Okay so some nights I plan the meal a week out. Other nights I just feel like trying something new, and that’s how tzatziki chicken salad ended up on our table this week.
I first saw the idea on Two Peas & Their Pod, Maria Lichty’s food blog (twopeasandtheirpod.com), and just kind of made it my own based on what was in the fridge and what our garden was giving us. If you want to see where the idea actually came from, go check out her site. She’s got a ton of family friendly recipes over there and it’s worth a follow.
Why I Picked This One
Honestly it just felt like something a little different from our usual dinner lineup, but it had a built in safety net. Grilled chicken. Cucumbers. A creamy yogurt dressing. If the whole “salad” thing flopped with the kids, we still had dinner on the table. That’s the kind of low risk experiment I’m willing to run on a random Tuesday.
And bonus, it used stuff straight from our garden, English cucumber, dill, and parsley, so the cost came down without me even trying.
We had a loaf of homemade sourdough sitting in the freezer, so I thawed it in the microwave real quick and toasted it up. Worked perfectly as a base and used up something I made a few months ago. It always feels like a win when I use something up from the freezer.
The Budget Angle
Here’s where I want to be honest with you. This was not a “$3 a serving” meal, and I’m not going to sit here and pretend it was. What made it budget smart, not budget cheap, was more like this:
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It stretched. One batch covered dinner and then lunch for my husband and me the next day. Two meals out of one cook, which is basically the dream.
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Garden ingredients. The cucumber, dill, and parsley cost us nothing beyond what we already spent on seeds months ago.
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Zero food waste. The sourdough was a use it up situation, not something I bought special for this.
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No extra sides needed. It’s already a full protein, veggie, and carb meal in one bowl, so we weren’t scrambling to round it out.
How It Landed With the Kids
I always try to give you the real version here, so here’s what actually went down.
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Our 2.5 year old loved it as a “dip,” bagel chips into the chicken salad, but also dipped his bagel chips straight into ketchup, because he’s two and honestly that tracks.
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Our 5 year old was not a fan of the salad itself but happily ate everything separately: grilled chicken (dipped in ketchup, obviously), cucumbers, and toasted sourdough with butter.
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My husband and I both genuinely loved it. And knowing lunch was already sitting in the fridge for tomorrow felt like a win I didn’t even know I needed.
The Takeaway
A recipe doesn’t have to win over the whole family to earn a spot back in the rotation. This one gets to come back for a totally different reason. It used what we already had sitting around, everyone at the table actually ate something, and I didn’t have to think about lunch the next day. In my house, that’s basically a five star review.
Recipe adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod (twopeasandtheirpod.com).