The oldest recipe that looks like tzatziki is more than a thousand years old, and it was written in Baghdad, not Athens. It calls for yogurt in a leather bag, garlic, mint, cucumbers and a drizzle of olive oil. Greek cooks inherited the idea, put a Turkish name on it, and then turned it into one of the most recognizable dips in the world. If you grew up in the Balkans, you may know the same bowl as "caciki" (that is the Serbian spelling). This is where it came from, how the cousins differ from Greece to Iran, and how to make the Greek version properly.
What Tzatziki Actually Is
Tzatziki is salted strained yogurt mixed with cucumber, garlic, olive oil and usually a little vinegar, with dill or mint on top. In Greece it works as a meze, a small dish for the middle of the table, and as the sauce that goes inside a gyros or on the side of souvlaki. It is eaten cold, thick enough to sit on a spoon, and the garlic is meant to be noticed.
The name is useful because it hides a family. Tzatziki is a Greek word, but the dish belongs to a larger group of yogurt and cucumber dishes found from the Balkans to Iran. Some are dips, some are salads, some are cold soups. In Serbian it is written "caciki" and described as a cold starter (meze) or a side dish. In Greece it is more often a dip with bread, and in Turkey it can be a thin, spoonable salad. Same ingredients, different job.
Where the Name and the Dish Come From
The Greek word τζατζίκι comes from Turkish cacık, pronounced roughly "jah-JUK". Where cacık itself comes from is less certain. The likeliest route runs through Persian zhazh, a word for cooking herbs, and Kurdish jaj, which names caraway, plus the Turkish diminutive ending -cık. Armenian has a close relative, jajik. In 1665 the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi still used the word for an herb added to food. The modern spelling first appears in print in 1844, in what is called the first Ottoman cookbook, which describes it plainly as yogurt with cucumber and garlic.
The dish is much older than the word. A 10th-century Baghdad cookbook by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq gives a recipe for jājaq: yogurt salted in a leather bag, then mixed with garlic, onion, mint, parsley, cucumbers and olive oil. It is not tzatziki, because it has more herbs and even lettuce stems and artichoke, but the idea is recognizable. A 14th-century Egyptian book goes a step further and hangs sheep's-milk yogurt in a sack all morning to drain it, then folds in squeezed cucumber, fennel and mint. That is the strained yogurt that makes Greek tzatziki thick, written down some 700 years ago. The Baghdad book is Kitab al-Tabikh, "The Book of Dishes", and both recipes are quoted in the history section of the tzatziki page linked above.
What about the claim that the ancient Greeks ate tzatziki? There is no recipe to back it up. The oldest known recipes with this combination and this name are in Arabic and Ottoman texts, not classical Greek ones. Treat the "ancient Greek dip" line on restaurant menus as marketing. When tzatziki reached Greek kitchens is harder to say. Greek sources agree the word is Turkish and that the origin of the dish is uncertain, and no date for its arrival is firmly established. Anyone who gives you one is guessing.
One more detail that tells a story: the English word "tzatziki" only appears in the middle of the 20th century, borrowed from Modern Greek. By then cooks in Istanbul, Baghdad and Cairo had been mixing the same ingredients for centuries.
Tzatziki on a Greek Table
Greek tzatziki is thick, which is its main difference from most of its relatives. The yogurt is strained, traditionally in a cloth sack, until much of the whey is gone. The traditional version is made from sheep or goat milk yogurt, though a full-fat cow's-milk Greek yogurt works fine. Cucumber is grated or chopped and squeezed, garlic is crushed, olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar finish it, and dill or mint goes on top.
The dish has two main jobs. As a meze it sits on the table with bread, olives, fried zucchini and eggplant, and next to ouzo or tsipouro. As a sauce it goes into gyros and beside souvlaki, where its cold sourness cuts through grilled pork. The wrapped, vertical-spit gyros itself grew out of Ottoman cooking in Bursa and was brought to Greece by Anatolian Greeks after the 1922-23 population exchange, one of the threads of modern Greek food. Our post on who the modern Greeks are tells more of that history.
Tzatziki is eaten across Greece, and I'd be inventing a story if I named one region as its home. What changes from kitchen to kitchen is the garlic, the herb (dill is the usual one, mint appears too) and how much vinegar. In Cyprus the same dish is called talattouri and leans on mint and lemon.
The Family: Cacık, Tarator, Snezhanka and the Rest
Think of tzatziki as one member of a family, not the original. Here is how the relatives differ, roughly from west to east.
- Cyprus, talattouri: strained yogurt, cucumber, garlic, lemon juice and dried mint.
- Turkey, cacık: yogurt thinned with water, plus garlic, cucumber and mint, often eaten with a spoon like a cold soup in summer. Regional versions include a winter cacık with carrot and lettuce, and a spring one in Antalya made with unripe almonds.
- Bulgaria, tarator and snezhanka: tarator is a cold summer soup of yogurt, cucumber, garlic, dill and walnuts, thinned with water. Snezhanka ("Snow White") is the thicker one, made with strained yogurt like Greek tzatziki, with walnuts sometimes added.
- Albania and the wider Balkans, tarator: from soup-thin to dip-thick, depending on the yogurt and how much water goes in.
- Iraq, jajeek: served as a meze, often beside arak, the anise spirit.
- Iran, mast-o-khiar: the Persian name for the same yogurt and cucumber pairing.
- India, raita: yogurt with raw or cooked vegetables, often cumin or toasted mustard seeds, served to cool the heat of curries.
A word about the names. "Tarator" is a Balkan and Levantine word that travels far from yogurt: in the Levant it is usually a tahini sauce. One Turkish etymologist, Sevan Nişanyan, traces it to a Venetian word for "cook." Raita, by contrast, comes from Hindi and Sanskrit words for mustard seed and pungency, so it shares an idea with tzatziki but no ancestry. Think of it as a cousin who grew up in another country, not a descendant. The raita page explains the name, and the tarator page covers the Balkan and Levantine versions.
Yogurt and cucumber is not even a purely southern idea. Poland has mizeria, cucumber in sour cream with dill, served as a side with dinner. The pairing works because cucumber is cool and watery and yogurt is sour and fatty. Garlic provides the heat.
A Proper Greek Tzatziki Recipe
This makes about 600 g, enough for four people as a dip or a sauce. The proportions are in line with common Greek-style recipes, and the three steps that matter are straining the yogurt, salting the cucumber and letting the garlic rest.
Ingredients
- 400 g (about 1 3/4 cups) thick strained Greek yogurt, full fat
- 1 medium cucumber, about 250 g (9 oz)
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt for the cucumber, plus more to taste
- 1 to 2 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with a pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) extra virgin olive oil, plus a little for serving
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill (or 1 teaspoon dried mint)
Method
- If your yogurt is not already very thick, strain it first. Spoon about 600 g of plain yogurt into a sieve lined with a clean cloth or coffee filter, set it over a bowl, and leave it in the fridge. Go by the weight and the texture, not the clock: it is ready when it holds its shape on a spoon and weighs close to 400 g, which takes a few hours for most yogurts and can run overnight. If you start with thick Greek yogurt, a couple of hours (or overnight, as some cooks do) only makes it thicker.
- Grate the cucumber on the coarse side of a grater (peel it first if the skin is thick or waxy). Toss it with the 1/2 teaspoon of salt and leave it in a colander for 15 minutes.
- Take handfuls of the cucumber and squeeze hard, or wring it out in a clean kitchen towel, until no more water comes out. This is the step that decides whether the dip stays thick.
- Stir the crushed garlic into the olive oil and vinegar and let it sit while you finish the cucumber, 10 minutes at least. The acid and oil soften the raw edge of the garlic, and the time in the fridge at the end softens it further.
- Mix the yogurt, garlic mixture, cucumber and dill. Taste, and add salt or a little more garlic if it needs it.
- Cover and chill for at least an hour, two is better, and up to overnight if you like the garlic mellow. Stir, then serve with a thread of olive oil on top.
Kept covered in the fridge, tzatziki is good for about three days (recipe sites say anywhere from three to five, so go by your nose). It will release a little liquid as it sits, so stir it, or pour the liquid off, before serving. Don't freeze it: the cucumber turns mushy.
Common Mistakes and Two Variations
The usual failure is watery tzatziki, and it has two causes. Either the yogurt was not strained, or the cucumber was not salted and squeezed. Skipping both leaves soup. The second failure is harsh garlic: too much, added raw and eaten straight away. Start with one clove, let it rest, and add a second only after tasting. Use cold ingredients and a fork or spoon, not a blender, because a blender turns the cucumber to mush and thins the yogurt.
Two variations are worth knowing:
- Turkish-style cacık: skip the straining and grate the cucumber without squeezing it hard. Stir 250 g of plain yogurt with 100 to 150 ml of cold water, one crushed garlic clove, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a spoonful of dried mint, and add half a cucumber, diced or grated. Serve it in a bowl with a spoon and a few ice cubes on hot days.
- Snezhanka-style: make the Greek recipe above, leave out the vinegar, use plenty of dill and fold in a small handful of chopped walnuts.
Eat It Where It Belongs
Tzatziki tastes best at a taverna table with grilled meat, fresh bread and something cold to drink. If you are planning a trip, our Greece country page is the place to start. Our guides to Athens, Thessaloniki, Chania, Rhodes and Santorini cover where to eat well. To see the Turkish side of the family, our 5 days in Istanbul guide is the next stop, and a round of Pinpoint is a good way to learn where Baghdad and Athens sit on the map.
