Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken & Pita Bread
Toasted pita wedges scoop up cherry tomatoes, olives, and crumbled feta while pan-seared chicken sits warm on the side. The dressing is olive oil and lemon juice whisked with salt and pepper — nothing else.
54 grams of protein and 613 calories — everything ready in 15 minutes.
Toasted pita wedges scoop up cherry tomatoes, olives, and crumbled feta while pan-seared chicken sits warm on the side. The dressing is olive oil and lemon juice whisked with salt and pepper — nothing else.
54 grams of protein and 613 calories — everything ready in 15 minutes.
Ingredients
- chicken breast 6 ounces
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- pita, whole wheat 1 piece
- cherry tomatoes 8 piece
- olives 8 piece
- cucumber 0.5 piece
- onion 0.25 piece
- lemon juice 1 squeeze
- mixed salad 1 handful
- feta cheese, crumbled 1 ounce
Method
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Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
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In a skillet or frying pan, heat half of the oil over medium heat. Cook the chicken breast in the skillet for about 2-3 minutes.
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Cut the pita bread in half horizontally, then cut each half into quarters. Place the pita wedges on a baking sheet and drizzle them lightly with some olive oil. Bake the pita wedges in the preheated oven for about 8 minutes or until they become crispy and slightly golden.
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Meanwhile, cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters, slice the olives and cucumber into small pieces and the onion into thin rings.
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In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
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In a large bowl, combine the lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, olives and feta cheese and drizzle the dressing over the salad.
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Serve the Greek salad with the chicken and pita bread wedges on the side.
Slice the chicken against the grain after cooking. Thinner strips cool faster at the edges while staying warm inside — exactly what you want next to cold feta and raw vegetables.
Raw tomatoes store lycopene in a fat-soluble form your body cannot absorb without co-consumed fat. When researchers tested salads with fat-containing versus fat-free dressings, the fat-free group absorbed almost no carotenoids — while even modest amounts of oil rescued absorption significantly (Unlu et al., 2005).
Why This Works
Behind this recipe
Is 54 grams of protein too much for one sitting?
Older guidelines drew a hard line at 30 grams — anything beyond that was supposedly wasted. That ceiling has not held up under scrutiny. Multiple studies show muscle protein synthesis continuing well past that mark in a single sitting. At 54 grams from chicken breast, this meal lands in a range the current evidence comfortably supports.
Read the full evidence reviewCan I use regular pita instead of whole wheat?
Yes. The macros shift slightly — regular pita has less fiber and marginally more refined carbs — but the protein, fat, and calorie count stay nearly the same. Whole wheat adds roughly 2 extra grams of fiber per pita, which matters more across a full day than in one meal.
Does the olive oil in the dressing help absorb nutrients from the salad?
It does. The raw tomatoes, cucumber, and greens in this salad carry fat-soluble carotenoids — lycopene, beta-carotene, and lutein. These pigments need to dissolve in fat before your intestinal wall can take them up. The olive oil acts as the solvent. Research showed that removing fat from salad dressing collapsed carotenoid absorption to near zero, while even modest amounts of oil rescued uptake significantly.
Read the full evidence review
