Serve this creamy and cool Classic Greek Salad with your favorite summer main dish. This simple but flavorful salad is grain free, dairy free, and low carb!
What’s better than a fresh and cool Greek salad that’s bursting with flavor on hot summer days?
Greek salad is one of my absolute favorite foods and has been for years. It’s even better when it’s topped with a delicious chicken souvlaki or lamb and beef gyro meat alongside some baba ganoush. So good!!
We love global flavors in our house, we try to experience new foods whenever we can. But having multiple food allergies between us makes that a bit tricky sometimes., so it’s safer making some of those amazing cultural foods at home.
This Greek salad recipe is a different variation of a Greek salad recipe I posted several years ago. I wanted to make one that was more traditional than that one I made years ago (plus a recipe with better photos!) so here it is 🙂
How to make dairy free Greek Salad
Most Greek Salads are dairy free, right? Wrong!
Depending on where you buy your salad, many greek salads that you get at a restaurant have added feta cheese or dressings with cheese in them, so even when you’re buying something as simple as a salad, you have to be careful about dairy and other allergens in it (like pine nuts or soy).
You don’t have to worry about hidden dairy or other allergens when you make Greek salad at home! Making the salad dairy free is easy, but what about toppings and dressing?
If you’re craving that delicious feta cheese but can’t have cow’s milk, you have 2 options:
- Look for a sheep or goat milk feta-style cheese
- Or find a dairy free, vegan feta style cheese
If you can tolerate sheep or goat milk, you can try finding a suitable feta cheese made with either of those instead of cow’s milk. But if you’re like me and still can’t tolerate any kind of milk (cow, goat, or sheep), than the Violife Feta is a great option!
I’ve been super impressed with the Violife feta style cheese, I added it to my Sun Dried Tomato Basil Mac and Cheese recipe and it was incredible! I even like eating it by itself, it is pretty amazing, and it tastes great with my Greek salad.
Note: when you add the dairy free feta cheese to the salad, it will stir up and coat the salad and make it creamy looking. If you don’t want it to look creamy, you can simply crumble the feta on top right before serving.
I personally love having the non-dairy feta mixed into the salad to add flavor to everything, but you can serve it however you’d like 🙂
As for the dairy free dressing, most store-bought Greek dressings have some kind of cheese added to them. But instead of using an actual dressing for my salad, I instead used some fresh herbs and the kalamata olive juice from the jar.
Super simple, flavorful, and light. No need for thick dressings here! You can let this salad sit for a couple hours in the fridge to let the flavors meld together a little bit, this will make it taste even more flavorful once you serve it.
I like to scoop out the seeds inside the cucumber when I make Greek Salad otherwise it can get a little wet and soupy. I normally also do this with chopped tomatoes, but since I used small grape tomatoes in this recipe, I didn’t have to worry about removing the tomato seeds.
I also peeled my cucumber for this recipe, but that is entirely optional. You can keep the cucumber peel on to add more fiber and color to the recipe if you like!
Check out our other salad recipes:
- Classic Dairy Free Greek Salad
- Warm Garlic Herb Red Potato Salad
- Smoked Salmon Salad
- Thai Cucumber Chicken Salad
Dairy Free Classic Greek Salad (Vegan and Low Carb)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups chopped and seeded cucumber, unpeeled
- 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
- ½ cup pitted and sliced kalamata olives
- 1 ½ ounces dairy free feta cheese, crumbled or chopped (I use Violife)
- 1 Tablespoon kalamata olive juice (from the jar)
- 1 Tablespoon sliced chives or green onions
- 1 teaspoon loose packed fresh thyme leaves, rubbed
- 1 teaspoon loose packed minced fresh basil
- zest of 1/2 lemon
- Salt, pepper, garlic powder (to taste)
Instructions
- Remove seeds from your cucumber and chop (I leave the peel on the cucumber for more color) and add it to a large bowl.
- Halve the grape tomatoes and add to the large bowl along with the other ingredients and stir to mix.
- You can serve the salad immediately, or chill for several hours to let the flavors meld together.
- If you don't want your salad creamy, add the feta crumbles on top of the salad before serving rather than mixing it into the salad.
- Store in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
Made this yesterday – went down well with our vegan guests and everyone in fact! thank you
Thank you Crystal!
All my fave flavors 🙂 I love a fresh greek salad! I’ll have to try that dairy free feta cheese, sounds amazing
Definitely give that dairy free feta a try, it’s amazing and goes perfect with this salad!
This looks ridiculously delicious! Also, I just have to try out that cheese! 🙂
You should definitely try out the Violife feta cheese, it’s amazing!