A cool, creamy, and refreshing sauce that tastes good on just about anything…well hello my favorite Tzatziki sauce recipe! Tzatziki sauce has been a favorite of mine for many years. It’s so fresh and tastes great on lots of things including grilled meats, sandwiches and wraps, veggies and more! This week I served it as a dip with some zucchini fritters, but I also grabbed some pita chips and lots of veggies to serve on the side. We literally could not stop eating it at the studio. It’s easy to make, budget-friendly, and perfect this time of year.
Originally posted 5-10-10, updated 7-19-24.
What is Tzatziki?
Tzatziki is a popular sauce or dip made with Greek Yogurt, cucumber, and garlic. It also often includes fresh mint, dill, vinegar or lemon juice. It’s light, fresh, cool, and delicious as a sauce or as a dip with fresh vegetables. Once you taste tzatziki sauce you’ll want to slather it on everything! Of course our version has been adapted for the budget bytes kitchen, but here is an Authentic Tzatziki from Olive Tomato if you’re interested.
Ingredients For Tzatziki Sauce
I personally prefer this sauce over mayo-based sauces and dressings any day! Here’s what you need to make this creamy tzatziki recipe:
- Greek Yogurt: plain Greek yogurt is the base for this creamy dip. I used whole milk Greek yogurt, but you can certainly use a low-fat Greek yogurt instead.
- Cucumber: Grated cucumber is also a signature ingredient and adds a cool and refreshing taste.
- Garlic & Dill: Garlic and fresh dill adds lots of flavor to the tzatziki sauce.
- Lemon: Lemon juice adds just a touch of acidity. You can use white wine vinegar or red wine vinegar instead if that’s what you have on hand.
- Olive Oil: Use a good quality extra-virgin olive oil for the best flavor.
- Salt & Black Pepper: Salt and pepper to season and enhance the flavors of the dip.
- Sugar (optional): Although not part of the authentic recipe, after testing this dip a few times, adding just a very small amount of granulated sugar really helped balance the tangy flavors in the sauce.
Serving suggestions
You can enjoy this delicious tzatziki sauce with just about anything. It’s perfect on with grilled meats, sandwiches and wraps, or gyros. You can also add it to salads, grilled vegetables, and grain bowls. And if you just need a quick snack, it’s great as a creamy dip for fresh veggies, breads, and pita chips!
Recipe Tips!
- Make sure to squeeze out as much water as you can from the grated cucumber before mixing it with the yogurt. This helps keep the tzatziki sauce from being too watery.
- Fresh ingredients really make a difference with this recipe. I used fresh garlic, lemon juice, and fresh dill.
- Although not authentic, the small amount of sugar in this recipe really helps balance the tanginess of the Greek yogurt and lemon juice. It’s optional, but highly recommended :)
- Be sure to use thick, plain Greek style yogurt for this recipe. The cucumber adds a lot of moisture and will cause regular yogurt to become too thin.
How To Store Leftovers
You can store any leftover Tzatziki sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 5-7 days. The flavors will intensify as it refrigerates. If liquid separates out from the sauce during refrigeration, simply stir to reincorporate before serving.
Tzatziki Sauce Recipe
Servings 6 (1/4 cup each)Ingredients
- 1/2 cucumber* ($0.35)
- 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt, whole milk ($1.87)
- 1 clove of garlic, finely minced ($0.08)
- 1 Tbsp fresh dill, finely minced ($1.25)
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice ($0.20)
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil ($0.16)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.04)
- 1/8 tsp freshly cracked black pepper ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp granulated white sugar ($0.02)
Instructions
- Wash the cucumber well. Then using the large holes on a box grater, grate half of the cucumber. Save the other half of the cucumber to serve with the tzatziki sauce.
- Place the grated cucumber in a fine mesh cheesecloth or nut milk bag.** Squeeze out as much liquid as you possibly can into a bowl or over the sink. You should end up with roughly ½ cup of grated cucumber after most of the water is squeezed out.
- In a medium mixing bowl add the Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, minced garlic, dill, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, black pepper, and sugar. Stir well to combine.
- Refrigerate the tzatziki sauce for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to marry and blend together. Enjoy served cold. If liquid separates out from the sauce during refrigeration, simply stir to reincorporate before serving.
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Equipment
Notes
Nutrition
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How To Make Tzatziki Sauce – Step By STep Photos
Wash 1 cucumber well. Then using the large holes on a box grater, grate half of the cucumber. Save the other half of the cucumber to serve with the tzatziki sauce.
Place the grated cucumber in a fine mesh cheesecloth or nut milk bag. Squeeze out as much liquid as you possibly can into a bowl or over the sink. You should end up with roughly ½ cup of grated cucumber after most of the water is squeezed out.
In a medium mixing bowl add 1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt, the grated cucumber, 1 garlic clove (finely minced), 1 Tbsp fresh dill (finely minced), 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp freshly cracked black pepper, and 1/4 tsp white sugar.
Stir everything together well to combine.
Cover and refrigerate the tzatziki sauce for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to marry and blend together. If liquid separates out from the sauce during refrigeration, simply stir to reincorporate before serving. Enjoy served cold with veggies, pita chips, wraps, or on top of your favorite meals!
Made this to go along with your homemade naan recipe (in an attempt to recreate the pillowy, soft pita I had at a Greek restaurant + their delicious tzatziki), and I was actually pretty good! I think this is closer to the thinner sauce I get on gyros rather than the variety I had tasted at that restaurant, but I think they added feta to theirs, so I’ll probably try adding some crumbled feta to this next time. I used dried dill and garlic powder and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavors meld, and I put the cucumber in a paper towel and squeezed the water out of it before adding to the yogurt, but otherwise I followed the recipe as written.
I’ve had better luck with the texture of the sauce when I salt the cucumber and let it drain, pressing out the liquid, before adding it to the yogurt. A coffee filter works great if you don’t have cheesecloth and it keeps the finished sauce nice and thick.
Beth I would love the recipe for baba knoush if You can give it to me I would love it. thanks
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As always – no fancy ingredients and perfectly delicious.
We love gyros but I’ve never tried my own cucumber sauce before this week. Super easy and tasted great. We put it on our Easy Oven Fajitas. Score another two good recipes for Budget Bytes! You would be amazed how many of your recipes are now weekly staples here. Thank you so much, Beth!
This sauce is super! I love gyros, but my husband has always been turned off by them. I made this and the Oven Roasted Greek Stuffed Pitas for dinner last night. He said they were the best he’s had, but still wasn’t sold. I loved them!
I’ll be trying this tonight! Is it alright to use powdered dill and garlic as substitutes? Also, I like to add in a bit of oregano, especially when serving with gyros.
Yes, that will work, but be sure to refrigerate the sauce for a while to let the flavors permeate.
Squeeze the water out of the grated cucumber and don’t forget to add a little olive oil and vinegar too to get the original taste.
Very good. Made this today with the addition of lemon juice. I also made it in the food processor (including squeezing the extra moisture). While it make the sauce thinner, that’s fine with us because we can stretch it.
40 cents for a cucumber?? I’d love to live where you do! They cost almost $3/each where I live!
All you need to do is let your cucumber sit on a paper towel after slicing to soak up most of the moisture.
http://jaydensmominbc.blogspot.com/2011/08/tzatziki.html
I would press out as much moisture as possible out of those grated cucumbers. and also the addition of olive oil and a little lemon juice really brings out the perfect flavour!
I had no idea it was this easy! Thanks for the recipe. I have both dill and cucumbers growing this year, and would love to use the homegrown stuff this summer!
Or mix the grated cucumber with a bit of yoghurt and the salt, and leave to drain in a sieve, stirring occasionally.
Beth – you should actually drain the yogurt first, because of the added liquid from the cucumbers. Otherwise it can get too watery.