Greek salad has such an awesome combination of flavors. The mixture of crisp romaine lettuce, fresh cucumbers, sharp red onion, and juicy tomatoes with the tang of red wine vinegar in the dressing makes for a perfect blend of flavor and texture. My husband isn’t a fan of kalamata olives or pepperoncini or else I would have included those into this recipe along with my other toppings. Add them if you like them!
The other day day, while perusing the aisles of the grocery store, I passed a bag of pita chips and thought…hmmm…Greek Nachos! It actually turned out to be pretty delicious. And healthy!
Healthy nachos?
Yep.
And it even has a cheese sauce. Made with only two ingredients!
So you are going to start by making some home made pita chips. You can use store bought if you want, but these are so easy to make, and they taste so much better.
You start with whole grain pita bread rounds.
They are always in the section of the grocery store that has packaged french baguettes, bagels, and things like that. They are about six inches in diameter, and you will need three of them.
Cut the pita bread into quarters, and then cut each quarter in half. You should have eight little triangles. This next part is a little hard to explain, so I took pictures of the steps.
Pita bread has an air pocket in the center of it. The air pocket allows us to split each of these triangles into two thinner triangles, which will be your chips.
See that little line of air in the middle? You can barely see it in this picture, but it is super easy to pull apart.
Just start splitting it open and lightly peeling it apart. Do you like my nail polish?
And continue to lightly pull it apart.
Once you completely flatten it out, it is easy to pull the two sides apart, making two pretty little triangles. This process really doesn’t take long at all. The pieces come apart easily.
However…there will be one (or maybe a couple) that don’t want to come apart…
And then this happens. But that’s okay! It can be your cooking snack. Your reward for the extra homemade-pita-chip-labor.
So once you have three pita rounds worth of triangles separated, lay them out on a baking sheet. Fit as many as you can. You can do this in batches if you want, they don’t need to cook for very long. Drizzle olive oil over the pita triangles and, using a pastry brush, spread the olive oil as evenly as you can over the pita bread. Lightly season the triangles with salt and pepper. Be careful! You can always add more later. Flip them over and repeat!
I think this is the best way to lay them out on the baking sheet. You can fit more on if you do it this way.
Pop those babies into a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes. Then take them out, flip them, and put them back in for 4 more minutes. Try one; if you like them crispier, then put them in for another minute or two.
While your pita chips are baking, cook your ground chicken! One of my favorite parts of Greek food is the seasonings that give it the distinct flavor that it has. So to your ground chicken, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, oregano, parsley, garlic powder, basil, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
Get the chicken nice and brown. Once it is cooked through, throw in a teaspoon of red wine vinegar and stir that around for about ten seconds. The vinegar just brightens it up a little bit.
Try to resist eating little morsels out of the pan as you finish the rest of the recipe. I tried and failed, but maybe you can do better than me.
Pita chips!!
Chop up your veggies and your romaine lettuce.
And make your super simple Greek dressing. All you do is add red wine vinegar, olive oil, a little Dijon mustard, and some of those Greek spices from earlier and you are good to go! Oh, and a little garlic of course :).
Now all you need to do is make your cheese sauce and assemble.
Try not to be intimidated by this sauce. It is incredibly difficult. But I think you can do it…
Add half a cup of feta cheese and three tablespoons of milk into a microwave safe bowl and microwave it for two minutes. Take it out and stir ever thirty seconds.
Whew. I know…super complicated.
If the sauce is too thick or thin for your taste, you can add more milk to thin it out or more feta to thicken it and pop it back in the microwave.
Assembly time!
Start with a layer of your homemade pita chips.
And then drizzle on some feta cheese sauce.
It’s like Greek queso!
Then just throw on a layer of ground chicken, lettuce, and veggies. Finish it off with a few spoon fulls of dressing and you are ready to eat!
Enjoy your healthy nachos!
Healthy and full of flavor.
Here is the recipe:
- 3 whole grain pita rounds
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley flakes
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
- ¼ cup quartered grape tomatoes
- 1 cucumber, halved and sliced
- 1 red onion, diced
- ½ head romaine lettuce, thinly sliced
- For the Cheese Sauce:
- ½ cup feta cheese (4 oz)
- 3 tablespoons 2% milk
- For the Dressing:
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- ⅛ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried parsley flakes
- ¼ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- Slice each pita round in quarters, leaving you with four triangles
- Slice each of the four triangles in half giving you 8 triangles per pita round
- Peel each triangle in half so you have two thinner triangles
- Lay all of the pita triangles on a baking sheet, and drizzle with olive oil
- Use a pastry brush to evenly distribute the olive oil onto the pita bread
- Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper
- Flip the pita triangles over and repeat the process on the other side
- Put them into a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, take them out, flip them, and put them in for another 2 minutes
- Meanwhile, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet
- Once hot, add the ground chicken into the pan
- Add the salt and pepper, oregano, parsley, garlic powder, basil, and red pepper flakes
- Break up the meat with a wooden spoon, mixing in the herbs and seasonings as you go
- Brown the chicken in the pan until all the pieces are cooked through. Set aside
- Chop the cucumber, grape tomatoes, red onion, and romaine lettuce. Set aside
- Make the cheese sauce by adding the feta and milk into a microwave safe bowl
- Put the mixture in the microwave for two minutes, taking it out to stir every thirty seconds
- Make the dressing by mixing the red wine vinegar, olive oil, oregano, parsley, basil, salt, pepper, and dijon mustard into a bowl and whisk until combined
- Assemble the nachos by first putting down a layer of pita chips, then feta cheese sauce, followed by the lettuce, veggies, and two tablespoons of dressing.
