Tzatziki is the cool, garlicky yoghurt dip that turns up on almost every table in Greece, next to grilled meat, fish, fried vegetables and a basket of bread. It takes fifteen minutes, a handful of ingredients and one simple trick: get the water out of the cucumber.

We ate it every day in Greece, and when we got back to our own kitchen we kept making it every day. It is the first thing we put on the table for a Greek-style dinner, and the one dip that disappears before anything else.

Good tzatziki is thick enough to hold a spoon upright, fresh with cucumber, sharp with garlic and rounded off with good olive oil. This recipe gets you there.

What Is It?

Tzatziki (τζατζίκι) is a Greek dip and sauce made from strained yoghurt, grated cucumber, garlic, olive oil and a little vinegar or lemon, usually finished with dill or mint. It is served cold as part of a meze spread, spooned onto souvlaki and gyros, or eaten simply with bread.

The texture is what separates a good tzatziki from a disappointing one. Greek yoghurt is already strained, so it starts thick. Grated cucumber is full of water, and if you skip the salting and squeezing, that water leaks into the dip and thins it within an hour.

It is also one of the easiest ways into healthy Greek food: high in protein from the yoghurt, light, and full of flavour without any cooking.

A Little History

Yoghurt and cucumber dips are found across the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans and the Middle East, from Turkish cacık to Persian mast-o-khiar. The Greek name comes from the Turkish word cacık, and the dish shares that common root.

In Greece, tzatziki became a taverna staple and a natural partner to grilled meat: souvlaki, gyros and keftedes are rarely served without it. Thick, strained yoghurt is what defines the Greek version and makes it richer and denser than many of its neighbours.

Every family has its own balance of garlic, and the debate between dill and mint is a regional one. Both are traditional.