Diet
23 Greek Mediterranean Diet Recipes
The Mediterranean diet was defined by studying what Cretans actually ate in the 1960s. These are the dishes that study was describing.
The Mediterranean diet was defined by studying what Cretans ate in the 1960s. These are the dishes that study was describing.
They are not diet food. They are pulses, greens, vegetables and a great deal of olive oil: baked giant beans, fasolada, lentil soup, yellow split pea puree, horta, briam, gemista. Rusk with tomato, as Cretan dakos or in its Ionian and Kalymnos versions. Yogurt with honey and walnuts, or with fruit.
Meat is absent from the list and the sea appears once, as grilled octopus. Nothing on this site is medical or dietary advice. This is a record of how people cooked.
Every recipe on Kalliopi's Kitchen carries the dish's Greek name and a pronunciation, its region where that is meaningful, ingredient quantities in both metric and imperial, and an honest note on what commonly goes wrong. Nutrition figures are calculated estimates and are labelled as such.
1. Greek Salad
Horiatiki salata · Χωριάτικη σαλάτα · hor-YAH-tee-kee sah-LAH-tah
Horiatiki means village salad: what was growing outside, chopped and oiled. There is no lettuce in it. The feta goes on top as one thick slab, never crumbled, and you break bits off as you eat. The dressing is olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, salt and oregano, straight into the bowl.
Yiayia’s tip: Room temperature, not fridge cold. Cold blunts tomato flavour badly. Take the tomatoes and feta out of the fridge half an hour before you build the salad.
Make Greek Salad2. Baked Giant Beans in Tomato
Gigantes plaki · Γίγαντες πλακί · YEE-ghan-des plah-KEE
The beans come mainly from Kastoria and Prespes in northern Greece. They are larger and creamier than a butter bean and drink up sauce without collapsing. This is a ladera dish: the olive oil is the sauce, not a mistake in the recipe. It is vegan as it stands, and on every Greek fasting table.
Yiayia’s tip: Old beans never soften. Dried beans more than a year or so old can refuse to cook properly no matter what you do. If a batch is still hard after an hour of simmering, the beans are the problem, not your method.
Make Baked Giant Beans in Tomato3. Horta
Horta vrasta · Χόρτα βραστά · HOR-tah vrah-STAH
Nothing in Greek cooking is plainer, and it may be the most important thing in it: boiled greens with olive oil and lemon, eaten several times a week. Dandelion, chicory, amaranth and beet greens all go in the pot. They are cooked soft and drab, never bright green, because wild greens are tough and bitter.
Yiayia’s tip: Wash more than you think necessary. Grit in horta ruins it and is very hard to detect until you are eating. Lift the greens out of the water rather than tipping the whole lot into a colander.
Make Horta4. Cretan Dakos
Dakos · Ντάκος · DAH-kos
Barley rusk was baked twice to last months at sea, and it comes out rock hard. Dakos is how Crete brings it back, with water and olive oil. The tomato is grated so its pulp soaks down, and the cheese is soft, mild mizithra. It is no Greek salad on a rusk.
Yiayia’s tip: Buy real barley rusks. Wheat rusks and dried bread are not the same. Barley paximadi has a nuttier, denser quality and holds up under the tomato. Greek delis and larger supermarkets stock them.
Make Cretan Dakos5. Gemista
Γεμιστά · yeh-mee-STAH
Stuffed tomatoes and peppers, and two rules govern them. The rice is raw when it goes in, and nothing is filled past two thirds, because rice cooked first goes to paste and a full tomato bursts. The potatoes wedged in the gaps catch the juices. Many Greeks think them the best thing in the tray.
Yiayia’s tip: Salt and drain the tomato shells. Ten minutes upside down removes excess water that would otherwise make the rice sloppy.
Make Gemista6. Fasolada
Φασολάδα · fah-so-LAH-thah
Routinely called the national dish, and the claim holds up: for centuries, all over the country, this was what people ate several times a week. It is filling, costs little and is allowed in every fast. No stock goes in, only water. Too little olive oil or too little time, and it stays bean water.
Yiayia’s tip: Boil hard for five minutes first. The initial hard boil and change of water removes compounds that cause digestive discomfort and gives a cleaner-tasting soup.
Make Fasolada7. Briam
Μπριάμ · bree-AHM
It looks like ratatouille and works the opposite way. Ratatouille keeps each vegetable separate. Here courgette, aubergine, pepper, potato and tomato all go in one tray and cook until they stop being separate things, their water and the olive oil turning to sauce. Forty minutes gives roasted vegetables. Ninety gives briam.
Yiayia’s tip: Use a big tray. A deep pile takes far longer and steams rather than browning. A large shallow layer is what you want, even if it means using two tins.
Make Briam8. Yellow Split Pea Puree
Fava Santorinis · Φάβα Σαντορίνης · FAH-vah san-to-REE-nees
There are no fava beans in it. Greek fava is yellow split peas, and Santorini has its own protected variety, grown there for thousands of years. The peas collapse by themselves, and a wooden spoon gives a silkier puree than a machine. It comes warm, under raw onion, capers and a pool of oil.
Yiayia’s tip: Skim relentlessly. The foam in the first ten minutes is where the muddy taste lives. Take it all off and the finished puree is noticeably sweeter and cleaner.
Make Yellow Split Pea Puree9. Grilled Octopus
Htapodi sta karvouna · Χταπόδι στα κάρβουνα · htah-POH-thee stah KAR-voo-nah
Octopus on a line outside a taverna is the picture everyone knows, and the drying does help. What makes it tender is a long, gentle simmer in the liquid the octopus gives up, with no water added. The grill only finishes it, in about four minutes. Raw on the fire, it turns to rubber.
Yiayia’s tip: Frozen is better than fresh here. One of the few cases where this is true. Freezing does the tenderising work that would otherwise take beating or luck.
Make Grilled Octopus10. Lentil Soup with Vinegar
Fakes · Φακές · fah-KES
Two soups fed Greece. Fasolada is one and this is the other, the quicker of them, since lentils go in unsoaked and are soft within the hour. There is little else: onion, garlic, bay, some tomato and a lot of olive oil. The vinegar goes into each bowl at the table, never the pot.
Yiayia’s tip: Salt only when tender. Salt added early toughens lentil skins and can add twenty minutes to the cooking time for no benefit.
Make Lentil Soup with Vinegar11. Yogurt with Honey and Walnuts
Giaourti me meli kai karydia · Γιαούρτι με μέλι και καρύδια · yah-OOR-tee meh meh-LEE keh kah-REE-thyah
Three ingredients and no cooking, so each one is on show: thick yogurt, honey and roughly crushed walnuts. The honey is where a little extra money pays back most. Greeks eat it at breakfast, mid-afternoon and as dessert after a heavy meal: a lot of work for one bowl.
Yiayia’s tip: Buy properly strained yogurt. Look for full-fat, Greek-style or strained yogurt specifically. A thin, unstrained yogurt cannot hold the honey and nuts the way this dish wants.
Make Yogurt with Honey and Walnuts12. Cold Yogurt and Cucumber Soup
Tarator · Ταράτορ · tah-rah-TOR
Tzatziki turned into a soup. Thick yogurt is thinned with cold water, then cucumber, dill, garlic and crushed walnuts go in, and nothing is cooked. It belongs to Greek Thrace and the wider Balkans, for the hottest days of summer. The walnuts are what stop it tasting like watered-down yogurt.
Yiayia’s tip: Start with cold yogurt. A soup that begins warm never quite recovers the same refreshing chill, even after time in the fridge.
Make Cold Yogurt and Cucumber Soup13. Strained Yogurt with Fresh Fruit
Giaourti me frouta · Γιαούρτι με φρούτα · yah-OOR-tee meh FROO-tah
A breakfast that follows the calendar: figs and peaches at the height of summer, pears and grapes in autumn, citrus all winter. It is the lighter relative of yogurt with honey and walnuts, and it takes less honey, because the fruit brings its own sweetness. Slice the fruit at the last minute, not ahead.
Yiayia’s tip: Choose fruit that is properly ripe. Thick yogurt is unforgiving of an underripe, flavourless piece of fruit sitting on top of it.
Make Strained Yogurt with Fresh Fruit14. Vegan Olive Oil Cookies
Ladokouloura · Λαδοκούλουρα · lah-thoh-KOO-loo-rah
Cookies made for Lent, when butter and eggs are both off the table. Olive oil does all the work of the fat and gives a crumbly, slightly dense cookie with a faint fruitiness that butter does not have. They were vegan long before anybody called it that.
Yiayia’s tip: Use a mild olive oil. A strong, peppery extra virgin can fight with the orange rather than sitting in the background as intended.
Make Vegan Olive Oil Cookies15. Corfu Vegetable and Pasta Soup
Bourou bourou · Μπουρού μπουρού · boo-ROO boo-ROO
The name is the noise of the pot when everything goes in together. Corfu's household soup takes whatever the garden has in surplus, onion, carrot, potato, courgette and tomato, and cooks it down in a lot of olive oil. Small pasta is added late, and its starch thickens the soup into a meal.
Yiayia’s tip: Grate the tomatoes, do not chop them. Halving a ripe tomato and grating it against the coarse holes leaves the skin in your hand and puts the pulp in the pot. It dissolves into the soup instead of sitting in it as lumps.
Make Corfu Vegetable and Pasta Soup16. Ionian Rusk with Tomato and Oregano
Riganada · Ριγανάδα · ree-gha-NAH-tha
Oregano, rigani, gives this its name, and it is the main flavour, not a finishing pinch. On Kefalonia and Lefkada a barley rusk is moistened, then loaded with olive oil, grated tomato and dried oregano. Cretan dakos is its nearest relative. It is best five minutes after assembly, before the rusk goes soggy.
Yiayia’s tip: Salt the tomato, not the rusk. Barley rusks are already salty. Season the grated tomato instead and taste before adding more, or the finished plate can be overwhelming.
Make Ionian Rusk with Tomato and Oregano17. Pickled Rock Samphire Salad
Kritamo · Κρίταμο · KREE-tah-moh
Rock samphire grows straight out of cracks in sea cliffs, and tavernas across the Dodecanese and the Cyclades keep a jar of it. It crunches like a young bean and bites like celery and fennel. Like capers, it gets a brief blanch, a day in vinegar and salt, then months under olive oil.
Yiayia’s tip: Do not add salt when you serve it. Kritamo has been salted twice and grows in sea spray to begin with. Taste before seasoning anything you put it in, including the salad it goes on top of.
Make Pickled Rock Samphire Salad18. Cypriot Lentils and Rice with Onions
Moutzentra · Μουτζέντρα · moo-TZEN-drah
Lentils and rice in one pot, which every Cypriot household makes without a recipe, most often in Lent. The onions carry it: close to half a kilo, fried slowly until dark, sweet and jammy, half stirred in and half left on top. It is kin to Lebanese mujaddara, with brown lentils and more lemon.
Yiayia’s tip: Cook the lentils separately first. Lentils and rice need very different times. Getting the lentils almost tender before the rice joins them is the only reliable way to have both right at the same moment.
Make Cypriot Lentils and Rice with Onions19. Roasted Peppers with Garlic Yogurt
Piperies me giaourti · Πιπεριές με γιαούρτι · pee-peh-ree-ES meh yah-OOR-tee
Sweet, smoky roasted red pepper against sharp, cold garlic yogurt, with olive oil over the top. With so little on the plate, a thin, watery yogurt has nowhere to hide. The garlic is meant to bite. It can be made a little ahead: a brief spell in the fridge does it good.
Yiayia’s tip: Jarred roasted peppers are a fair shortcut. Good quality ones, well drained, save real time without hurting the finished dish much.
Make Roasted Peppers with Garlic Yogurt20. Kalymnos Barley Rusk Salad
Mermizeli · Μερμιζέλι · mer-mee-ZEH-lee
Every taverna on Kalymnos serves this and no two make it alike. The fixed parts are broken barley rusk, ripe tomato, onion, capers, olives, a soft cheese such as kopanisti on top and olive oil in quantity. The rusk sits underneath and softens into the salad, which is what separates it from Cretan dakos.
Yiayia’s tip: Use every drop of tomato juice. Chop the tomatoes on a board with a lip, or straight into the bowl, and tip the juice in with them. That juice is the main liquid the rusk has to work with.
Make Kalymnos Barley Rusk Salad21. Epirus Wild Greens Pie
Blatsaria · Μπλατσαριά · blah-tsah-RYAH
Epirus is pie country, and this is the plainest of its pies. There is no cheese and no egg, so it is a fasting pie and the greens carry it alone. Leek and spring onion supply the sweetness that dairy would have. The pastry is a simple oil and water dough, hand-rolled into two thin sheets.
Yiayia’s tip: Use far more greens than feels sensible. A kilo and a half of raw greens cooks down to very little. The commonest fault in a home-made greens pie is a filling too thin to taste of anything.
Make Epirus Wild Greens Pie22. Cypriot Bulgur Wheat Pilaf
Pourgouri pilafi · Πουργούρι πιλάφι · poor-GHOO-ree pee-LAH-fee
The default starch in Cyprus, next to almost anything off the grill. Coarse bulgur cooks with crushed vermicelli browned in the oil first, which gives a nutty depth, and tomato cooked until it darkens. Whole cinnamon bark and cloves give it a warmth mainland pilafs do not have, and are lifted out at the end.
Yiayia’s tip: Use the same cup for everything. Cypriot cooks measure bulgur and liquid with one mug rather than scales, which is why the two-to-one ratio never goes wrong. Do the same and it will not go wrong for you either.
Make Cypriot Bulgur Wheat Pilaf23. Chickpeas with Spinach
Revithia me spanaki · Ρεβίθια με σπανάκι · reh-VEE-thya meh spah-NAH-kee
Chickpeas and greens are one of the oldest pairings in Greek cooking. This fasting dish is filling and cheap, and nobody treats it as penance. The work is all in the chickpeas: soaked overnight, then cooked for over an hour until creamy right through. The spinach, dill and lemon come in the last ten minutes.
Yiayia’s tip: Salt only once the chickpeas are soft. Salt added at the start slows the softening and can leave the skins tough. Season in the last twenty minutes, once they are already creamy.
Make Chickpeas with Spinach
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