Maroulosalata

I love maroulosalata. It's one of the lightest and most refreshing salads I can think of, probably because it's mostly crisp romaine lettuce. Unfortunately it is fairly expensive at restaurants for just a lettuce salad (ranges from $7-11, based on an informal survey I just did on Seamless), and they don't even all include feta in that price. So this week I decided that since we had an absurd amount of romaine lettuce in the fridge that needed to be used, I would try to put together a good maroulosalata.

Ingredients

I found a few different recipes for maroulosalata online, combined them together and then adjusted the recipe to reflect how I thought it should taste. The main components of maroulosalata are romaine lettuce, scallions and dill. Some people also add feta cheese. I hadn't had feta in some time so this was a good excuse to pick some up.

Clockwise: chopped romaine; feta cheese and dill; mixing the salad together; spring onions

In this maroulosalata, I used:

- 2 heads of romaine lettuce ($1.33)

- 6 large spring onions ($0.69)

- 3 pieces of dill ($0.75)

- Crumbled feta cheese (approx. 1/3 cup) ($1.20)

- Olive oil (approx. 1/2-2/3 cup) ($0.25)

- Red wine vinegar (approx. 1/4-1/3 cup) ($0.20)

- Salt (to taste) ($0)

- Pepper (to taste) ($0)

- Lemon juice (approx. 2-3 tsp) ($0.10)

Everything is pretty much to taste, so depending on how much you like dill, feta and the balance of your vinaigrette, adjust to your preferences. 

All total, about $5 (or a little less) and it made 4 bowls of salad. It's probably as much salad or more than the restaurant for about half the price. Works for me.

Process

Making maroulosalata is very easy.

- Finely chop romaine, spring onions (green and white parts) and dill. Combine with feta in large bowl.

- Add oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. I didn't measure anything out so the amounts above (for these and the dill and feta) are after-the-fact estimates.

- Mix it all up well and serve!

The finished maroulosalata!

Review

We loved this! After the failed black bean soup experiment (which was corrected the same night I made the maroulosalata), it was good to have a new dish work. Of course, it was a simple salad, but it still felt like a victory. The combination of flavors just works and I love the presence of dill, which doesn't make its way into salads all the time. Fresh, healthy, light and flavorful. I will definitely be making this again.