A few years ago Jordan and I spent some time in Greece. The food in general was awesome, but one of our favorites was the tzatziki sauce. Tzatziki is a cucumber yogurt sauce. You can eat it on pretty much anything but it’s often served with pita bread or with gyros. I think one of the first days we had some as an appetizer, and from then on I was on the lookout for it everywhere we ate – and it wasn’t hard to find! =) When we got back home I tried to recreate it several times, but it just wasn’t very good and I didn’t really know why. Every recipe I found had a similar ingredient list. Then I made it using 2% greek yogurt instead of fat-free and turns out that was the difference! Fat-free greek yogurt is just a little too tangy to make good tzatziki (in my opinion). Now that I’ve finally figured what I was doing wrong, I’m going to be making this all the time! I even had some for breakfast over the weekend ;). Enjoy!
Tzatziki Sauce
1 cup plain greek yogurt (full-fat or 2% – do not use fat-free!)
1/4-1/3 English cucumber, peeled
2 gloves garlic, pressed (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder)
2-3 tbsp chopped baby dill
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp freshly cracked black pepper (or to taste, I used maybe a little less)
1. Combine yogurt, garlic, dill, salt and pepper in small bowl and stir to combine.
2. Slice peeled cucumber in half lengthwise. Take small spoon and scrape down center of each half to remove seeds. Finely chop. Press excess water out of chopped cucumber using a paper towel or kitchen towel. You want to be sure to remove as much moisture as you can so your sauce will not be watery the next day.
3. Add chopped cucumber to yogurt mixture. Refrigerate an hour (or overnight) to let the flavors mix.
*adapted from Natasha’s Kitchen
I thought this looked good. Then I saw cucumber listed as one of the ingredients…
Ha! Yeah, you probably wouldn't like it :).