Halloumi Salad with Houmous Dressing and Pitta Crisps

This was a recipe I tore out of BBC Good Food a while back but only recently discovered due to the big recipe filing nightmare task I am currently undertaking.  I thought as I am on a healthy eating kick that it would be nice to try this salad. I'm not sure if it's diet-friendly or not but as I am not on a diet that doesn't really matter. The mere presence of a variety colourful vegetables make it a healthier dinner for me!

I didn't make this for Mr M as I thought he wouldn't like it. He's not a fan of tomatoes for starters, nor houmous and I thought halloumi would be way out of his comfort zone. I wasn't wrong, it was out of his comfort zone but he did try a bit of mine and actually liked it and said he wouldn't object to have it for his dinner one day. Result!

I loved this. I thought it was really tasty and liked the crunch of the salad and the warm halloumi. I also really liked dipping the pitta crisps into the houmous and will definitely make them in the future when I want a bit of a dipping snack.  A really yummy, refreshing and satisfying dinner - this is a keeper!

The recipe serves two.

Halloumi Salad with Houmous Dressing & Pitta Crisps

Ingredients

2 wholemeal pitta bread

2 tomatoes, deseeded and cut into chunks

1/2 red onion, sliced

1/2 cucumber, cut into chunks

olive oil

1/2 lemon, juiced

250g halloumi cheese, cut into chunks

dried oregano

2 tbsp houmous

75ml natural yoghurt

Method

Heat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Separate the pitta breads into 2 halves and cut into triangles. Bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes until they are crisp.

Toss the chopped tomatoes, onion and cucumber with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and the lemon juice.

Sprinkle the halloumi with some of the dried oregano then fry until golden. This should only take a minute or two.

Mix the houmous and yoghurt with a little water to make a dressing and season to taste with freshly ground black pepper. 

When the halloumi is cooked, toss with the salad and drizzle over the houmous dressing. Serve with the pitta crisps on the side.

To make this a bit healthier I used low-fat versions of halloumi, houmous and yoghurt. It seemed a bit heavy on the fat otherwise.