This Greek marinade made with lemon, herbs, and garlic boasts an authentic Mediterranean style and is intended for chicken but is also spectacular with fish.
This Greek marinade recipe with its robust lemon, herb, and garlic goodness works just dandy on grilled Greek chicken but, in true Mediterranean style, is also spectacular on fish. Originally published July 10, 2011.–Renee Schettler Rossi
Greek Marinade
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from 3 to 4 lemons)
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
- 1 tablespoon each chopped oregano, rosemary, thyme, and basil leaves
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Directions
- 1. Stir together the lemon juice, garlic, parsley, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and basil in a bowl. Whisk in the oil. Use the Greek marinade right away or cover and refrigerate the marinade for up to 1 day before using.
- 2. To use the Greek marinade, marinate whole pieces of chicken or pork chops for at least 24 and up to 48 hours. To marinate chunks of chicken or pork, as for skewers, marinate 6 to 12 hours. To marinate fish fillets or steaks, marinate 1 to 3 hours.
Recipe Testers Reviews
This delicious marinade takes all of 12 seconds to throw together. Okay—more like 1 minute with the fresh herbs to chop. Anyway, it’s composed of fresh lemon juice, garlic, parsley, oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil, and oil. Sound good? Well, it is. It’s awesome with grilled chicken but next time I must try it on grilled shrimp. It’s so light and refreshing and a lovely change from heavier sauces. Especially nice in the heat of summer. If I had scallops or squid on hand they’d be drinking up this marinade.
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Awesome! I love Greek food and making it at home is just what the doctor ordered. Paired with a crisp bubbly white on the grill.
Excellent, Daniel!
You seem very kind and thanks for posting a delicious marinade.:)
You’re welcome, Stephanie.
Yum, Yum, Yum!!! This is the most delicious marinade/vinaigrette. After shaking the goodies together in a mason jar, I tried a taste. What I found was this is also a lovely salad dressing. So I poured off enough to marinade my chicken and used the remainder to dress the salad. Oh, sooo good!
Marvelous, Elizabeth! Love it.
Can this be as a marinade for chicken for 2 days prior to grilling?
Carol, as per this recipe for Greek grilled chicken, you can marinate the chicken for up to 48 hours, but no longer, otherwise the texture will start to suffer. Let us know how it goes…!
Going to try it on split chicken breasts. I am lucky to have good shears!
Marla, a pair of sturdy kitchen shears make all the difference, do they not?! Lovely to hear you’re going to give this a go, we look forward to hearing what you think….
This looks soooo delicious. I can’t wait to try it this weekend. Thank you.
Please let us know, Winnie. We think that you’ll love it!
Shrimp?
All I can say is, “Try it…you’ll like it.”
In this marinade, I like the addition of garlic and thyme (I can take or leave the parsley and other herbs, personally) to what is essentially a “latholemono” dressing.
Latholemono is an indispensable blend in the Greek kitchen. It’s basically two parts olive oil to one part lemon juice, though this marinade boosts the ratio of lemon, which is also fine with me. Latholemono is used on all sorts of greens and fish as well.
Also, don’t overlook its possibilities as a dressing for summer’s best tomatoes and cucumbers. Toss in some feta… lovely.