Description
Tzatziki is a versatile and healthy dip that you’ll be glad to make at home. Make it when you have an excess of garden cucumbers and an overflow of homemade yogurt.
Ingredients
Scale
- 3 cups of yogurt (My yogurt culture makes Bulgarian-style yogurt that’s a little runnier than store-bought. If you are using store-bought yogurt use just 2 cups.)
- 2 tbsp. fresh dill leaves, finely chopped
- 1 small handful of chives, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 med cucumbers, grated and drained
- ½ tsp. Himalayan salt
- 1 tbsp. good quality virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Grate the cucumber and mix in the salt. I didn’t peel my cucumbers, because I like the green coloring in the tzatziki, peel your cucumbers if you prefer white tzatziki.
- Drain the cucumber for 3 hours in a fine colander, over a bowl.
- Drain the yogurt for 3 hours in cheesecloth, over a bowl. The drained yogurt is thicker like clotted cream and is called “lebna”. Reserve the whey and the cucumber juice. Mix them together. They make a refreshing, mineral-rich, probiotic drink. You’ll end up with about 1 cup of lebna and 1 cup of drained cucumber.
- Combine the lebna, fresh dill, chives, salt, and crushed garlic.
- Squeeze the cucumber to get as much liquid out as possible. Stir the drained cucumber with the lebna. Mix well.
- Put the mixture through a food processor or blender and blend until smooth.
- Put in a jar and refrigerate until you are ready to serve it.
Notes
Homemade tzatziki sauce will keep for a week in the refrigerator and will get thicker as it chills.
