

For the dressing:

juice and zest of 2 large lemons use organic if you’re using the zest
½ cup olive oil
½-1 teaspoon salt

For the salad:

1 large English cucumber finely diced
½ cup to 1 cup red onion finely diced
4 Roma or Plum tomatoes finely diced
¼-½ cup Kalamata olives finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt (I used sea salt) or more, to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper or more, to taste

Instructions

Make the easy dressing:

In a large bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients. Or, add all the dressing ingredients in a glass jar. Close the lid tightly and shake vigorously.

Prep the salad:

Rinse the cucumber and tomatoes well. Finely dice all the vegetables. Chop up the olives.

Add to bowl:

Add all the ingredients to a large bowl.

Mix the salad:

Add on the dressing to the salad, and stir to combine with the chopped vegetables and olives. Check the flavoring, and add more salt and freshly ground pepper to your taste. Add a little hot pepper, if you enjoy a little spicy kick! You could let it marinate before you enjoy it (even 5-15 minutes will give the flavors time to nicely combine together).

Notes

Yields: you’ll get about 4 generous portions with this amount of veggies.
Dressing: Double the recipe and use the rest for other salad recipes (will keep fresh for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator).
Cucumbers: Use 1 large or 2 smaller English cucumbers. If you use a regular cucumber, it should be peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and diced (no need to peel and seed an English cucumber).
Red onions: If using 1 large red onion, ½ onion should yield approximately 1 cup finely diced. You could sub a sweet onion. Use ½ - 1 cup finely diced onion, Use less, if you prefer.
Tomatoes: Use two large Roma or Plum tomatoes. Or if you have cherry or grape tomatoes on hand, use 1 ½ -2 cups cut in half. If using Roma or Plum, seed if you prefer.
Kalamata olives: If you don’t have kalamata on hand, you could use black olives.
To Store: If you’re planning to just have 1 portion, do not add the dressing. Dressing will stay fresh for up to 2 weeks in a tightly sealed jar in the refrigerator. If you’ve combined the salad and dressing, the dressed salad will keep in the refrigerator in an airtight container for a few days.

Nutrition