Short version: grate the cucumber, salt 15 minutes, wring it dry, then fold into thick yogurt.
Jump to Recipe ↓Almost every disappointing tzatziki has the same cause. Cucumber is ninety-six percent water and yogurt is already soft, so a grated cucumber folded straight into yogurt turns the whole bowl thin within twenty minutes. It tastes fine and it will not hold on a piece of bread.
The fix is physical rather than culinary. Grate the cucumber, salt it, wait fifteen minutes, then wring it out hard in a clean tea towel. You will be startled by how much liquid comes out, often half a cup from one cucumber, and the drained pulp that remains is concentrated cucumber rather than a water delivery system.
The second decision is the yogurt. Full fat Greek yogurt, strained, is what this needs. Regular yogurt is too loose to survive the addition of anything, and low fat versions turn watery and slightly sour in a way the garlic does not cover.
What Your Board Looks Like
Short board time here, because most of the work is grating and squeezing rather than cutting. The garlic is the part that matters, and it wants to be a paste rather than a mince, which is done on the board with salt and the flat of a knife.
Just under a cup: cucumber ends and the seed strip, garlic skins and root ends, dill stem bottoms. Small, but the cucumber seed strip is slippery and gelatinous and the garlic skins are light enough to blow off a board. There is also up to half a cup of liquid wrung out of the cucumber, which goes down the sink rather than into the pouch.
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Tzatziki
No cooking, fifteen minutes of work, and much better after an hour. Makes about 2 1/2 cups.
Ingredients
- 2 cupsfull fat Greek yogurtstrained, the thickest you can find
- 1 largeEnglish cucumberseeded and coarsely grated
- 1 tspfine saltfor the cucumber, mostly squeezed away
- 3 clovesgarlicmade into a paste with salt
- 2 tbspfresh dillfinely chopped
- 1 tbspextra virgin olive oilplus more to serve
- 1 tbspred wine vinegaror lemon juice
- salt and white pepperto taste
Method
- Seed and grate the cucumberHalve it lengthwise and run a teaspoon down the seed channel to scoop it out, then grate the rest on the coarse side of a box grater. Seeding first removes the wettest part before the salt has to deal with it.
- Salt it and wait fifteen minutesToss the grated cucumber with the teaspoon of salt in a sieve. Fifteen minutes is enough to draw the water to the surface, and you will see it pooling in the bowl underneath.
- Wring it out properlyTip the cucumber into the center of a clean tea towel, gather the corners, and twist hard. Keep twisting past the point where it feels like nothing more is coming. Half a cup of liquid from one cucumber is normal. This is the step the whole recipe rests on.
- Make the garlic pasteMince the garlic, add a pinch of coarse salt, and drag the flat of your knife blade across it repeatedly until it becomes a smooth paste. Raw garlic minced into yogurt gives you sharp individual hits. A paste seasons the whole bowl evenly.
- Fold and restCombine the yogurt, wrung cucumber, garlic paste, dill, olive oil, and vinegar. Season and rest for at least an hour in the fridge. Fresh from the bowl the garlic is aggressive and the flavors are separate. An hour later it is a single thing.
Make It Ahead
Tzatziki improves for the first day and then slowly loosens, which is the opposite of most dips.
Getting It Right
Wring the cucumber harder than feels reasonable
This is the difference between tzatziki and thin white soup. Salt it, then twist it in a tea towel until genuinely no more liquid comes out. Squeezing it in your hand alone removes maybe half of what a towel will.
Use full fat Greek yogurt
Strained Greek yogurt is thick enough to survive having a wet ingredient folded into it. Regular yogurt is too loose to start with, and low fat versions turn watery and taste thinly sour. If your yogurt is not thick, strain it through a coffee filter for an hour first.
Make the garlic into a paste with salt
Salt is an abrasive. Dragging the flat of a knife over minced garlic with a pinch of coarse salt breaks it into a smooth paste in about thirty seconds. It disperses evenly through the yogurt instead of leaving sharp individual pieces, which is how tzatziki ends up unevenly aggressive.
Grate rather than dice the cucumber
Grating creates far more surface area, which means the salt draws water out much more effectively and the cucumber disappears into the yogurt as texture rather than sitting in it as chunks. Diced cucumber in yogurt is a different dish.
Give it an hour
Tasted immediately it is harsh with raw garlic and the components are separate. An hour in the fridge is when it becomes tzatziki. This is the most commonly skipped instruction in the recipe.
Upgrade Your Prep Workflow: The ROO Bundle
This is a short prep with one messy stage. Seeding and grating a cucumber puts a lot of liquid onto and around the board very quickly, and making a garlic paste involves dragging a knife flat across the board with real pressure, which is precisely the motion that pushes an unsecured board across a counter. The ROO Mat resists that lateral drag, and the pouch takes the cucumber ends, seed strip, and garlic skins in one movement instead of leaving them on a surface that is already wet.
Upgrade Your Prep Workflow: Get the ROO Bundle
A board that resists the drag of making a garlic paste, and a pouch for the wet seed strip.
Check out the ROO Bundle →Related Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the ingredients of tzatziki?
Strained full fat Greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, an acid such as red wine vinegar or lemon juice, and dill or mint. Salt is doing double duty, seasoning the dip and drawing water out of the cucumber beforehand.
What's the secret to great tzatziki?
Wringing the grated cucumber out in a tea towel after salting it. One cucumber will give up around half a cup of water, and that is water that would otherwise thin the yogurt into a runny sauce. The second secret is making the garlic into a paste with salt rather than leaving it as a mince.
What are common mistakes when making tzatziki?
Not salting and draining the cucumber, dicing it instead of grating it, using regular or low fat yogurt that is too loose, adding raw minced garlic that stays sharp and uneven, and serving it straight away before the flavors have combined. It needs an hour minimum.
How to make the perfect tzatziki?
Seed and grate the cucumber, salt it for fifteen minutes, then wring it dry in a tea towel. Make a paste of three cloves of garlic with coarse salt. Fold both into thick strained yogurt with olive oil, vinegar, and dill, then refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
How long does homemade tzatziki last?
Three days sealed in the fridge, and it is at its best on days one and two. It will separate slightly as it sits, which is normal. Pour off any liquid on the surface and stir it before serving rather than stirring the liquid back in.
Seed it, grate it, salt it, and wring it out until nothing more comes. Then a garlic paste rather than a mince, and an hour in the fridge. Tzatziki is four minutes of technique and seventy minutes of waiting, and both halves are necessary.