Easy Grilled Romaine Lettuce Greek Salad

This summer, up your salad game with this mouthwatering grilled romaine lettuce Greek salad that’s packed with vibrant ingredients and bursting with summer produce and briny Mediterranean flavors – olives, pickled banana peppers and salty feta. Whip this up for an easy vegetarian summer dinner or a hearty side. 

Why You’re Going To Love This Grilled Greek Salad

• Grilling romaine is so easy and it infuses the lettuce with smokiness and great flavor. In fact, grilling romaine is a great way to get the best of roasted vegetables and crisp, refreshing salads. Here we’re loading it up with the key components of a Greek salad, but you give it the Caesar, Wedge, or Cobb salad treatment. 
• It’s so quick – you can literally grill lettuce in 5 minutes start to finish. It’s a hearty weeknight side at our house. We usually serve it with a super simple protein. Chicken, lamb or steak all work really well. Or, chase it down with spaghetti tossed in my simple roasted red pepper pesto. 
• And it’s stunning. Imagine serving guests half of a romaine heart piled high with vibrant summer produce on a warm summer night sipping on a rose as the heat of the day gives way to the evening. 
• It’s adaptable. Cut it in half if you’re only serving 2-3 people. The romaine won’t keep well, but the rest of the salad holds up beautifully if you have any left over (leftovers go really well spooned over crackers). You can also serve this whole or chopped up as part of the salad.
• Side note: there’s a bit of variety here too; our toddler does NOT like lettuce, and this salad is PERFECT for him. We just give him the veggies tossed in the greek vinaigrette and everyone is happy. 

Ingredients

• 2-3 heads of romaine lettuce
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cucumber: seeds removed, quartered and sliced.
• Red onion: thinly sliced
• Pickled banana peppers: You can also swap for thinly sliced green pepper if pickled banana peppers, black olives, and feta sound like more than your palette can handle.
• Black olives: I recommend going for a nicer variety, a pitted black Kalamata olive, for example. 
• Feta: When possible I always get feta in brine. Pre-crumbled feta is often dry, bland, and less tart than it should be. Vacuum-sealed feta is okay in a pinch, but will dry out faster and turn out more rubbery than feta in brine. Yes, feta in brine is where it’s at. Smooth and creamy. Sharp and tangy. And fun fact: the brine extends its shelf life!
• Acidity (Red wine vinegar AND fresh lemon juice): ​​In this vinaigrette, you get the astringent, slightly funky flavor of the red wine vinegar and the juicy tartness of a lemon, all in one dressing. It’s so good! 
• Dijon mustard: Dijon mustard adds flavor to a vinaigrette, of course, but its lesser known role in salad dressings is as a thickener. It’s an important part of the emulsification process!                                                                           
• Garlic cloves: The more the merrier, I say. I started with two as this is makes a hefty bowl of dressing. 
• Dried oregano
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Honey: Whether you use honey or not depends on personal taste and quality of your vinegar and oil. Swap for a bit of granulated white or cane sugar if you don’t have honey.
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper: I think you can go light on salt here given it’s going over such a punchy mix. I’ve provided a base measurement here because I hate not having a ballpark from which to start in a recipe, but you’ll likely have to adjust based on personal preference. 

Equipment

• Outdoor grill or oven broiler
• Mixing bowls
• Whisk
• Salad Servers
• Serving platter

How to Make This Salad

1. Toss cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, thinly sliced red onion, pickled banana peppers, pitted black olives and crumbled feta cheese together in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk all the ingredients for the vinaigrette together except the olive oil until smooth. Stream in the olive oil and whisk until emulsified and then use as needed. Keep for up to 8 days in the fridge.
3. Clean grill grates and set heat to medium high.
4. Brush lettuce halves liberally with olive oil (approximately 2 tablespoons oil for 3 romaine hearts, but a little more, cut side and back side. Then sprinkle each halve with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt.
5. Grill for 3 minutes, cut side down, pressing with your tongs to make sure the lettuce gets a good sear. Flip and grill for 2 more minutes.
6. Remove from the grill and onto a serving platter. Toss ⅓ of the Greek vinaigrette with the salad vegetable medley. Drizzle the grilled romaine halves with a ⅓ of the Greek vinaigrette. Then, top with the Greek salad mix. Use the remaining ⅓ dressing to let people add more dressing to taste.
7. Optionally, top with croutons or garnish with fresh dill.

How to Grill Romaine Lettuce

1. Clean grill grates and set heat to medium high
2. Brush dry lettuce halves liberally with 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil, cut side and back side. Then sprinkle each halve with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt.
3. Grill for 3 minutes, cut side down, pressing with your tongs to make sure the lettuce gets a good sear. Flip and grill for 2 more minutes.

How to ‘Grill’ Hearts of Romaine Lettuce Without a Grill

1. Put your oven on the “high” broil setting.
2. Prep your romaine halves as you would if you were going to grill them.
3. Place the romaine hearts on a baking sheet and broil for 2 minutes, then flip and broil the other side for 2 minutes. Keep an eye on them. This happens quickly.They’ll come out looking slightly charred.
4. Proceed to dress and build the salad as you would if it was grilled.

Why You Should Give Your Red Onion a Bath

If you’d like to mellow the onion’s raw taste, fill a small bowl with ice water. Add about 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar to the water, then add the sliced onion. Set aside to soak for 10 minutes or so.

Variations

If you want to vary this recipe, try replacing the banana peppers with thin slices of red, green, and yellow bell pepper. A tablespoon or two of fresh herbs – oregano, dill, or even mint – will really make this salad sing.

What to Serve with a Grilled Romaine Lettuce Salad?

Add in ideas to make a satisfying dinner salad include a can of drained chickpeas, sliced grilled or baked chicken breast, salmon, shrimp, or any cooked protein you enjoy. If you’re making this at the beginning or end of summer on a cooler day, I highly recommend these Cheesy Four-Ingredient Pork Chops. This Asparagus Bacon Pizza would also do the affair.

Prep & Storage

This is a great recipe for dinner parties because you can make the vinaigrette and the Greek vegetable medley in advance! I don’t recommend grilling the romaine lettuce in advance though; grilled lettuce hot off the grill = great. Grilled lettuce sitting several hours = less great.

📖 Recipe

Grilled Romaine Lettuce Greek Salad

Up your salad game with this mouthwatering grilled romaine lettuce Greek salad that’s packed with vibrant ingredients and bursting with summer produce and briny Mediterranean flavors – olives, pickled banana peppers and salty feta.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Course Appetizers, salad, side dish

Cuisine Greek, Mediterranean, vegetarian

Servings 4 -6 people

Ingredients

  

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Homemade Greek Vinaigrette

• ⅓ cup Red wine vinegar
• ¼ cup Or approximately 1 lemon juiced
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 Garlic cloves minced
• ¾ teaspoon Dried oregano
• ¼ teaspoon Salt or to taste
• ¼ teaspoon Black pepper or to taste
• ½ cup Olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Honey or to taste
• Optional: 1 tablespoon fresh, chopped dill

Salad Components

• 2-3 Heads of romaine lettuce halved
• 1 cup Cherry tomatoes halved
• 1 Cucumber – seeds removed quartered and sliced
• ½ Red onion thinly sliced
• ½ cup Pickled banana peppers chopped
• ½ cup Pitted black olives halved
• 4 ounces Feta crumbled

Instructions

 

Prep the Greek Vegetable Medley

• Toss cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, thinly sliced red onion, pickled banana peppers, pitted black olives and crumbled feta cheese together in a medium mixing bowl. Set aside.

Mix the Vinaigrette

• Whisk all the ingredients for the vinaigrette together except the olive oil until smooth. Stream in the olive oil and whisk until emulsified and then use as needed. Keep for up to 8 days in the fridge.

Grill the Romaine

• Clean grill grates and set heat to medium high
• Brush lettuce halves liberally with olive oil (approximately 2 tablespoons oil for 3 romaine hearts, but a little more, cut side and back side. Then sprinkle each halve with ¼ teaspoon kosher salt.
• Grill for 3 minutes, cut side down, pressing with your tongs to make sure the lettuce gets a good sear. Flip and grill for 2 more minutes.

Assemble

• Remove from the grill and onto a serving platter. Toss ⅓ of the Greek vinaigrette with the Greek vegetable medley. Drizzle the grilled romaine halves with a ⅓ of the Greek vinaigrette.Then, top with the Greek vegetable medley. Use the remaining ⅓ dressing to let people add more dressing to taste.

Notes

Looking for ways to incorporate more salad into your meals? 

Try my recipes for Beet Cucumber Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette or Lemony Swiss Chard Salad with Garlicky Breadcrumbs (still a family favorite!). 

A traditional Greek salad (Horiatiki Salata) includes feta, tomatoes, cucumber, black olives, sliced red onion, and green bell pepper. In the US, we pretty commonly swap the green pepper for pickled banana pepper, and since this isn’t a traditional Greek salad by any means, I’m happy to swap in this instance. You do you! 

To mellow the onion’s raw taste, give it an ice water bath for 10 minutes after slicing! Drain before adding onions to the Greek vegetable medley.

Turn this into a 30 minute main! Toss a can of drained chickpeas into the salad mixture or grill up a couple of chicken breasts to slice and serve alongside the salad.

Keyword BBQ, cucumbers, Greek salad, grill recipes, plant based, salad, summer salads, tomatoes, vegetarian

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