Loaded tzatziki

The ultimate summer lunch or dinner, or serve as a sharing platter

Tzatziki is one of the ultimate summer foods. Cool, refreshing, creamy - I love it, so much so that I thought I’d use it as a base for a recipe and load it up with some of my favourite toppings. This is absolutely perfect for a heatwave recipe, especially as there’s no cooking involved either.

I topped with falafels (a classic combo), grilled halloumi slices, cherry tomatoes, olives, rocket, red onion and pitta breads.

Don’t feel you have to include all toppings if you only have some, or want to mix it up. Pomegranate seeds would also be great, as would roasted peppers, and you could switch the halloumi for a different protein like chicken or salmon if you like.

This is fresh, summery, high protein (over 30g per portion) and perhaps the ultimate summer girl dinner.

It would also make a wonderful sharing platter/grazing plate - just load it up on a large serving plate instead of individual portions, and have plenty of pitta bread on the side to keep scooping up the tzatziki.

You’ll need (serves 2 as a main):

For the tzatziki:

• 2/3 cucumber

• 300g Greek or natural yogurt, the thicker the better

• small handful mint leaves, finely chopped

• small handful dill, finely chopped

• 1-2 garlic cloves (depending how garlicy you like things), minced or finely grated

• juice of 1/2 a lemon

• 1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the toppings (suggestions, feel free to mix it up)

• 1 block/200-220g halloumi, sliced & fried until golden

• 6 falafels

• 12-15 cherry tomatoes, diced

• handful olives, I like black or kalamata

• handful rocket leaves

• 1/4 red onion, finely sliced

• pitta breads, toasted & sliced

Coarsely grate the cucumber and squeeze out the excess water with your hands over the sink. Add it to a bowl with the yogurt, herbs, garlic and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Add the olive oil to taste. Set aside while you prepare the toppings.

Spread the tzatziki over your plates and then load up with the toppings. Dig in.