How to make traditional Greek tzatziki
The authentic, traditional recipe of Greek tzatziki with all the secrets of success.
Equipment
- Grater/Shredder
- Thin towel or piece of tulle
- Mixing bowls
Ingredients
- 2 cups Greek yogurt, strained, full-fat (*see notes below)
- 1 medium cucumber (*see notes below)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced (*see notes below)
- 3 tbsp olive oil, extra virgin (*see notes below)
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tbsp dill, chopped
- ½ tsp salt
- Extra olive oil, dill and freshly-ground pepper, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Place yogurt in a medium bowl.
- Peel the cucumber and grate it coarsely. It should yield about one cup of grated cucumber.
- Using a thin towel or piece of tulle or your hands, squeeze as much water as you can out of the grated cucumber.
- Add the strained cucumber to the yogurt. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until they are well combined.
- Garnish with olive oil, extra dill and freshly-ground pepper and serve.
NOTES
Yogurt: You need full-fat, strained, Greek yogurt to make tzatziki. If you use low-fat strained yogurt, you will be sacrificing its rich texture and taste. Zero-fat strained yogurt or other types of yogurt are not recommended.
Cucumbers: We prefer to make tzatziki during spring and summer months, or early autumn at the latest, when cucumbers are in season. We prefer small, locally-grown cucumbers, with no seeds and preferably organic.
The traditional recipe uses peeled and grated cucumbers. You can add them without the peel if you like or if you don’t want to waste the fiber, but it will make the next step a little more difficult.
Cucumbers are among the vegetables with the highest content in water - about 96%! After we grate them, we need to get rid of as much moisture as we can before adding them to the yogurt. The best way to do this is by squeezing the liquid out, using a piece of tulle or a very thin towel. You may have come across other directions that say you can leave it in a sieve overnight but it won’t be enough and your tzatziki will end up being watery.
Garlic: A good thing about tzatziki is that you can experiment with the quantities of the ingredients without messing up the final product. When it comes to garlic, some people like it too hot and spicy and they add lots of it, while others don’t. It’s totally up to personal choice but bear in mind that the garlic taste becomes stronger the longer it stays in the yogurt.
Olive oil: If there is one recipe that you need to add pure, extra virgin olive oil, it’s this one. It has a significant role in the rich taste and texture of the authentic Greek tzatziki. I tried to keep the recipe low-fat so that it can be used by everyone, even by people who need to avoid high-fat recipes for health reasons. But if you have no reason to do so, be my guest and add even more olive oil.