Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas

It's Greek week in our household!

Melissa had found a few Greek recipes that she wanted to try recently, including one for Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas from Cooking Light, so we decided to try a couple out in one week. It helps maximize our grocery dollars as cuisine-specific ingredients (like Kalamata olives we got for a recipe later this week) do not linger around half-consumed after being used in just one recipe.

To top it off, this recipe is essentially chop, combine and toss with dressing, so it's a quick weeknight meal.

Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas
1 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped Kalamata olives
1/2 cup diced red onion
15 ounces chickpeas
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
6 (6-inch) whole wheat pitas, cut in half
Romaine lettuce leaves
1 Roma tomato, sliced

Combine the yogurt, lemon juice, cumin and crushed red pepper.


In a separate bowl, combine the chicken, bell pepper, olives, red onion, chickpeas, salt and pepper. (The original recipe called for cilantro, but stores around our market did not have any this past weekend.)

Mix yogurt mixture into chicken mixture and toss to coat.

Line a pita half with Romaine and slices of tomato. Scoop 1/2 cup of


First thing: If you're making for only two people, you might want to half the recipe unless you don't mind having several more meals worth of food leftover.

Flavor wise, though, the cilantro was missed a bit, but the ingredients certainly were very good even without it. We found that salt and pepper were necessary in our interpretation. And the Kalamata olives provided a nice flavor burst, too.