The BEST Halloumi Salad
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This halloumi salad is refreshing, delicious, and packed with nutrients from various fresh veg. It’s a quick recipe to make when you’re craving a healthier meal for lunch or dinner. This salad makes the perfect dish for a warm-weather picnic or date night!
Table of Contents
Why you’ll love this recipe
Simple, flavourful, and easy to make, what’s not to love about this halloumi salad? It’s a great dish for vegetarians or anyone who wants to cut down on meat in their daily meals.
This fried halloumi salad recipe includes a tangy, sweet dressing you’ll want to save for other salad recipes. This dressing is made with honey, olive oil, and spices and perfectly complements the salty halloumi cheese.
This easy vegetarian salad is also budget-friendly, as most of the veg are quite cheap to purchase. The dressing ingredients are also likely in your pantry already, leaving you with a nutritious salad that’s easy on the wallet.
For the halloumi lovers, try these recipes; Halloumi Burgers, The Best Halloumi Curry and Halloumi Pasta
Ingredients
Halloumi Cheese
This delicious, salty cheese is a great way to incorporate protein and vitamin D into one of my favourite halloumi salad recipes. It has a subtle flavour that works well with seasonal produce.
Here’s some more halloumi recipes for you to try, after this one ; Halloumi Tray Bake with Roasted Vegetables, Halloumi Tacos and Sweet Chilli Halloumi Wrap
Mixed Salad
Select your favourite greens for this halloumi salad. I enjoy a mixed salad, but you can choose baby kale or spinach as a base. Try adding fresh mint to your salad mix for a pop of flavour.
Sweet Potatoes
Roasted sweet potatoes provide a delicious, slightly sweet taste to the recipe and are packed full of nutrients.
Red Onion
Red onion adds a delicious bite to the recipe and helps balance out the sweetness from the butternut squash. Yellow or sweet onions will also work in this quick salad recipe.
Cherry Tomatoes
These tomatoes add freshness and a pop of flavour to the salad.
See the recipe card for full information on all ingredients and quantities.
Variations
You can bump up the protein level in this summer salad recipe in many ways! If you want to keep this salad vegetarian-friendly, you can include some roasted tofu cubes or add a can of drained chickpeas. You can also add grilled chicken breast if you eat meat.
While this halloumi salad is quite healthy already, you can make it lower fat by swapping the halloumi out for feta. Not surprisingly, feta is also great roasted, so you can get a similar finished dish with this swap.
How to make halloumi salad
Preheat the oven to 180°C Fan/ 200°C conventional.
- Start by slicing you sweet potatoes into half moon shapes (Image 1).
- Add foil to a baking sheet, then add the sweet potatoes, olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper. Toss to combine and pop in the oven for 30 minutes (Image 2).
3. Next slice your halloumi in rectangular pieces (Image 3).
4. If you are serving just one salad portion (meal prepping the rest), you can store the remaining halloumi in an airtight container in the fridge. Then using a non-stick frying pan, coat the base of the pan in a spritz of rapeseed oil. Add the halloumi into the pan and fry both sides until golden, for approx 2 minutes on each side (Image 4).
5. Meanwhile, slice your cherry tomatoes on a chopping board (Image 5).
6. Finish browning the halloumi on both sides ready to serve (Image 6).
7. Once the roasted sweet potatoes have cooled, store in an airtight container in the fridge ready to serve when you are ready to eat the salad (Image 7).
8. To a jar, add all of the ingredients for the salad dressing. Shake until well combined (Image 8).
Serve a portion of salad leaves, tomatoes, red onion and cucumber. Coat in 1.5 tbsp of the dressing and top with chilled roasted butternut squash and halloumi. Add a sprinkle of optional chilli flakes and dig in!
Tips for the best result
Dry the salad mixture before adding it to a bowl.
Tossing the greens into a salad bowl without drying them first can be tempting if you’re in a rush. However, this will cause the dressing to slip off the leaves. Instead, pat them dry with a clean towel or paper towels first.
Don’t skip the rapeseed oil.
Adding the rapeseed oil to the grill pan before cooking the halloumi ensures it doesn’t stick to the pan. If you forget the oil, you’ll be left scraping bits of cheese out of the pan for the halloumi salad.
Fry the Halloumi slices in batches.
Ensure the slices are evenly distributed in the pan and fry in batches. Turn the halloumi after a few minutes, while ensuring all the slices are golden brown on both sides.
More halloumi recipes to try after this one ; Halloumi and Sweet Potato Tex-Mex Bowls, Panzanella Salad with Halloumi and Halloumi and Avocado Sourdough Toast
Store/reheat
How to store this halloumi salad?
You’ll want to store the salad, dressing, roasted sweet potatoes and halloumi separately. When you’re ready to eat the salad, I fried the halloumi on the day and simply serve a portion of salad, sweet potatoes into a bowl and top with the halloumi and dressing. It’s one of the best salad ideas for meal prep during the week.
Can I reheat the cheese?
There’s no need to reheat the squash or halloumi; you can eat it cold. If you can access a pan, prep the other ingredients and dressing beforehand. Then, cook the halloumi in a pan when you’re ready to eat.
FAQS
Yes! You can enjoy halloumi slices cold in the salad. So, if you’re prepping your lunch before work, you won’t need to worry about reheating the cheese for your halloumi salad.
Yes, you can eat halloumi cheese without cooking it first! Simply slice it and enjoy it as you would with any other block of cheese. Keep in mind cooking halloumi brings out its flavour, so it will have a milder taste when eaten “raw”.
If you elect to eat halloumi without cooking it first, you may encounter halloumi that wants to fall apart when slicing. You can cut perpendicular to the cheese’s seam, which should help it stay together better.
If you tried this Halloumi Salad recipe, it would be mean so much to me if you could leave a review & a star rating to let me know how you found it! I love hearing about your experiences – it motivates me to keep creating more and more recipes for you guys 💛 Let’s get cooking! – Mimi x
The BEST Halloumi Salad
Ingredients
- 800 gram sweet potatoes peeled and cubed (£1.35)
- 450 grams (2 blocks of halloumi) sliced into thin squares (£2.70x2)=(£5.40)
- 360 grams bags of baby leaf mixed salad, washed & dried (£0.80x2)=(£1.60)
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced (£0.15)
- 250 g cherry tomatoes, quartered (£0.65)
- 1 cucumber, thinly sliced (optional) (£0.79)
- 1 tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp rapeseed oil, (for halloumi)
- 2 tsp paprika
Dressing
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard or dijon
- 1 clove of garlic squished into a paste
- 1 tsp coarse salt
- Lots of pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C Fan/ 200°C conventional.
- Add foil to a baking sheet, then add the cubed sweet potatoes, olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper. Toss to combine and pop in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a non-stick frying pan, coat the base of the pan in a spritz of rapeseed oil. Add the halloumi into the pan and fry both sides until golden, approx 2 minutes on each side.
- To a jar, add all of the ingredients for the salad dressing. Shake until well combined.
- Serve a portion of salad leaves, tomatoes, red onion and optional cucumber. Coat in 1.5 tbsp of the dressing and top with chilled roasted sweet potatoes and halloumi. Add a sprinkle of optional chilli flakes and dig in!
Notes
- If serving all at once, prep all of the halloumi. If spreading across the week as meal prep, fry a serving of halloumi on the day of eating.
- Dry the salad mixture before adding to a bowl to ensure the dressing stays on and is distributed evenly over the leaves.
- Use rapeseed oil on the grill pan to prevent halloumi cheese from sticking.
- Fry halloumi slices in batches, turning them to ensure even browning.
Nutrition
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