Exquisite Homemade Tahini Sauce Recipe
Made from a paste of sesame seeds and seasoned with lemon juice and garlic, tahini sauce adds a rich, nutty, and refreshing taste to your meals, especially falafel.
Our recipe for authentic and tasty Lebanese tahini sauce (also known as Tarator sauce) is quick and easy to make. With very few ingredients and only very little prep time needed, you’ll never need – or want – to buy it from a store again.
Below you’ll find the fastest steps to creating your first batch of fresh, mouth-watering sauce.
Are you ready for the savory, dense flavors, with refreshing lemons and aromatic garlic?!
Detailed Instructions
Step 1: Place the tahini paste in a small bowl
The paste can be store-bought for beginners.
If you want a full authentic experience, you can prepare the paste from scratch using raw or toasted sesame seeds and olive oil.
Just toast your seeds over a dry pan until light golden and then blend in a grinder before adding oil to turn it into a paste.
Step 2: Add the lemon juice, crushed garlic, and salt
Use a kitchen knife to cut the lemons in two halves and squeeze until you get a ⅓ cup of juice.
Next, lay the flat of your knife blade on the garlic cloves and gently add pressure with your hand to crush them.
Mincing your garlic brings out less of the flavor.
Lastly, season with salt.
Step 3: Use a whisk or blender to mix the sauce to a thick paste
This will take only a few minutes.
The sauce should end up having a rich beige color.
The consistency should be creamy and no individual ingredient should still be visible, so make sure everything’s well blended.
Step 4: Add splashes of water, whisk until desired consistency is reached
Carefully add splashes of water into the sauce.
The more water you add, the lighter in color and taste, and the more thin the sauce will become.
Step 5: Taste and season with more lemon juice, salt, or water if needed
You’re nearly finished!
Just make sure that your Tarator is exactly as you want it to be by tasting it first and then seasoning it some more with your leftover lemon juice, salt, or water.
You might want to experiment with different amounts of juice, garlic, and water depending what you’re planning on serving the sauce with.
How to serve tahini sauce?
Serve your sauce in a bowl at room temperature, away from heat sources.
Properly sealed, it will last in the refrigerator anywhere between 3 to 5 days and can last up to 3 months in your freezer.
If you don’t use all of it, you can easily save it by topping it up with a thin layer of oil. But very likely, it won’t come to that with this easy recipe. Have at it!