This salad changed how I think about lunch. For years, a salad meant something sad and unsatisfying — a pile of leaves that left me hungry an hour later. This is the opposite of that. It's substantial, colourful, deeply flavourful, and keeps you properly full because of the grilled chicken and healthy fats from the olives and feta.
The dressing is the backbone of the whole thing. Lemon juice, extra-virgin olive oil, dried oregano, salt, and pepper — five ingredients, no measuring required, mixed directly in the salad bowl. It sounds too simple to matter, but quality olive oil and real lemon juice make a dressing that supermarket bottles genuinely can't compete with.
This travels brilliantly for lunches. Pack the dressing separately in a small jar, keep the feta and dressing off until you're ready to eat, and you have a lunch that's still fresh and perfect four hours later.
- ✅ 2 chicken breasts, grilled and sliced
- ✅ 2 large handfuls of mixed leaves (romaine, rocket, spinach)
- ✅ 1 cucumber, diced
- ✅ 200g cherry tomatoes, halved
- ✅ 100g feta cheese, crumbled
- ✅ 50g Kalamata olives
- ✅ 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- ✅ 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- ✅ 1 tsp dried oregano
- ✅ Salt and pepper
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1Make the dressing firstWhisk together olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, salt, and pepper in a small bowl or jar. Taste it — it should be punchy and acidic. Set aside.
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2Arrange the leavesPlace the mixed leaves across two large plates or a big serving bowl. The leaves are the base — don't be stingy with them.
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3Add the vegetablesScatter cucumber and cherry tomatoes across the leaves. Distribute them evenly so every forkful has a bit of everything.
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4Add chicken and olivesArrange the sliced grilled chicken across the top. Add the Kalamata olives — they provide the briny, salty depth that pulls the whole salad together.
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5Add the fetaCrumble feta generously over the top. Don't be neat about it — uneven crumbles give you concentrated hits of creaminess in some bites and lighter flavour in others.
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6Dress and serveDrizzle the dressing over everything just before serving. Toss gently — or leave it arranged and let everyone mix their own at the table.
Don't dress the salad until the moment you eat it. The lemon juice will wilt the leaves and soften the cucumber if it sits too long. If meal prepping, keep dressing in a separate container.
Using cold, straight-from-the-fridge chicken straight into the salad. Room temperature chicken has much better flavour and texture — take it out 10 minutes before slicing.
No feta? Good quality goat's cheese crumbled over the top gives a similar creamy saltiness. Halloumi, grilled in a hot dry pan, works beautifully too and adds a lovely chewy texture.
If your salad feels underdressed, don't just add more oil — add a little more lemon juice first. Acidity is what makes a dressing pop. More oil just makes it heavy.
Per serving: 390 kcal · 38g protein · 12g carbs · 22g fat. Excellent source of healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamin C, and calcium.