One of my favorite downtown Grand Rapids restaurants is J. Gardella’s Tavern. Years ago they used to offer a kick ass veggie gyro filled with sautéed mushrooms, zucchini, onion and yellow squash. The kicker was the tzatziki sauce and I loved biting into the soft pita and tasting the wonderful mix of veggies and dressing.
I love tzatziki sauce. LOVE. IT. Whenever Nathan and I buy a gyro kit (yes, we buy the kits), the tzatziki is always the first thing to go. We never have enough for the whole kit, maybe because I’ve been known to slice up onions and use them as scoops to shovel the tzatziki directly into my mouth.
A couple of weeks ago I picked up an issue of Clean Eating magazine. Lo and behold they had a nice section of Greek recipes, one of which was tzatziki. I’ve tried making my own tzatziki before with mixed results, but this recipe looked promising and as close to the authentic stuff as I’d ever seen in a magazine dedicated to healthy eating. I guess some variations of tzatziki include olive oil. This one does not.
So here’s my variation of the recipe published in Clean Eating. I made it last night, adjusting it a little to our tastes and what ingredients we had on hand, and enjoyed it on a Boca Burger for lunch this afternoon.
Tzatziki Sauce
1 English cucumber, peeled
2 cups plain nonfat Greek yogurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed.
1 Tbsp fresh dill, finely minced (or 1 tsp dried dill weed if you don’t have fresh)
1 Tbsp fresh mint, finely minced
¼ tsp sea salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp red wine vinegar
Finely grate the cucumber. This works best with a multi-sided cheese grater that can stand inside a bowl, and you will need to grate into a bowl as the cucumber will release a lot of liquid. The idea here is to grate the cucumber into a pulp, so you do not want to use the side of the grater you’d normally use for your cheeses.
Do not use a microplane. You will not be happy with the results. Trust me.
Plop the cucumber pulp into the middle of a piece of cheesecloth or double-layered paper towel. Gather up the ends of the towel or cloth and squeeze to release the remaining liquid from the cucumber.
Note: I only had paper towel on hand, which is what the original recipe suggested, but this step would have been much easier using the cheesecloth.
In a large bowl, fold your now dry-ish cucumber pulp in with your yogurt and mix in the rest of your spices and the red wine vinegar. I only had apple cider vinegar in the pantry and opted to substitute a dash of lemon juice and a dash of red cooking wine.
Opa! You have tzatziki. Chill for an hour to let the spices mingle then enjoy with sliced onion or an actual Greek dish like souvlaki or a gyro.
Of course I stuck my finger in this as soon as it was whipped up. At first I wasn’t sold on it. The Greek yogurt made the sauce a little too tangy for my liking, but after letting the mixture hang out in the fridge for awhile, I found it to be a very faithful recreation of one of my very favorite dressings.
Lunch is served.
On a final note, Clean Eating says the dressing will keep well in the fridge for up to two days, and since this recipe makes a total of three cups, you had better make sure you like tzatziki lest all those fine ingredients go to waste.
No problem.
Pass the ouzo.
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