How to make, traditional Greek Tzatziki salad?

14.Jul.2020

Tzatziki or Tarator salad

Greek Tzatziki or Balkan Tarator salad is the same dish, but, on the other hand, there is some variation and small differences.

Although I have prepared it many times, but somehow I don’t know why I feel that something is always missing. I could not feel the real flavor and smell of the same tzatziki salad from Greece.

I missed tzatziki salad „original one from Greece“ and in these moments even the version from my kitchen meant a lot to me.

Until I haven’t discovered the secret of mixing :).

Tzatziki salad

The secret of making original tzatziki salad was discovered to me by a lady at whom I spent most of my summer vacations.

Tzatziki is appetizer or meze, but as for me, it could be mixed in almost everywhere.

For me, this salad is also a tasty sauce for grilled meat or mexican fajitas.

I didn’t try it to put tzatziki only in cakes, but who knows…maybe one day even there 🙂

Tzatziki salad

Already at the beginning to encourage you, it is very simple to make tzatziki salad.

But…

For taste of Greece need some time 🙂

For a good tzatziki you will need only a few ingredients:

Cucumber

Greek yoghourt

Lemon + lime

Garlic

Fresh drill (or dry option as a substitute)

And the salad is the best when it is cold 🙂

What should we pay attention to?

On cucumber 🙂

Because it is full of water and you don’t want to have water salad instead tzatziki 🙂

You can peel the cucumber or not, it depends on which variety you have. I always buy a small one, with thin peel so in that situation peeling is not needed. On the other side, this grated, greenish peel and color give the whole charm to the salad.

Whether you decide to peel the cucumber or not is up to you, as you like, but be sure to remove the middle part of cucumber where the seeds are and where all the water is concentrated.

Put the grated cucumber in a strainer, add some salt and leave for as long as you can to drain the remaining water from cucumber.

If you’re in a rush, one of the options is to eat tzatziki salad some other day 🙂 , and the second one is to use your hands to squeeze the liquid out of the cucumber.

The goal is to have cucumber as a flavor in the salad, but without all its water.

On garlic

The best way to use garlic in this salad is to crush it through the garlic cutting tool.

The trick with the garlic is that the longer it stands in yogurt, the weaker its taste and smell will be.

Therefore, for the best combination of garlic and Greek yogurt, leave the mixture overnight in the fridge.

On dill

Fresh is the best.

Add the dill in the salad at the last minute.

What if you do not have any of the ingredients?

For example cucumber, …. either run to the store or cancel the salads.

Greek yogurt can replace sour cream, the thicker the better.

Fresh dill and garlic – substitution could be dry spices, like in my pictures.

And for the end…

This is such a delicious salad, but if you like to experiment by adding only one different ingredient you van eat this salad every day in different ways.

The main benefit of this salad is that you do not need a lot of ingredients at all because you can put all ingredients to your taste … someone likes it with more cucumbers, someone with more garlic … and someone with a little of both :).

With all the things mentioned above …. and for the final product tzatziki salad by this recipe, you can additionally add grated carrot.