This easy homemade sour cream tzatziki recipe is the perfect, cool yogurt mediterranean dip for a chicken souvlaki pita, homemade pork souvlaki, or even a great dip for veggies like spicy lebanese potatoes or sweet potato wedges. Packed with plenty of fresh dill, and extra garlic, you have the most flavourful yogurt sauce that is ready for all your summer grilling recipes!
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👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Versatile: While tzatziki is often used as a dipping sauce for souvlaki and other greek dishes, once you've got this tzatziki recipe down, you've also got a fantastic dip for fresh veggies, pita chips or pita bread, or even a sandwich spread!
- Easy to make: You can ditch the store bought options, because this is an incredibly easy recipe to make with simple ingredients. Whether you prepare this tzatziki sauce in advance or right before you're ready to eat, this recipe is low on the effort scale.
- Full of flavor: If you are a fan of vibrant, zesty flavors (like in most mediterranean dishes), this delicious cooling sauce is going to be right up your alley. The longer this sauce sits, the better it gets!
🥘 Ingredient notes
- Sour cream: This recipe uses full-fat sour cream in place of Greek yogurt. It is crucial to use a higher fat product to get the rich, silky consistency that we look for in a creamy tzatziki sauce recipe.
- English cucumber: English cucumbers have a thin skin and edible seeds, meaning you do not need to take any extra steps to deseed the cucumber. I peel the cucumber out of preference, but you can absolutely leave it on if using an English cucumber.
- Fresh garlic: Since everything stays raw in this sauce, fresh garlic cloves are the way to go. Pre-minced garlic does not have the same bite, and can often have an aftertaste that will change the overall flavor of the tzatziki.
A full list of ingredients with measurements is located on the recipe card, below.
📖 Substitutions
- Sour cream: Full-fat greek yogurt is a good substitution, and is actually the traditional dairy base for Greek tzatziki sauce recipes. If you use plain yogurt, you will need to drain the excess liquid out before preparing the tzatziki. You can also use a combination of thick greek yogurt and sour cream for a perfect creamy dip.
- English cucumber: Persian cucumber or any other cucumber will work fine. If using a cucumber with waxier skin or large seeds, be sure to peel and deseed before grating.
- Fresh dill: Dried dill can be used in this recipe instead, however, I would recommend prepping the dip in advance to give the dried dill time to bloom and develop flavor.
- Lemon juice: You can use white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, or just plain white vinegar for the tangy flavor in this sauce.
🔪 Variations
- Different fresh herbs: Add some fresh mint, basil or flat-leaf parsley into the mix for an extra herby twist.
- No cucumber: Although tzatziki is known to be a creamy cucumber sauce, you can leave the grated cucumber out of this tzatziki recipe for a smoother texture.
- Feta and olive: Jazz up this traditional recipe with crumbled feta or kalamata olives or some extra body and an extra tangy tzatziki sauce.
- Vegan: This Vegan tzatziki sauce recipe is a fantastic vegan-friendly version.
⏲️ Step-by-step Instructions
Prep Work Before Cooking
- Collecting all your ingredients: This will make cooking so much easier. Gather all the spices you will need, and keep them nearby.
- Prepare the add-ins: Peel the cucumber, and finely mince the garlic using a garlic press or sharp knife. Finely chop the fresh dill.
Using a box grater, grate the cucumber on the largest holes for longer shreds.
Transfer the shredded cucumber to a fine mesh sieve, and sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon sea salt. Lightly press down on the cucumber, and let the cucumber drain over a bowl to collect the excess liquid for 5-10 minutes. [photo 1]
While draining the excess moisture from the cucumber, mix together the sour cream, olive oil, minced garlic clove, fresh lemon juice and chopped dill. Mix together, and keep aside.
After the cucumbers have been draining for 5-10 minutes, press down on the cucumbers to squeeze out all of the remaining liquid. The cucumbers will have reduced down in size once the liquid has drained out. [photo 2]
Add the shredded cucumber to the bowl of sour cream and the other ingredients. Mix together, and taste for salt. Add additional kosher salt to your taste, drizzle extra olive oil over the top, and serve.
💭 Expert Tips
- Help drain excess liquid: To help drain out more moisture from the cucumbers, wrap them in a tea towel, cheese cloth, or paper towels and wring out the extra water.
- Taste for salt at the end: Since the cucumbers are pre-salted, taste the tzatziki once everything is mixed together to avoid over-salting.
- Let the flavors meld: As this sauce sits in the fridge, the better it gets. This gives the garlic a chance to mellow out, for a more well-rounded flavor.
- Balance with sugar: If you find that the sour cream, lemon, or cucumber are too tangy for your taste, a pinch of sugar will help round out the flavors and balance out the extra tang.
🍽 Make Ahead & Storage
- You can mix the yogurt, cucumber, garlic, and herbs together a few hours prior to serving or even overnight. Store the prepared tzatziki in the fridge in an airtight container.This enhances the overall taste of the tzatziki.
- Give the the leftover tzatziki sauce a good stir before serving, as you may find that some liquid will settle on the top.
- I recommend keeping this sauce on the fridge for up to 3 days. The cucumber will start to break down and become slightly watery after that point.
⭐ Recipe FAQs
You can leave the cucumbers out, but it will be slightly less authentic. The cucumbers add a great deal of freshness to the tzatziki, but of course, it will still be a great, dill and garlic dipping sauce!
You can use garlic powder in place of fresh, but you will lose out on a lot of the zesty bite that fresh garlic adds to the sauce. Garlic powder is inherently more mellow than fresh garlic, so the flavor profile will change slightly.
It is not recommended to freeze this sauce, as there will be excess liquid and moisture when defrosted. The flavors will also be muted and slightly diluted if frozen.
📝 More Sauce and Condiment Recipes
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Easy Homemade Sour Cream Tzatziki (With Dill!)
Equipment
- Fine mesh strainer
- Garlic press
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup Sour cream - full fat
- ½ large English cucumber - peeled
- 2 cloves Garlic - finely minced
- 1 ¼ teaspoon Sea salt
- ¼ cup Fresh dill - finely chopped
- 2 ½ tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil
- ½ Lemon - juiced
Instructions
- Using a box grater, grate the cucumber on the largest holes for longer shreds.½ large English cucumber
- Transfer the shredded cucumber to a fine mesh strainer, and sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon sea salt. Lightly press down on the cucumber, and let the cucumber drain over a bowl to collect the excess liquid for 5-10 minutes.
- While draining the excess liquid from the cucumber, mix together the sour cream, olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice and chopped dill. Mix together, and keep aside.1 ½ cup Sour cream, 2 cloves Garlic, ¼ cup Fresh dill, 2 ½ tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil, ½ Lemon
- After the cucumbers have been draining for 5-10 minutes, press down on the cucumbers to squeeze out all of the remaining liquid. The cucumbers will have reduced down in size once the liquid has drained out.
- Add the shredded cucumber to the bowl of sour cream and the other ingredients. Mix together, and taste for salt. Add additional salt to your taste, drizzle extra olive oil over the top, and serve.1 ¼ teaspoon Sea salt
✱Recipe Notes
- Help drain excess liquid: To help drain out more moisture from the cucumbers, wrap them in a tea towel, cheese cloth, or paper towel and wring out the extra water.
- Taste for salt at the end: Since the cucumbers are pre-salted, taste the tzatziki once everything is mixed together to avoid over-salting.
- Let the flavors meld: As this sauce sits in the fridge, the better it gets. This gives the garlic a chance to mellow out, for a more well-rounded flavor.
- Balance with sugar: If you find that the sour cream, lemon, or cucumber are too tangy for your taste, a pinch of sugar will help round out the flavors and balance out the extra tang.
Myra says
This tzatziki was as close as I have ever found to authentic tzatziki.. it was awesome. The only thing I will suggest for others is that if you don't like the texture of cucumbers, try blending it out. I loved the recipe as is, though.