How many calories are in Greek cheese. Calorie content of Greek salad, its benefits and cooking features
Greek salad is a popular snack that is equally appropriate during festive feast and on the menu every day. The lightness of the dish is combined with amazing taste properties, however, for many of the fair sex, the question of the calorie content of the product remains relevant. Let's take a look at the Greek salad leaf by leaf.
Calorie content of Greek salad in various compositions
The dish is prepared from the available ones, useful products, therefore, it is often found in the diet of various diets. Fresh vegetables are used among the main components: tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, red onions and olives are sometimes added.
One of the fundamental ingredients that determines the taste of the finished snack is cheese. Among the popular options are feta, feta cheese, less often suluguni, etc.
Depending on the type of cheese used in the preparation, the calorie content of a Greek salad with olive oil is determined. In the traditional version, the nutritional value of the dish with feta cheese is 87.7 kcal / 100 g
If another type of cheese is added to the dish instead of feta cheese, the calorie content of the Greek salad changes. The pattern can be traced by the following indicators:
- with fetax cheese - 260 kcal / 100 g,
- with feta cheese - 260 kcal / 100 g,
- with suluguni cheese - 290 kcal / 100 g,
- with cheese "Adyghe" - 240 kcal / 100 g
Energy value of 1 serving in a dietary version (emphasis on vegetables and lettuce, 50 g feta cheese per 900 g of the final dish, dressing in the form olive oil half with lemon juice - 20 grams) will be only 75.6 calories (for a volume of 152 grams).
Nutritional value of the dish
BJU Greek salad (based on 100 grams of product) looks like this:
- proteins - 2.5 g (21.4%),
- fats - 6.4 g (56%),
- carbohydrates - 4.1 g (22.7%).
The product contains a lot of fat (13% of daily value 2000 kcal / day), but does not differ in an excess of carbohydrates (only 1% of the daily value given).
Diet Greek Salad Recipes
By choosing the most suitable type of cheese, you can adjust the calorie content of the Greek salad. If necessary, it will be possible to reduce the nutritional value of the dish by reducing the proportion of foods with a high fat content (cheese, butter, olives, olives, etc.)
Give preference to sheep and goat cheese, include feta cheese and avoid too salty varieties that retain moisture. Remember the proportions: it is not recommended to exceed the ratio of cheese to vegetables within 1: 4.
Many housewives prefer to be creative in cooking. delicious snacks... In the course of experiments, crackers are added to the dish, the proportion of lettuce leaves increases and fresh vegetables... You can include bell peppers and celery, radishes, lettuce and aromatic herbs... Garlic will add piquancy and activate metabolic processes.
The taste of the dish can be changed by including ground nuts, capers, Chinese cabbage etc. In these cases, the nutritional value is calculated using the following formula: a numerical value is added to the original indicator (calorie content of a classic Greek salad), reflecting the nutritional value of the new ingredient.
Many of us love salads both as a separate dish and as a light snack to the main courses. Made with fresh, seasonal vegetables, they have incredible nutritional value and low calorie content. Thanks to the variety of recipes and ingredients included in them, you can pamper family and friends with salads not only during the hot season, but also in winter. The salad can be a separate dish, like, for example, everyone's favorite "Olivier", or dietary, if you prepare it from greens, non-starchy vegetables and season with a mixture of lemon and salad mixes can be warm, hearty - with meat, fish or cheese, fruit , lungs. For example, the calorie content of Greek salad is very low, since it consists only of vegetables and cheese. At the same time, there are several ways how to reduce it to a minimum.
calorie content and classic recipe
You don't have to travel to get a feel for sunny Greece. Make your own Greek salad and the taste of fresh vegetables, light cheese, olive oil and herbs will take you miles from your home. Making this salad means not only chopping and mixing the ingredients specified in the recipe, but also preparing the correct dressing for it, the secret of which you will learn below. The calorie content of Greek salad is also low and is about 200 kcal per serving, if we talk about its main recipe. Thanks to this fact, even those who follow a diet can afford this dish. So, let's get down to cooking. We will need:
- 150 gr Feta cheese;
- 4 medium tomatoes, cut into slices;
- 1 cucumber, cut into slices (you do not need to remove the peel);
- 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
- half each red and green bell peppers, cut into semicircles;
- 2 teaspoons of capers (without them it will also be delicious, given the rarity of the ingredient);
- 1 teaspoon ground oregano
- 15-20 black olives (better with pits, but you can also do without);
- some crackers;
- a few tablespoons of the finest olive oil, dried mint and salt to taste.
Take a large deep salad platter and place the previously cubed cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onions in it. Then add olives and capers (optional). Sprinkle with oregano, add a couple tablespoons of olive oil and lemon juice according to your taste (can be replaced with red wine vinegar). Decorate with croutons. Ready to serve. Be sure to serve with a couple of slices of fresh bread, which is so delicious to pick up the leftover dressing. It is important to remember that after adding the oil, all the ingredients should be thoroughly mixed together, as it tends to settle to the bottom of the serving bowl and taste bitter. If you don't have oregano on hand, you can easily substitute black pepper for it. Also remember that it contains a lot of salt, so try the dish before adding extra salt. The calorie content of Greek salad is so low that even after having mastered a full plate, you can ask for supplements without harming your figure. And for those for whom calorie content is not important, boiled chicken can be added to the salad.
Greek salad with feta cheese. Calorie content and cooking
If in classic salad one of the components is feta, traditionally produced in Greece using a patented technology, then in variations of the recipe, for example, when this type of cheese is simply not at hand, it can be replaced with feta cheese or even tofu. By the way, with the latter, the calorie content of Greek salad will be significantly lower, because the famous Asian cheese contains few calories, and besides, it is made from soy, and not from milk or cream, that is, in this case, the salad can also be eaten by adherents of the vegan menu. To further reduce the calorie content of the salad, make a special dressing with spices, lemon juice and red or balsamic vinegar... If you save your figure, then you can do without olive oil. This was a Greek salad recipe and all kinds of variations, one of which will definitely suit your taste.
Until 10 years ago, Greek salad was something of a delicacy, but now everything has changed. This dish is on the menu of almost any cafe or restaurant, however, it can be used]]>
Calorie content of the dish
Typically, Greek salad contains the following foods:
- bell pepper;
- cucumbers;
- tomatoes;
- feta cheese;
- olives;
- greens, lettuce;
- onion.
The dish is usually seasoned with olive oil and lemon juice, salt and black pepper are also added. You can't talk about specific proportions, since everyone likes it differently. Tomato and cucumbers should be about 500 grams each, and bell pepper 300-350 grams, as for cheese, 200 grams will be enough.
To determine how nutritious this salad is, you need to find out about the calorie content of each product from its composition. For 100 grams of lettuce, there is such a calorie content:
- tomatoes - 24 kcal;
- onions - 41 kcal;
- Bulgarian pepper - 26 kcal;
- feta cheese (the highest-calorie product in the composition) - 260 kcal.
The olive oil used for dressing has a high calorie content - about 884 kcal per 100 grams of salad. But the salad contains no more than 4-5 tablespoons, which means about 25 kcal.
It's time to summarize: after eating 100 grams of a Greek dish, you will consume about 131 calories.
The benefits of ingredients
This dish is not only tasty, but also very healthy. It contains great amount vitamins, minerals and other substances necessary for the human body.
- Lettuce Leaves: They are rich in folic acid. Scientists claim that these substances can stimulate the body's production of endorphins - eat salad and become happier!
- Olive Oil Even a small amount of olive oil provides the body with vitamin E and antioxidants. It is used for the prevention of diabetes mellitus, obesity. If you have gastritis, ulcers, or any other gastrointestinal disease, you need this oil.
- Olives Improve liver function and have a positive effect on skin condition.
- Feta cheese is sometimes replaced with feta cheese. These cheeses contain many beneficial microorganisms that protect the immune system. For example, feta cheese contains bacteria that fight listeria, the microorganisms that cause stomach upset.
- Vegetables The benefits of tomato, cucumber, pepper have already been said. Vegetables are rich in vitamins, at the same time they are perfectly absorbed and are great for dietary nutrition.
Overall, Greek salad is good for everyone. It does not cause allergic reactions unless you are allergic to one of the ingredients. Even children can eat the dish.
Is this dish suitable for a diet?
There are even separate diets in which this dish should be consumed without fail. One of these is protein diet Ducan. The purpose of this diet is to reduce weight and improve the condition of the body by saturating it with foods high in protein.
Each ingredient in the salad has a positive effect on metabolism. Cucumbers and tomatoes are easily absorbed by the body and enrich it with antioxidants. Sticking to Ducan's diet will make you feel at ease.
How to reduce the calorie content of salad
No matter how much we talk about the low calorie content of this dish, it never hurts to make it less high in calories, thus more useful for the figure. So, read and memorize.
Good day to you, my wonderful readers! How often do you eat the ultimate Greek salad? In our family, this is one of the favorite dishes, and I can safely call it dietary, because I managed to "lighten" the recipe for calories without changing its taste. How? You will learn more about this later.
The calorie content of the famous Greek salad in its classic version is about 140 calories per 100 grams of food. On the one hand, this amount of calories is already small. But who eats 100 grams of Greek salad? That's the same!
So it's better to work with its calorie content, especially for those who want to. What ways can you use to reduce calorie content without spoiling the taste of your favorite dish?
Classic Greek salad and its calorie content
So why are we going to make a start?
Of course, from the classic recipe:
- soft cheese (feta cheese, feta, in extreme cases - Adyghe cheese) - 100 grams;
- 2-3 tomatoes - 150 grams;
- sweet pepper - 1-2 pieces - 150 grams;
- cucumbers 1-2 pieces - 150 grams;
- greens - lettuce, parsley, basil;
- red onions - 1 piece - 70 grams;
- pitted olives - 100 grams;
- olive oil - 2-3 tablespoons;
- half-lemon;
- garlic, black pepper, salt.
We cut the onion in half rings, the rest of the vegetables and cheese - in rather large cubes. Add chopped greens, olives, chopped garlic, salt and black pepper. Season the salad with oil and lemon juice.
The calorie content of a classic Greek salad is just 140 kcal.
Reducing Calories Through Refueling
Calorie content often determines the fat content of the dish. Therefore, in order to easily reduce the calorie content, it is necessary to reduce the proportion of oil. 
In order for the above amount to have only 1 tablespoon of oil, and this does not affect the taste, try sprinkling oil from a conventional spray bottle (this is one of the ideas of the article "").
Do not forget that the dish contains cucumbers, which, when salted, give juice, so this salad does not need a lot of oil.
To be honest, I eat it without oil at all. I make a dish for the whole family, put an impressive portion on my plate, and only then fill the remaining amount with oil. If I want to, I will calmly eat 2-3 tablespoons of salad dressed with oil after my "oil-free" part. But the main portion is without oil, and believe me, it is good without it!
Reducing calories from cheese
Some cheeses have a caloric value of 380-400 calories per 100 grams, while others (for example, suluguni cheese, which will perfectly fit into a Greek salad) - only 240.
Therefore, use the lowest calorie cheese whenever possible.
And to make the cheese more noticeable in the salad, mix it with chopped garlic in advance (10-15 minutes).
Can be made "lighter" with vegetables
To make our salad less high in calories, it is enough to increase the proportion of vegetables. 
I myself always do this - my version of the dish contains about 1.5 times more cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers and herbs than in the above classic recipe, and its taste does not suffer from this at all.
As you can see, the number of calories can be easily adjusted. By the way, Greek salad is a balanced dish where the ingredients complement each other wonderfully. Here you can find protein (cheese), fiber (vegetables), vitamins (greens), and unsaturated fats (olive oil). Therefore, by making it less high in calories, we get a real dietary masterpiece. Use this and be a graceful beauty!
P .S. By the way, in this delicious Greek dish ginger is quite appropriate. Moreover, it can only be added to your portion. Read on - and forward to "slimming" culinary experiments!
Mini tips for losing weight
Reducing portions by a third is what will help you slimmer! Briefly and to the point :)
Should I put on supplements or stop? When this question arises, it's definitely time to stop eating. This organism gives you a signal of imminent saturation, otherwise you would have no doubts.
If you tend to overeat in the evenings, take a warm shower before dinner. 5-7 minutes, and you already have a completely different mood and attitude to food. Try it - it works.
No matter how delicious the food is, you will eat it many more times. This is not the last meal of your life! Remind yourself of this when you feel like you can't stop and swallow tightly piece by piece.
The environment affects us - that's a fact! Avoid conversations like “I lost weight here, and I couldn't”, “but we will still remain fat”, “there should be a lot of good people”. Well, let them be "a lot" - but what have you got to do with it?
"Greek" salad is no more difficult to prepare than the usual appetizer of cucumbers and tomatoes, seasoned with butter or mayonnaise. Unless there are a couple of ingredients that are not always available in the refrigerator.
It is especially pleasant that this dish is not only tasty, but also has a low energy value, and therefore it can be eaten by those who want to lose weight. If, of course, we are talking about a classic recipe. Let's find out how the calorie content of Greek salad changes depending on the varying ingredients.
Recipe options
Tomatoes, bell peppers, fresh cucumbers, onions, olives, lemon juice, feta cheese and olive oil - these are the ingredients of the classic "Greek" salad. The calorie content per 100 grams of such a dish averages 90-140 kcal.
But there are many variations of the recipe, so energy value can change both up and down. For example, it is permissible to add Chinese cabbage, avocado, feta cheese, chicken to a salad, pine nuts and even pasta. And this appetizer is sometimes served in pita bread. And if the calorie content of Greek salad prepared in the standard way is low, then after adding pasta it will already be 251 kcal per 100 grams of dish.
We calculate the energy value
Given the variety of recipes, it is convenient to know the calorie content of individual ingredients in order to calculate the energy value of your particular salad. For example, let's take a recipe like this.
Ingredients: 1 tomato, 1 cucumber, 1/3 bell pepper, half a purple onion, 80 grams of feta, 5-7 olives, 50 milliliters of olive oil, a pinch of dry oregano, salt.
- 1 cucumber weighs about 131 grams - 18 kcal;
- 1 tomato - about 140 grams, that is, 28 kcal;
- a third of peeled bell pepper is about 67 grams and 17 kcal;
- 80 grams of feta - 211 kcal;
- 7 olives - 19 grams and 22 kcal;
- half an onion - 56 grams and 23 kcal;
- olive oil - 449 kcal.
Let's summarize: 768 kilocalories per 543 grams. It turns out that the calorie content of Greek salad with olive oil is about 140 kcal per 100 grams.
By the way, bell peppers and olives are optional ingredients. V classic recipe they are not included.
About gas stations
The above is a very rough estimate, as 50 milliliters of oil is about 2.5 tablespoons. Perhaps you take less, and this will reduce the energy value of the dish.
Dressing has a significant effect on calorie content. 100 milliliters of lemon juice, for example, contains only 33 calories. At the same time, only 15 grams fit in a tablespoon.
If you prepare a salad using the same ingredients as indicated above, but instead of butter, take lemon juice, then the calorie content of Greek salad will more than halve - up to 62 kcal per one-hundred-gram portion.
About the variety of components
Feta cheese is preferred for this salad. But the dish can be easily prepared using feta cheese, since both cheeses are made from sheep's milk. True, feta cheese has a denser consistency. But the energy value of both cheeses is about the same, so the calorie content of the Greek salad with feta cheese corresponds to the parameters of the feta dish.
In general, for this salad, dressing is more important than a set of vegetables. Rarely, but it happens that sour cream or mayonnaise is added to it, and then it turns out not "Greek" salad, but some other blue. Still, the best choice is olive oil or lemon juice. Another thing is that the dressing can and even very desirable be supplemented with spices.
For example, chop one garlic clove, add 3-4 finely chopped basil leaves, two tablespoons of red balsamic vinegar, one teaspoon soy sauce and one and a half tablespoons of olive oil. Whisk the mixture and add a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper.
Nutritious Greek Salad Recipe
You can enhance the nutritional value of a dish while leaving it fairly low in calories. For example, if you add chicken fillet and pine nuts to the ingredients, then the calorie content of Greek salad in this variation will be 165 kcal per 100 grams. This is not much, but the feeling of fullness will come faster.
Prepare : 700 gram chicken fillet, 5 pieces of cherry tomatoes, 50 grams of olives, 50 grams of pine nuts, 200 grams of feta, 80 grams of green onions, 65 grams of lettuce, 60 milliliters of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, salt, pepper.
From the specified amount of products, you can cook 6-7 servings of the dish.
- Boil the chicken and chop finely.
- Cut the feta into cubes.
- Cut the cherry into two halves.
- Chop onions, olives, pick small pieces of lettuce.
- In a bowl, combine chicken, pine nuts, feta, green onions, cherry and olives. Stir.
- Prepare the dressing: Combine the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, whisking lightly with a whisk or fork.
- Season the salad. You can serve.
So we figured out what the calorie content of Greek salad depends on, how it can be reduced or increased. Experiment with ingredients and filling options and you are sure to find yours. perfect recipe... Bon Appetit!