Store-Bought? Never Again. This Easy Taramasalata Is the Real Deal!

Not that pink stuff! This is proper, authentic Greek taramasalata – a creamy, smoky, salty dip made with smoked cod’s roe, olive oil, lemon, and stale bread. No food colouring, no shortcuts – just traditional ingredients and big Greek flavour.

This homemade taramasalata recipe is a classic meze dish you’ll often find served in Greece with warm pita, fresh veg, and plenty of lemon. It’s smooth, tangy, and incredibly moreish – a far cry from the bright pink supermarket versions full of additives.

Whether you’re putting together a Mediterranean mezze platter, hosting a Greek night, or just fancy something different to spread on toast or dip your veg into, this is the one to try.

🧂 Ingredients:
120g smoked cod’s roe
200g stale bread (crusts removed), soaked and squeezed
80ml fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
300ml extra virgin olive oil
1 small red onion (or ¼ of a regular onion)

For serving:
Fresh or Dried dill (optional – or swap for oregano or parsley)
Lemon zest

🧑‍🍳 Instructions:
Soak the stale bread in water, then squeeze out most of the liquid – either by hand or wrapped in a clean tea towel.

Zest and juice your lemons.

In a food processor, finely grate the onion.

Add the cod’s roe and lemon juice, then blend until smooth.

Add the soaked bread and begin blending again.

Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while pulsing, until the mixture becomes pale and creamy – like mayonnaise.

Taste, adjust texture if needed, and serve with fresh herbs and lemon zest.

🇬🇷 Serving Suggestions:
Serve with warm pita bread, radishes, or fresh veg. Perfect as a starter, part of a mezze platter, or just scooped up with a spoon straight from the bowl.

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Got a favourite Greek dip? Let me know in the comments!

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if you’ve only ever had that bright pink taram masala you buy from the supermarket you’re in for a real surprise this is the real deal no food coloring no unnecessary extras just a beautifully creamy salty tangy dip made the traditional way it’s not pink cuz it shouldn’t be once you’ve tried making your own there is absolutely no going back i hope you’re all well i’m Shane welcome back to It’s Cooking Good so we’re going to dive straight into this it is very very quick and it is very very easy to make and here is some bread it’s stale bread i’ve taken the crust off it and then we’re just going to soak it in some water and there’s 200 grams there i will put all the details and quantities down below in the description as always anyway just want to make sure that’s nicely doused in that water and we’ll just put that to one side for the moment and then here is your allimportant smoked cods now it’s readily available i got this of course from Ron Fowler and Sons thank you again guys again if you’re in Bookham make sure you pay them a visit but it’s actually quite easy to get hold of these days and relatively inexpensive today we’re using 125 grams um that’s how much I normally use in my recipe cuz I make a batch of it up but if you like it more smokeoky then you can always add some more entirely up to you there’s one thing we need to do with this first and that’s to remove this outer sort of membrane uh here cuz we want the stuff that’s on the inside so just get a sharp knife and it should come off he says relatively easy you just want to sort of peel it off like that it comes off i’m trying to get it in one fail swoop but I don’t think that’s going to work today there we go nice big piece there just remove all of that i probably should have done this before I started recording it would have been a lot easier wouldn’t it it’s probably quite a b boring viewage it is so delicious i actually like smoked codro on its own just on some toast spread it on toast you can see it’s really nice and sort of spreadable little bit of lemon juice absolutely delicious okay so that’s our prep pretty much done i’ve got a food processor and here I’ve got an onion it’s a red onion a really small red onion so if you’re using a large one just use like a quarter and I’ve grated it and that’s going to go into our food processor and then we’re just going to switch that on and lightly blend that all around and then to that we’re going to add lemon juice that’s the juice of two lemons just let that do its thing okay that’s good and now we’re going to add in our pods row so just drop it in the top if you’ve got one of these if not obviously stop it and drop it in and we really want to whisk this now for probably about 30 seconds or so okay let’s just have a little look at this yeah that’s looking good okay let’s just take our top off for a second back to our bread and you want to squeeze this out all of that excess water if you find it easier put it into like a kitchen roll or a bit of uh or a tea towel or something like that and squeeze it out but you do really want to get as much of this water out as you possibly can that’s it there’s some so we put that in and then for our last batch here it’s so warm here today that water was freezing cold and now just being in this bowl it’s gone sort of lukewarm already it’s like 30 31 I think today or 32 that’s it just keep squeezing it out that’s it and then I’ve got a last little bit here there we go and that can go in get your lid back on and blitz again and at this stage we really want to keep this blitzing now for about a minute okay that’s had a minute here I’ve got extra virgin olive oil and I’ve got 300 ml here and we’re going to just gradually add this into our blender just keep it at a steady pour last bit in that’s it leave that for another 30 seconds and we will be done okay that is ready it looks a really good consistency so let’s bring that over here i’m just going to clean all this down i’ve got some pitters on the barbecue i’m going to grab those off we’ll put the whole thing together and then most importantly we can give it a try and see how it tastes okay I’m all cleaned down sorry the flies today are everywhere and as you’ll probably know when you got fish around and about they are all over it so I had to clear that down let’s get these pitter breads out nice and crispy lovely just put those there our tamasala looks amazing hopefully you’re going to be able to see that consistency bring it up for you look at that wow looks delightful obviously remember we didn’t salt this we didn’t put any pepper in it you don’t need to the lemon does a really good job and obviously that smoked cods row is nice and salty too and I’m putting a big old mound of it in there and then what I tend to do this will keep in the fridge for a good sort of 3 days maybe 3 4 days is just decant it into one of these and I’m going to do that now before I make up the dish purely because it is so so warm so I’m just going to quickly do this and then we’ll assemble the dish okay so I’m going to bring in a nice board let’s put our lovely tamas masala somewhere like there i like to add just a little bit of dill just a pinch on the top gives it a nice little bit of color use oregano if you prefer or a little bit parsley or nothing at all and then I’ve got some lemon zest here from half of one of the lemons that I used in our teram salatta and then let’s just chop these up probably do them in sort of uh strips so I reckon probably the best way get that knife through there oh yeah there we go one last one and then probably again across the middle there we go great for dipping and then I like to just sort of scatter these around and about nice as a little sharing platter just put it in the middle of the table and what I also like with these is radishes radishes goes really really well I personally think with caramel so I normally put a few just in the middle there make a little well and that will do nicely so there we have it my traditional taramasala made in minutes let’s give it a try grab one of these oh I’ve dropped another one chuck that back on there let’s have a little dip in see what it’s like that is so so delicious that’s better than anything you’re going to buy from a supermarket for sure and I think visually more appealing as well i never like the pink one if you want a smokier taste to that by all means add some more of that smoked codro again if you like more lemon make it your own basically thing I would say is just stick to the bread and extra virgin olive oil quantities cuz I know that that works really well but as I said before I put it all down below guys that’s it from me for today a real quick one for you i do really appreciate you tuning in if you like the content please don’t forget to hit the subscribe button please also like share and comment let me know if you try this or if you’ve got a different way of making it i’d love to hear from you i’ll put all of the details of today’s traditional white taram masala down below in the description as always and all that’s left for me to say is until next time it’s cooking