Tahini paste might just be one of my favourite ingredients to cook with. Tahini paste is simply ground sesame seeds, and can now be found in pretty well any grocery store you visit. A traditional Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ingredient, it’s used to make hummus, baba ghanoush, and many other delicious dishes from that part of the world.

This sauce, or spread, is perfect to keep in the fridge at all times; great with raw or cooked vegetables, a piece of pita or warm flatbread. What is also really fun about it is that you can get creative with this sauce. Below I will show you a basic recipe as well as a few easy variations that add even more flavour and colour. This is a fun recipe that’s also very healthy – hope you enjoy it!

Tahini Sauce – No fridge should be without!

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Prep Time 10 minutes

Ready in 10 minutes

Ingredients

  

• 1¼ cups tahini paste (You wil need to stir the paste well before taking it from its bottle)
• 4 garlic cloves
• ¾ cup cold water
• 1½ tsp salt
• Juice of 2 lemons

Instructions

 

• In a blender add tahini paste, salt, lemon juice, and garlic. Blend to chop garlic. Turn speed to high and slowly stream in cold water. You want the sauce to be loose, so you may need to add in a little bit more water if the sauce remains thick.
• See above for variations on this amazing sauce.
• Serve with pita, vegetables, meat.

Andy’s Notes

Tahini Sauce Base Recipe

You will use the base recipe for each of the variations. This by itself is also wildly delicious so don’t feel like you need to do any of the other variations. It works best if you use a blender or food processor. All you need to do is add the Tahini paste, garlic, lemon juice, and salt to the blender. Then while the blender is running, slowly stream in really cold water. You want it really cold so that the sauce is light and fluffy. I don’t know the science behind why this happens…just trust me!

Pink Tahini

Nothing fancy here. Simply add about 1/2 cup of cooked red beets into the blender with the base tahini sauce. Blitz until smooth.

Herby Green Tahini

Add  a handful of green herbs to the base tahini. I used parsley, cilantro, and mint. Blend until smooth. I also threw in about a half of a cup of spinach just to give it that extra punch of color.

Ginger Tumeric Honey Tahini

This is my favorite of the bunch. Add 1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger, 1 tsp turmeric powder, and 1 tsp honey to the base Tahini. Blend until smooth. I topped my golden Tahini with dates and it was awesome.

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