This is truly the thickest tzatziki sauce you’ll ever make. This is an authentic Greek recipe, made with cucumbers, yogurt, freshly squeezed lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. We have a couple tricks up our sleeves to make it a thick and spreadable sauce. You will fall in love with the many different ways it can be served. We love eating it with homemade pita as gyros, or as a dip with fresh veggies and chips.
Authentic Greek Recipe
The inspiration for this dip comes from Greek content creator, Leah Itsines. I’ve been following the Itsines sisters (Leah, and Kayla) on social media for years because they are both inspirational self-made entrepreneurs, and have greatly influenced me to make changes to my own health and cooking habits.
Leah is the creator of the Balanced and Realistic Eating Guide (BARE), where she encourages people to become more confident in the kitchen by becoming the healthiest version of themselves. I became a big fan of her content over the years because she emphasizes lifestyle changes that do not emphasize only on weight loss. She regularly states that health can be measured by how you feel on the inside. By having energy, feeling lighter on your feet, being stronger, sleeping well… etc.
As someone who spent many years (and still most days) with a negative body image, it is very comforting to find other reasons to take care of myself than to lose a couple pounds. I firmly believe that promoting healthy lifestyle changes or “non-scale goals” is incredibly important.
All of this to say that Leah Itsines has been a huge inspiration in my life, as well as in my kitchen. Her content on Instagram is very family oriented, where she spends afternoons with her Yiayia and Papou, her Greek grandparents, cooking and wandering their luscious vegetable gardens. Leah posted her tzatziki recipe in 2018, showing proper yogurt straining techniques and that method has stuck with me since then.
This tzatziki is slightly modified from her recipe, but the draining of excess liquid is constant. It is the single most important stage for a thick and delicious tzatziki just like Yiayia would make.
Technique for the thickest Tzatziki Sauce
One of the most important stages of making this tzatziki is straining the additional liquid from the yogurt, and the water from the cucumbers. This tzatziki will not turn out very thick if this step is skipped.
My recommendation is to strain the yogurt overnight in the fridge. If you’ve forgotten to get that yogurt straining before starting the recipe, I recommend throwing it in a lined sieve and into the fridge right away for at least an hour. While the yogurt strains, grate and salt the cucumber to extract and drain the excess water.
I frequently squeeze the grated cucumber and change out the towel during this process to remove as much water as possible. For the purpose of this blog, I saved the excess liquid from the yogurt and the cucumber just to show just how much we can extract during this process. You can simply discard this liquid. Had this of gone into the tzatziki, it would definitely be runny and not as thick and luscious as we want!
Once strained, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl, mix well and serve! We love to serve tzatziki with our five ingredient homemade pita recipe, topped with roasted chickpeas, and fresh vegetables. It holds up very well in the fridge for about a week, just make sure to stir it up good. Enjoy! xo
Thickest Tzatziki Ever
Equipment
- Sieve
- Grater
- Medium sized bowl
Ingredients
- 1 English Cucumber
- 750g Plain Greek yogurt strained
- 4 clove garlic finely grated
- Kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon dill fresh is best but dried works here
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice freshly squeezed
- Freshly cracked black pepper to your liking
Instructions
- 1. Line a sieve with a cloth, and spoon the Greek yogurt into the sieve to sit for an hour in the fridge. Overnight is best, however about an hour when in a hurry is sufficient to get a good result. This will draw out any excess water in the yogurt, making it very thick and creamy.
- 2. Grate the English cucumber, and toss with ½ teaspoon of Kosher salt to draw out excess liquid. Set aside for about 15 minutes, allowing the excess water to drain through a sieve or be absorbed by a paper towel or dishcloth.
- 3. Rinse the salt out of the grated cucumber, and squeeze to remove all remaining water. Pat dry with a towel.
- 4. Add the grated cucumber to a medium sized bowl, along with the strained greek yogurt, grated garlic, and olive oil. Add a bit of dill, or mint if you’d like, and season with salt and pepper to your taste.
- 5. Refrigerate until ready to serve with your favorite fresh vegetables, and pita bread.