When you think of Greek food, you probably think of gyros, moussaka, Greek salad (which is just called a salad there lol) and maybe grape leaves. I will say that I’ve tried Greek food in the U.S. and it is NOTHING compared to how tasty the food is there!

On our trip to Santorini and Athens, some amazing locals gave us recommendations on authentic Greek foods to try when we went out to eat, and we are so glad we asked! Next week, I’ll be sharing more about our Airbnb photography experience in Santorini and pictures from Athens.

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One of our favorite appetizers that is a Santorini specialty is called tomatokeftedes. These are essentially crispy tomato fritters, and we enjoyed them so much that I decided to make them for the Summer Recipe + Travel series. (last month was Italy: click here for the recipe or here for the travel pics!)

I discovered that this recipe is SO easy to make, and tastes best with fresh herbs and ingredients. I followed this recipe from MyGreekDish.com which was very straightforward! I’ll outline the basic ingredients and steps below as well as some recommendations for preparation.

Ingredients:

3 large tomatoes

Fresh spearmint, oregano, and parsley

Baking poweder

Red onion

Salt and pepper

Paprika for topping

(optional) Feta cheese

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Preparation:

1. Remove the skin from the tomato, then cut from the top into fourths and remove the seeds. I found the most effective and quickest way to do this (after removing the skin) is literally to hold a sliced half or quarter of the tomato squeeze the tomato like a stress ball with the top facing the sink or trash can to collect the juice and seeds.

*It’s very important to remove as much moisture and seeds as possible – if you don’t, your Tomatokeftedes will turn out more mushy than light and crunchy.

2. Dice the tomatoes and add the other ingredients except the flour.

3. Mix in the flour to the tomato and herb blend, and make sure it gets evenly distributed – it should be a slightly cakey texture.

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4. Heat a pan with a few inches of olive or canola oil. I would recommend enough oil to cover at least half of the Tomatokeftede so it cooks more evenly.

5. Scoop a regular spoon’s worth of batter into the pan and do one test Tomatokeftede.

It should fry for a few minutes on each side until it gets slightly crispy. If it doesn’t get very crispy and still seems mushy, you can try to leave it for more time, or add flour. I had to add flour to mine because they were a little most from the seeds. You will also want it to look like a burger patty (flat on top) so that it cooks more evenly.

Enjoy these tomatokeftedes with a refreshing tzatziki (plain Greek yogurt, add dill, lemon juice, olive oil and lemon pepper!)

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Next week, I’ll be sharing pictures from our trip to Athens and Santorini last summer, I can’t wait! If you enjoyed this recipe, join my mailing list to get my blog posts delivered to your mailbox once a month!

johanna elise