Greek Salad with Feta Vinaigrette

Everyone loves a big fat Greek salad. This one is just like you get at a restaurant! It features crisp romaine lettuce with cucumbers, tomato, kalamata olives, green pepper, loads of feta cheese and the BEST feta dressing with olive oil and oregano.

How to make the best Greek Salad with Feta Vinaigrette

You guys.  I am living outside of the great city of Madison now, and there are a gazillion and a half places to eat {and amazing ones at that}, but I am over here missing my favorite traditional Greek salad from none other than Chicago Grill in Appleton, WI.  

Remember when I made Chicken Shawarma and Hummus from Chicago Grill and I went on and on and on and on about how delicious it is?  Well, that's exactly how I am feeling about this salad right now.  

I am missing the hell out of it.  {Yes, I typically go there at least once a week to get this salad or the chicken shawarma with hummus and pita.  

Sometimes I order all of it because I can't decide.}  I am, like, 2 hours away from this salad at this moment.  It's a problem.

But instead of whining about it for 4 more hours, I decided to recreate it so I can eat it anytime, anywhere.  That seems like the right thing to do... right?

So what's all the fuss?  Well, first of all, there are some tips and tricks that restaurants do to make their salads rock, and it always made me wonder why mine didn't taste that good at home.

Well with great practice and a fabulous article written by The Kitchn, everything seems to make sense now.  

How to make the best Greek salad

What makes restaurant salads so YUMMY?

1) We all love something more when it's made by someone else, especially a restaurant chef.  They put in all the effort, so we don't have to worry about doing a thing, except eating.

2) They love to use salt and fat {don't we all} in restaurants, so there's that.

3) They can put together a killer salad dressing and they use just the right amount on the salad.

So with that, {I think} I've made the most perfect Greek salad with Feta Vinaigrette, that mimics the one I get/got {weekly} at Chicago Grill.

With crisp romaine lettuce, juicy, burst-in-your-mouth cherry tomatoes straight from the garden, crunchy cucumber and bell pepper, (extra) briny kalamata olives {my favorite part of the salad} and tangy feta cheese, this is the salad that will get people excited about salad.

And what brings the salad all together, and to home run status?  A fantastically tart-yet-sweet Greek vinaigrette dressing, with more feta.  

This feta salad dressing, friends, is the dressing to end all dressings. I literally don't need anything else ever in this whole world if I can just have this dressing.

Okay maybe that's a little dramatic, but you get what I'm saying.  So what is it?

A combo of fresh lemon juice and red wine vinegar, dried oregano, garlic, sugar to balance it all out, and the best olive oil you can get your hands on, plus a pinch of salt and ground black pepper, just because.  

There it is, all items you have sitting in the pantry at home, dying to be mixed together.

And drizzled on this fabulous salad.

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Friends, I hope you love it as much as I do!

XOXO