Chopped Greek Salad with Grilled Steak Is the Best Thing to Happen to Your Summer BBQ

A beautiful Greek salad with a base of juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, and salty feta cheese celebrates the best of summer produce. It’s also a beautiful blank canvas that you can add easy, tasty additions to. Turn Greek salad into a satisfying meal by tapping into the beauty of outdoor summer grilling: Throw some marinated skirt steak, bell peppers, and red onion onto the grill and watch some smoky magic happen. Arranged on a bed of lettuce dressed in an easy lemon–oregano vinaigrette, this rainbow assortment of toppings leaves you with a salad full of textures and flavors so that every bite is exciting and different.

This is not your ordinary side salad; it’s a true protein-packed main dish that calls for skirt steak, an affordable cut of beef full of flavor. As Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. on behalf of the Beef Checkoff advises, since it’s thin, it soaks up marinade and grills quickly. Plus, it’s easy to slice up thinly once cooked. If you can’t find skirt steak, flank steak is a wonderful substitute that will offer similar flavors and grill up just as quickly.

Most of the work that goes into making this salad is prep, with just a little bit of grilling at the end. Here’s how to do it:

1. Make the dressing/marinade. Whisk together olive oil, garlic, dried oregano, red wine vinegar, and lemon zest and juice. This will double as both the marinade for the skirt steak and a salad dressing.
2. Marinate the steak. Season the skirt steak, then marinate in some of the dressing while the grill heats.
3. Prep the other toppings. Slice up romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, onion, and bell pepper. Crumble feta cheese and pita chips.
4. Fire up the grill. Grill the steak, onion, and bell pepper until the steak is cooked to medium doneness (160°F as measured by a meat thermometer), and the onion and bell peppers are crisp-tender.
5. Assemble the salad. Dress the romaine with some of the dressing and arrange on a large platter. Top with rows of the toppings, then drizzle with the remaining dressing.

• Keep the onion and bell pepper in large pieces. Larger pieces of onion and bell pepper are easier to grill. Cut them up after they’re cooked.
• Buy feta in brine. Feta cheese sold in chunks in brine, rather than pre-crumbled feta cheese, has better flavor and texture.
• Distribute the dressing evenly. Tossing the lettuce in some of the dressing helps to provide a well-dressed base for the salad. After you arrange all the toppings on the lettuce, drizzle the toppings with the remaining dressing.
• Use tongs for grilling. Don’t use a fork to flip the skirt steak, as it can poke into the meat and let some of the tasty juices out. Grab a set of tongs instead, which will also make flipping the onion and bell pepper easier.
• Rest and slice the steak properly. Steak needs to rest for a few minutes after cooking so that the juices redistribute themselves and don’t leak out onto the cutting board when sliced. Let it rest before slicing across (not with) the grain of the steak. Cutting across the grain results in more tender slices.

This grilled Greek salad has lots of colorful toppings and is quite beautiful when arranged like a chopped salad. Grab your biggest platter (one about the size of a baking sheet is perfect) so that there’s a lot of room to assemble the rows of ingredients on top of the lettuce. A lot of the elements can also be made ahead: The dressing can be made and the veggies chopped up to two days ahead. All you have to do when you’re ready to cook is marinate the steak and then get to grilling. Divvy up the salad onto plates and enjoy a meal that will make you feel like you’re eating next to the Aegean Sea on a beautiful Greek island.