GREEK SALAD WITH SARDINES AND BEANS: FROM ATHENS TO LISBON ON ONE PLATE

Ali Slagle’s main-dish Greek salad gave me the perfect reason to open a tin of sardines brought home from a very special wedding in Sintra.

She had me at Greek salad.

But when I opened a recent New York Times Cooking email and discovered that Ali Slagle had added sardines and white beans to one, she really had me. This was no longer simply a salad. It was practically an account of our recent travels—served in a bowl.

Our journey began in Athens, where Andrew and I boarded Viking Vesta for a cruise through Greece and the Adriatic. It ended in Portugal, where I had the great honor of serving as the Celebrant at the wedding of our friends Zoe and Justin in Sintra.

Connecting Greece to Portugal were sardines.

The Sardines That Came Home From a Wedding

Zoe and Justin were married beneath the trees in Sintra on September 5th. The ceremony brought together Jewish and Christian traditions, a Celtic-inspired handfasting, the exchange of vows and rings, and the breaking of the glass.

At the end of the celebration, the bride and groom gave the wedding party wonderful gifts–including Portuguese sardines. It was an inspired choice. Sardines are inseparable from Portuguese food culture, particularly in Lisbon, where the smell of them grilling over charcoal drifts through the older neighborhoods during the June celebrations honoring Saint Anthony.

I brought our tin home and did what one so often does with an especially attractive food souvenir: I admired it and resisted opening it.

Fortunately, Ali Slagle came to the rescue with today’s recipe.

Lisbon’s Other Sardines

Our affection for sardines is not confined to the edible variety.

Over several visits to Lisbon, we have collected colorful ceramic sardines inspired by one of the city’s most engaging traditions.

In 2003, EGEAC—the organization responsible for many of Lisbon’s cultural events—created a stylized sardine as the emblem of the annual Festas de Lisboa. In 2011, the city launched the Concurso Sardinhas, inviting the public to decorate the familiar sardine-shaped outline.

Artists, illustrators, designers, schoolchildren and ingenious amateurs began turning sardines into miniature works of art. Some are witty. Some are beautiful. Others appear to have consumed something stronger than seawater.

Ceramic interpretations have allowed the sardines to escape the poster and come home with travelers like us. Ours now form a small school of their own.

The Greek Salad That Brought Everything Together

Ali Slagle’s Greek Salad With Sardines and Beans is a clever reworking of the familiar Greek salad.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, Kalamata olives, oregano and feta are all present and accounted for. Cannellini beans provide substance and creaminess. Sardines add richness, salinity and enough protein to turn the salad into lunch or a light supper. Nothing feels forced. The beans absorb the dressing, while the sardines belong naturally beside the feta and olives. Slagle has not buried a Greek salad beneath a pile of additions. She has simply given it a little more ballast. And so the beautiful wedding tin was finally opened.

There was something wonderfully circular about sardines brought home from a wedding in Portugal becoming the centerpiece of a Greek salad only days after our journey from Athens to Lisbon.

Travel souvenirs do not always need to sit on a shelf. Sometimes you open them for lunch. 

Here’s the recipe :

Greek Salad With Sardines and White Beans

September 10, 2026

Servings: 4 Dinner Salads

Total: 35 min

Difficulty: Very simple since there's no cooking involved

Print This

Adapted from Ali Slagle’s recipe for The New York Times, this salad brings together both Greek and Portuguese Elements in one luscious combination.

By: Monte Mathews

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce can cannellini or other white beans
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 4 Persian or miniature seedless cucumbers, cut into bite-size pieces
• Kosher salt
• 1 shallot, halved and thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• ⅓ cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved
• 1½ teaspoons dried oregano, plus more for serving
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 ounces feta cheese, broken into generous pieces
• 1 4-ounce tin sardines packed in olive oil or water

Directions

• Step 1 Drain and rinse the beans and place them in a colander. Add the tomatoes and cucumbers, season with 1½ teaspoons kosher salt and toss. Allow the mixture to drain for 10 to 15 minutes.
• Step 2 Meanwhile, combine the shallot, vinegar, olives and oregano in a large serving bowl.
• Step 3 Shake away any remaining liquid from the vegetables and beans, then add them to the bowl. Pour in the olive oil and toss gently.
• Step 4 Scatter the feta over the salad. Remove the sardines from their tin, leaving the packing liquid behind, and arrange them on top.
• Step 5 Taste before adding more salt
• Step 6 the sardines, feta and olives have already brought quite a bit to the party. Finish with another pinch of oregano and serve.

HERE ARE TWO OTHER GREEK AND PORTUGUESE DISHES TO TRY…

Greek Tomato Meatballs from Yasmin Khan

Pork with Clams Alentejo Style