Healthy Greek Recipes

There's no reason to only use cucumbers raw--they are wonderful sautéed then pureed with avocado for a silken-textured soup that's good warm or cold.

Fresh lemon and dill create a quick Greek-inspired pan sauce for simple sautéed chicken breasts. Make it a meal: Serve with roasted broccoli and whole-wheat orzo.

In this healthy potato salad recipe, a white-wine vinaigrette dresses the potatoes, tomatoes, feta and olives. Waxy potatoes, such as red and yellow, make the best potato salad because they hold their shape when cooked. Keep the potato skins on for more fiber and potassium.

Super creamy with the nutty flavor of sesame seeds, this homemade tahini sauce recipe is a popular way to begin a meal in Cyprus. Serve with crudités and pita.

This syrup-soaked walnut cake—a traditional Greek dessert that's often served for holidays—gets its structure from breadcrumbs instead of flour. It's delicious unadorned, but feel free to top it with unsweetened whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or warm chocolate sauce for an extra layer of decadence.

This healthy side salad recipe follows one of the essential formulas for great salads: tossing bitter greens with sweet fruit, crunchy toasted nuts and salty cheese. Melons are a good alternative to the stone fruit later in the summer, or try dried apricots during the winter months.

The fresh, tangy elements of a Greek salad--tomato, cucumber, feta, olives and lemony vinaigrette--pair well with rich-tasting sardines. Look for sardines with skin and bones (which are edible) as they have more than four times the amount of calcium as skinless, boneless sardines. If you're lucky enough to have fresh sardines available in your supermarket, try them in place of the canned sardines. Lightly dredge them in salt-and-pepper-seasoned flour and sauté them in a little olive oil.

This satisfying chickpea salad is a delicious combination of textures, from crunchy cucumbers to crumbly feta. The dill ranch dressing adds creaminess, but a tangy vinaigrette would be just as good.

Chicken turns this Greek-inspired salad into a substantial main course. Feel free to substitute other chopped fresh vegetables, such as broccoli or bell peppers, for the tomatoes or cucumber. Use leftover chicken, store-roasted chicken or quickly poach a couple boneless, skinless chicken breasts while you prepare the rest of the salad. Serve with pita bread and hummus.

Merguez is a Maghrebi (Northwest African) lamb sausage spiced with cumin, coriander and fennel seeds as well as harissa. In this installment of Diaspora Dining, Jessica B. Harris' series on foods of the African diaspora, the author and historian recalls visits to Morocco, and offers her recipe for tzatziki (with plenty of mint), the Greek yogurt sauce she loves with merguez. While you're cooking the sausages, tossing in some peppers, onions and scallions makes for a delicious addition.

The meat sauce in this healthy pasta recipe is a Greek take on a red chili. This recipe calls for ground lamb but you could easily use ground beef or ground turkey instead.

An easy salad to serve with grilled chicken or steak for supper or on a bed of greens for a satisfying lunch. Substitute white beans or chickpeas for the black-eyed peas if you prefer.