Take Tomato Sandwiches To The Next Level With A Greek-Inspired Twist

Whether you're making the most of peak summer produce or trying to capture warm weather flavor throughout the rest of the year, you might already be familiar with the wonderful world of tomato sandwiches. Ideal tomato sandwiches typically include the best, most studiously selected tomatoes, squishy white bread, mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. Many devotees of the Southern staple stop there, but there's an almost infinite array of potential tomato sandwich toppings that add even more flavor, break from routine, and maybe even distract a bit from, say, out-of-season fruits. A swipe of tzatziki does all three.

Tzatziki is a Greek dip made of dense, strained yogurt, cucumber, garlic, salt, extra virgin olive oil, and often a bit of white wine vinegar or lemon juice. You can more or less eyeball the proportions, provided it doesn't get too thin with either of those latter liquids. Its creamy base is a suitable, tangy swap for a tomato sandwich's standard mayo, the cuke is an excellent complementary veg, and the punchy garlic is the aromatic you might not have known you needed. All you have to do is slather a spoonful of tzatziki on your tomato sandwich bread to achieve this adaptation, but you can take some additional steps to ensure further success.

The enemy of every great tomato sandwich is moisture. Provided you sourced a perfectly ripe tomato, it should be plenty juicy, but try your best to prevent it from turning the whole dish soggy. A little tomato seasoning trick staves off that sogginess: just slice the tomatoes, sprinkle with salt on both sides, arrange them on a few sheets of paper towels, let 'em sit for around 10 minutes (plenty of time to toss together your tzatziki!), and blot any botanical sweat right off.

Speaking of tzatziki, a similar tip helps get those cucumbers serviceably dry and crunchy: simply salt sliced cucumbers, wait 10 minutes, give them a good squeeze with some paper towels to wrench out any last drops of moisture, and finally dice those slices to get them down to the right tzatziki size. This is important for keeping the veggie's natural, substantial water content out of your yogurt, which gives the dairy a better chance to properly transform into thick tzatziki.

Once you stir the spread together and optimize your tomatoes, you can then build the sandwich however you normally would. If you aren't familiar with the terrific tomato sandwich, it generally works pretty well to spread both pieces of bread, fit seasoned tomato slices between them, and press it all together to enjoy.