I love yogurt, especially the Greek kind. It tastes great and it has a relatively high protein concentration (16–18 grams of protein per 170 grams, or about 10% of its weight). Recently, I’ve been experimenting with the use of yogurt as a cooking ingredient. It’s used famously in Greek and Indian cooking. In this article, I document my first time making tzatziki for a chicken sandwich and do a little research to learn more about its ingredients’ uses.

I got my recipe for tzatziki from Good and Cheap, a cookbook that aims to show how to make delicious food without breaking the bank. It’s great for those just learning how to cook or needing to make decent food on a tight budget. You can download the book free here. You can also download my version below, where I’ve adjusted the pagination to be easier to read on electronic devices.

I liked the idea of a cookbook with a charitable mission, so I bought a physical copy of it. The Amazon product description says the publisher will donate a copy to someone in need for every copy sold. I don’t know if they’re still doing that now, but it’s still worth it at less than ten dollars.

Tzatziki is a yogurt sauce from Greece and West Asia made with cucumbers, garlic, and dill. There are many variations of it, but this basic recipe requires few ingredients and is quite easy to make. It goes well on sandwiches and is a popular sauce for gyros.

About the ingredients

The sauce is basically just cucumber, dill and yogurt mixed together. In the US, dill is mostly associated with pickles. Since it was my first time cooking with dill, I was curious about what other dishes I might be able to use it in. A quick search on the web returned several recipes for salmon and dill, but I’m not sure I’d like that too much… On my favorite website, Wikipedia, I learned that it’s a common ingredient in eastern European cuisine. In German cuisine, it’s often used as a garnish for potatoes, which sounds delicious. And much like tzatziki, several countries mix it with yogurt or sour cream and cucumbers. It’s also used in soups and roast chicken or turkey.

Reading about Russian cuisine, I realized I’d tasted dill with dumplings I’d had at a Russian restaurant in Boise a few years ago. The dumplings were delicious, and so was the beef Stroganoff. The leaves have a light smooth flavor that does well as a garnish. I’ll try using this way the next time I make a soup or roast chicken.

Below is the recipe for the tzatziki chicken sandwich. It comes in two parts, one for the sauce—which you should make beforehand for best results—and one for the chicken sandwich.

For the sauce

Dill and cucumber give the sauce its characteristic flavor. The Good and Cheap recipe calls for fresh chopped dill, but I personally prefer the stronger flavor of dill seeds. Also, I didn’t have any fresh dill leaves.

Ingredients

• Greek yogurt; I also like the extra acidity from Bulgarian yogurt (pictured above)
• 2 tbsp fresh chopped dill (or 2 tsp dried dill)
• 1 large cucumber
• 1 scallion, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• Garlic

Instructions

1. Dice cucumber. Salt it to extract water, then set aside.
2. Mix other ingredients into yogurt. Add cucumber after pressing it in a paper towel or extracting the water through a sieve.
3. Let it sit for a few hours or overnight. The flavors come out better and the sauce thickens.

For the chicken sandwich

Ingredients

• Chicken breast
• Vegetable seasoning
• Hamburger bun
• A leaf or two of lettuce
• 1 tomato, sliced
• Salt and pepper
• Olives, sliced (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat your grill, if you’re going to grill it. You should aim to cook the chicken at around 425°F.
2. Season the raw chicken with a vegetable seasoning of your choice. If you don’t have any on hand, salt and pepper will do. You can also use a variety of marinades to marinate the chicken. Marinate the chicken overnight for best flavor, but half an hour will do.
3. Grill the chicken breast, flipping after 4–5 minutes. It should be done after 9–10 minutes. The timing is about the same if you’re pan-frying it.
4. Once the chicken is done, spread the tzatziki on one side of the hamburger bun and finish assembling the sandwich.

Voilà! You’ve got a great, healthy lunch or dinner. I enjoyed the sauce so much after trying it the first time that I made it for guests at a D&D party last week. A condiment as simple and delicious as this is definitely going to become a staple in my fridge.