Lamb Sliders with Tzatziki Sauce
Add a little exotic flare to your summer grilling with these Lamb Sliders with Tzatziki Sauce–the cucumber, yogurt, lemon sauce is the perfect compliment! Perfect for picnics, potlucks or cookouts! 
It’s supposed to be spring in the Midwest right now. But winter keeps coming back with additional dustings of snow. Nooooo!
But despite the weather, I’m excited! Picnics. Grilling. Cookouts. It will be here in no time! From classic beef dishes to more exotic foods like this or roasted lamb breast.
And to prepare, I’ve reworked my Lamb Sliders from 2019! Back then a blogging friend, David from Cocoa and Lavender mentioned adding some herbs to the ground lamb burgers. It sounded so good, I updated the recipe!
What is Tzatziki Sauce?
According to Wikipedia, Tzatziki Sauce is “a dip, soup, or sauce found in the cuisines of Southeast Europe and the Middle East. It is made of salted strained yogurt or diluted yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, sometimes with vinegar or lemon juice, and herbs”
While you may not know the name you’re probably familiar with the delicious cucumber yogurt mixture that is spooned onto Gyro sandwiches. Let me tell you it is equally good on a Greek Lamb Burger.
In the past, I’ve just mixed yogurt and cucumbers. It was good, but with just a few more add-ins like garlic, lemon and parsley, the sauce is over the top! 
Why You’ll Love These
Flavorful. From the lamb mixed with herbs to the fresh and tasty yogurt sauce, good flavor is everywhere.
Easy. Just mix together a quick sauce, fry up some burgers and you’re good to go.
Perfect for any appetite or for a big spread. I love the slightly smaller slider size because it can adapt to different appetites and still leave room for lots of fun picnic sides.
What You’ll Need
Ingredients:
Sauce:
- Yogurt. This forms the tart and creamy base of the sauce.
- Cucumber. This adds a freshness to the sauce
- Lemon juice, parsley (or mint or dill), garlic, salt, pepper. These add flavor.
Burgers
- Lamb. This is the flavorful base of the burger.
- Buns. I used slider sized buns, but you can use full-sized by adjusting the burger size.
- Fresh Garlic, Fresh Parsley, Dried Oregano, Dried Thyme, Dried Onion add Mediterranean flavor to the meat.
Tools:
- No special tools are needed though I do like an instant read thermometer to be sure the meat is up to temperature.
Step by Step Directions
Mix the Tzatziki Sauce ingredients.
Mix the meat and herbs.
Form the meat mixture into patties.
Fry or grill the meat.
Serve on buns with sauce.
How to Serve
Lamb Sliders with Tzatziki Sauce are perfect for lunch or a light dinner and will be particularly at home at cookouts or picnics. With a casual sandwich like this, I have a fondness for salads like coleslaw, Broccoli Waldorf Salad or Carrot Raisin Salad.
And given the Mediterranean origins of this dish, you might want to go with a side like this Cauliflower Tabbouleh or Greek Pasta Salad.
Tips and FAQs
Can I make these as full-sized lamb burgers? Absolutely, you’ll just need to adjust the proportions. You may need as much as 6 ounces to fill out a larger bun. Yes my main reminder here is to fit your burger to the bun size!
Can I use ground beef instead of lamb? Absolutely. While I love lamb, it is more expensive and harder to come by–and not everyone’s cup of tea. So beef is a fine substitute. You can also go with a turkey or veggie burger if that better suits your dietary needs or preferences.
How do I swap in fresh herbs for dried or vice versa? The rule of thumb here is that you need 3 times as much fresh herb to equal the dried. So 1 teaspoon of dried thyme would be equivalent to 3 teaspoons (or 1 Tablespoon) of fresh thyme.
What is the easiest way to mince garlic? I peel first, then use a garlic press. Some people say you don’t need to peel first but this seems to work better for me.
How do I chop parsley? Parsley chops much better when it is dry so I wash and dry it in advance. Then I remove the leaves from the stems (which are great for vegetable broth) and cut them with an Ulu. It’s fast and easy! But you can use a chef’s knife too.
Lamb Sliders with Tzatziki Sauce:
Ingredients
Tzatziki Sauce
- 1/2 cups plain reduced fat yogurt
- 1/2 cups cucumber chopped
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 Tablespoon parsley or mint or dill
- 1 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
Lamb Burgers
- 1 pound ground lamb
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 teaspoons dried minced onion
- salt, pepper to taste
- 5 dinner rolls /slider buns
Instructions
- Mix sauce ingredients, then set aside for flavors to blend.
- Mix the lamb with the herbs, being careful not to overwork the meat.
- Divide ground lamb into 5 sections and form into patties. Salt and pepper the patties, then grill until done.
- Serve on slider roll topped with sauce.
Nutrition
Updated from the original published in 2019.
Looking for some great Father’s Day food? Then take a look at these recipes from some of my blogging friends:
Fantastic Father’s Day
- Buttermilk Pancakes by Family Around the Table
- Chicken Shawarma by A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
- Creamy Spinach Dip by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
- Homemade Barbecue Sauce by Simply Inspired Meals
- Jeff Mauro’s Meatloaf by Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
- Lamb Burger with Tzatziki Sauce by Art of Natural Living
- Pecan Peach Crisp by Blogghetti
We share Recipes From Our Dinner Table! Join our group and share your recipes, too! While you’re at it, join our Pinterest board, too!
Love this recipe Inger!! Happy Easter!
Thanks Gloria. Hope you had a great Easter!
I can never resist lamb! My favorite red meat. 🙂 Such a terrific recipe — definitely will inspire me to use lamb in burgers way more often. 🙂
We’re big lamb lovers too John!
Ohhh I love this, its like kofta in a burger form.
Wow, great insight Raymund! I love kofta and have a couple other recipes on the blog!
I’m so thankful that we had a mild winter in terms of snow here in Massachusetts. I hope you saw the last of the snow for long time!
These sliders and tzatziki sauce look delicious! I would make it with hamburger since my family is not a huge fan of lamb.
I think we’ve used up the last ground meat from our lamb so we might have to got the beef route next time too!
These look so good. We are also having weird weather. Last week it was cold and wet. This week it’s super warm.
Yes, that’s how we’ve been–up and down. Unfortunately more down, but that has to change soon.
What a great way of kicking burgers up a notch! I never would have thought to use lamb, but now I can’t to try it.
It’s so good April!
Our tastes are so similar, Inger. A lamb burger with tzatziki is my favorite summer grilled burger…so much more flavor than beef.
So agree Karen!
My hubby loves lamb. This will be perfect for Father’s Day. I could eat tzatziki by the spoonful!
THanks Ellen. This version was so much better than the plain old yogurt and cucumber I used to serve over falafil. Pretty sure I had a spoonful or two myself 🙂
My family is not big on lamb, but these burgers look delicious! The Tzatziki Sauce sounds like it would compliment the lamb perfectly!
I wouldn’t hesitate to do this on just about any kind of burger if you want to give it a try Thao! But you are right, the lamb was special with it!
Lamb burgers are wonderful and making them slider sized is a great idea. Also love the sauce instead of the ubiquitous ketchup!
We do all our burgers slider sized now. The smaller size is perfect for me and two is about 1 1/2 full burgers which is better for my husband. And interestingly at a recent party, the slider buns went much faster than the bigger size.
We are making these tonight! Getting lamb, goat yogurt, cucumbers, parsley and mint at the market! Yum!
They were fantastic! We added thyme and oregano to the lamb and mint to the tzaziki. Yum!
Glad you enjoyed David! I am going to experiment more with add-ins to my burgers I think. Just heard about adding in chopped mushrooms which also sounds good.
The mint must totally make this sauce!
I couldn’t believe how much just a couple extra ingredients made the sauce Tandy.
I love tzatziki sauce and have been craving some lamb lately. These look delicious.
Go for it Karen!
OH I love lamb burgers! Cannot wait to try these with tzatziki!
I thought lamb was great by itself, but this was really over the top.
Well I would LOVE someone to make these up for me for Mom’s day. I can’t make them for my hubby on Dad’s day though as he isn’t a lamb lover like I. Perhaps beef or venison for him and lamb for me….That’s the ticket.
I’m sure this would be delicious with another meat Wendy–or even a vegan patty!
I love lamb burgers! Since I am dairy free I will try making the sauce with coconut yogurt.
Sounds delicious Marian!