Tzatziki is a wonderful yoghurt, cucumber and mint sauce typically served with lamb or chicken Middle Eastern dishes. This recipe makes the creamiest, most flavourful tzatziki you’ve ever had!
Sure, you can easily make Tzatziki by chopping some cucumber, crushing some garlic and stirring it through greek yoghurt. Its quite tasty made like that. But spend a little more time, take a bit more care and the result is a thick, creamy, fresh sauce that you won’t be able to get enough of.
The trick is to first turn your yoghurt into labne. Into what?!! Labne. Yoghurt cheese. Essentially just greek yoghurt that has been ‘hung’ for a minimum of 24 hours in order to remove some of the whey. This makes it much thicker and creamier. You can go one step further and make it into balls which you then marinate in flavoured oil, a little like marinated feta. But I’ve never been able to get past using it for this amazing Tzatziki. Trust me, it’ll change your life.
Its nowhere near as technical as it sounds. Simply line a sieve or strainer with either muslin cloth or thick paper towels and spoon in some good quality greek yoghurt. Then place the sieve over a bowl and pop it in the fridge for 24 hours. You’ll be surprised how much liquid comes out. A cup of greek yoghurt will lose up to half a cup of whey during hanging. The result is a surprisingly thick and creamy yoghurt cheese that can be used to make this wonderful sauce. We have an Easiyo yoghurt maker and their greek yoghurt, which is already beautifully thick, becomes almost the consistency of spreadable cream cheese when turned into labne. Its glorious.
My other trick (giving it all away today!) is to hang the cucumber as well. Coarsely grate the cucumber and give it a good serving of salt. Leave it to hang for 20-30 minutes and a fair amount of water will come out. Then give it a good rinse to get rid of all that unnecessary salt and squeeze it dry in a tea-towel. The cucumber flavour is really intensified meaning it stands up well to the pungent raw garlic and mint flavours in this Tzatziki.
We love to serve this Tzatziki with lamb meatballs spiced with ground cumin and coriander, fresh salad, hummus and garlic pita bread as a wonderful fresh dinner. Its also sensational with lamb cutlets or rump cooked to perfection on a barbecue grill. Jerk chicken and falafel also partner very well with this sauce. And I have been known to mash up some feta cheese and stir it through to use as an amazing sauce in lamb burgers or sliders. There are so many options with a sauce this good, you’ll be making it time and time again.
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Serves: 1½ cup
- 1 cup unsweetened greek yoghurt
- 1 Lebanese (short) cucumber or half a telegraph cucumber
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 large garlic clove
- 2 tbsp fresh mint
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
- Line a sieve or strainer with muslin cloth or two layers of thick kitchen paper towels. Spoon in the yoghurt. Place the sieve over a bowl and place in the fridge for 24 hours.
- After 24 hours, remove the bowl from the fridge and discard any liquid that has collected. Turn the hung yoghurt (labne) out into a medium sized bowl.
- Remove the muslin or paper towel from the sieve.
- Coarsely grate the cucumber and place it into the sieve. Sprinkle over the tbsp of salt and combine well with your fingers. Leave to hang over the sink or a bowl for 20-30 minutes.
- Rinse the cucumber well under cold running water, stirring with your fingers to wash away the salt. Transfer the cucumber to a dry tea-towel and squeeze well with your hands to remove and excess water.
- Add the cucumber to the bowl with the yoghurt.
- Grate the garlic using a fine microplane or the fine side of a grater. Add to the yoghurt.
- Finely chop the fresh mint and add to the yoghurt.
- Pour in the red wine vinegar and maple syrup and stir all ingredients well to combine.
- Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
- Serve with grilled meats, as a dip with meatballs or falafel, or spread on to burger buns as an interesting sauce.
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