Easy Greek Recipe You’ll Love – Fresh, Simple & Delicious

This video shows you how to make a full Greek feast at home — juicy pork, chicken or lamb souvlaki skewers, creamy tzatziki, and a fresh, classic Greek salad. 🇬🇷

👉 Full recipe here: https://leescooking.com/simple-souvlaki/

Decades ago, I lived next door to a Greek family — and their mum was an incredible cook. She taught me a few dishes I’ve never forgotten, and this is one of them. What I love most? It’s simple. Just a handful of fresh ingredients, bold flavours, and such an easy way to bring a taste of Greece to your table.

In this video you’ll learn how to:
✔️ Strain Greek yogurt for thick, creamy tzatziki
✔️ Make a quick marinade for pork or chicken souvlaki
✔️ Build a fresh Greek salad with the perfect lemon-olive oil dressing
✔️ Cook souvlaki skewers in a pan (or on the barbecue if you prefer)

It’s everything I love about Greek food — fresh, healthy, family-friendly, and full of flavour.

00:00 Introduction
00:24 Tzatziki
04:07 Souvlaki Marinade
06:30 Greek Salad
09:01 Frying Souvlaki
12:09 Plating Up
12:47 For Busy Nights

@leescooking

#souvlaki #tzatziki #greeksalad #greekfood #greekfoodlovers

I’m not Greek, but I lived decades ago next 
to a Greek family, and the mum was an amazing cook. And she taught me a few things, and this is 
one of them. And you know what I love most about this? It’s simple. The flavours are simple. 
There’s a handful of ingredients, and it just tastes so good. And it’s really easy to make. 
And this is how I do it. So, with the tzatziki, it’s an overnight process or at least 10 hours. 
So, over a bowl, I put a strainer and then either some paper towel or a bit of cheesecloth. And then 
I put about two cups of full fat Greek yogurt into the strainer on the paper towel. And what I do now 
is I leave that in the fridge because I want this yogurt as thick as I can get it. So, I put that 
in the fridge and again for at least 10 hours. So, it’s the next day and look at all the liquid 
that has accumulated in the bottom of the bowl from the yogurt. Quite a lot. And this will make 
your tzatziki much less watery if you strain the yogurt like that. Now I tip the yogurt into a 
bowl. Remove the paper towel. And it’s gone so thick, almost like ricotta cheese. And that’s 
exactly what you want. Now for the add-ins, which are not many. So, I have one Lebanese 
cucumber here, which I’ll just peel. Cut in half. Remove the seeds. And then on the 
coarse side of a grater, grate this cucumber. And I forgot to mention that this tzatziki will 
last as long as the use by or best before date on your yogurt. And that’s usually at least 
a couple of weeks. And then I just chop it to make sure it’s all as fine as I can get it. 
And then with clean hands, and I generally do this over the sink, squeeze the cucumber really, 
really well. And that will release all the liquid because cucumber has so much liquid. And when you 
can’t physically squeeze anymore, pop it into the yogurt. And now I’ve got one clove of garlic that 
I’ll just finely micro plane in. Or if you’ve got a garlic crusher or press. You want it really 
nice and crushed up, so it mixes well with the sauce. Now, a little bit of salt to taste. You 
can always add more later. 1 tbsp of lemon juice and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Now, totally optional, 
you can just mix it all and that’s a delicious tzatziki or you can add some fresh herbs, whatever 
you like. A lot of people use dill in tzatziki, but you only need a little bit. So, I’m putting 
like a tablespoon of dill in here. I wouldn’t go too hard on the dill, though. It’s got a really 
strong flavour. Mint’s also nice in a tzatziki or just by itself. And then all I do is give it a 
good mix and just taste it. I’m going to put one more cucumber in. The cucumber looks so pretty in 
it. Oh, that looks lovely. And I’ll pop some in a serving bowl and the rest in the fridge. Decorate 
it with a little bit of dill and maybe a little bit of lemon rind from the squeezed lemons. And 
that is how I was told or taught to do tzatziki. And you can use lamb shoulder, pork shoulder, 
pork loin, or chicken thighs or breast. I prefer chicken thighs for the souvlaki. And 
what I’ve got here is just some pork shoulder today that has got no bone in it. It’s 1 kilo. 
And what I’m going to do is just chop it into chunks that will be able to be threaded on a 
skewer. Not too big, but not too small neither. And when marinating anything, it’s best to 
use like a glass bowl or a ceramic bowl, but not a metal one because it could react with 
the marinade. And I do like the fat in the pork shoulder. Now for the marinade, it’s really simple 
and that’s what I just love about Greek food. So, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 
3 tablespoons of olive oil, a good teaspoon of oregano, one clove of garlic, 
either just crushed with a garlic crusher or really really finely chopped to a paste or 
just easy like this using a micro plane. A good teaspoon of salt, a good sprinkle of 
black pepper, and lastly, most important, a third a cup of white wine. And that’s 
all there is to the marinade. Now, this needs to go in the fridge covered 
for at least 24 hours. And you know, you can leave it like this up to 48 hours, 
but 24 hours is what I’m going to do now. And the chicken I do in exactly the same way. 
And I like to use chicken thigh fillets. Now, normally I wouldn’t marinate chicken overnight, but this marinade because I think of 
just the small amount of lemon juice in it holds up for actually 48 hours, but 
I’d use it after 24 hours. And seriously, chicken doesn’t need as much time to marinate. 
So, you can just use it after 4 or 5 hours. This is how I love eating a Greek salad. 
It is so delicious. And all you need is a handful of ingredients, but they need to be 
sort of nice and fresh and at their best. So, I’ve got some cos lettuce here that I’m just 
finely, well, pretty finely shredding. And as much or as little as you please. And 
what I really love in a Greek salad is green capsicums or green peppers. And I 
like to just remove that white pith bit, which sometimes I find can be bitter. And 
then I just slice these into thin strips. And to make it easier to eat, I cut them in 
half. Then add these capsicums to the bowl. And then just two or three small tomatoes. And I 
just like cutting these into sort of bite sized chunks. And you can make this the day before you 
wish to serve it because if you don’t dress it, this stays crisp. And the next ingredient is just 
a few kalamata olives. Not too many, just a few. And the final ingredient in that salad is some 
Greek feta cheese or Greek style feta cheese which holds up really well in a Greek salad and just 
chopped into chunks. And the dressing for this is even simpler. So, this dressing is also what 
I’ll base the souvlaki with when I cook it. And it’s simply one part lemon juice to three parts 
olive oil. So, whatever you put in in lemon juice, put three times that amount in of olive oil. Just 
a little pinch of salt, tiny pinch. A little pinch of pepper and a pinch of oregano. And just give 
that a stir until the lemon juice and the olive oil are emulsified. And when you’re ready to 
serve, or even an hour or two beforehand, it holds up well this salad. Just drizzle. Be generous 
with this. Drizzle it all over the salad. So good. And now what I do is thread it on some skewers. 
I’ll show you this. Now, if you’ve got a charcoal grill, that is the way to go. We do have one but 
it’s very windy outside today. And to be honest, I want to show you how I do these in the fry 
pan because I feel that’s like most people would have the fry pan. Now, these are just 
metal skewers like what I use to check cakes actually. And I’m just threading the souvlaki, 
the pieces of um pork through on the long way. Not the short way, but the long way if that 
makes sense. But if you’ve got those really big skewers that go on the barbecue, they’d 
be awesome on the barbecue. And you know, this is delicious on a barbecue to be honest. 
But it’s still really yum cooked on the stove. And what I like to do is just take a bit of 
paper towel and just lightly pat them dry. I wouldn’t worry about this if I was doing it 
on the barbecue, but because I’m doing it on the stove, I want to get a nice sear on it. So, 
I don’t want it to be too wet. And the marinades already permeated through all of that meat. So, 
once I can feel some heat radiating from the pan, then I just add a little bit of oil. And you don’t 
want to overcrowd the pan when you cook these. And after a couple of minutes, the meat should 
lift off easily, not stick. And that’s a good indication that you can turn it. And it’s starting 
to get some lovely colour on it. As it’s cooking, you can baste it with the oregano, lemon 
juice, olive oil, salt and pepper marinade. And after a couple of minutes, I’ll 
check the other side. And they’re starting to get some lovely 
caramelization on the pork. The beauty about doing it on the barbecue is 
you don’t have a stove to clean afterwards. And they’re nearly done. And that’s 
only been like not even 10 minutes. And just give them one more 
little brush with the marinade. Yep. Looks good. This is how I love to eat it. 
Nice serve of Greek salad. A couple of lovely kebabs and a little bit of 
tzatziki. Oh, you can put it on there or on the side. Just for the photo, I’m going to put it on 
there, but normally I put it on the side. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoy this. 
Just a really simple, delicious, family friendly meal. Hopefully I’ll see you again soon. Souvlaki 
actually means on a stick, I think. But you don’t have to put it on the stick. Like lately 
after work, I just get a bowl of Greek salad, fry off a few pieces of meat, be it chicken or 
pork shoulder, and throw that on the salad and have that for a quick dinner. It’s so delicious. 
It’s healthy and it’s really easy to make.