Over the weekend my husband made lamb gyros as a “mystery” dish for a neighborhood cook off. I was looking for a tzatziki recipe, but for every one I found, I was missing half of the ingredients. I wouldn’t call this traditional or authentic by any means, but it was definitely inspired by the Mediterranean dish.

As far as the ingredients go, this is a measure with your heart and tastebuds kind of recipe instead of one that has specific amounts of anything. Just keep mixing and tasting until it’s right and then chill for an hour or so before serving.

Ingredients:

• Plain Greek yogurt
• Large cucumber, seeded and diced
• Lemon juice (and zest if you have a zester)
• Garlic (fresh or powdered)
• Kosher salt
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• Fresh mint sliced into thin strips (dried would work too)
• Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top

Directions

Mix all the ingredients until thoroughly combined. Keep tasting until you get the flavors right where you want them. If you want the dip to be more of a pourable sauce you can add a bit of water to the mixture. To get extra cucumber flavoring, press the juice from the seeds into the dip using a mesh strainer.

I used powdered garlic in the dip featured and it took a lot more than I anticipated, I’m sure fresh would have been stronger.