Tahini Sauce

Restaurant-style Lemon-Garlic Tahini Sauce for your next Mediterranean meal. This creamy Garlic Tahini Sauce is made with ground sesame paste (tahini), lemon, garlic and seasonings. Falafel, Shwarma, or Chicken Souvlaki, a Mediterranean meal is incomplete without side of this nutty, garlicky sauce. It is a delicious, clean, and versatile condiment. Vegan, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free. 

Today, I decided to flavor my Greek Recipe's Menu with this easy and bold-flavor homemade Tahini Sauce. I also recommend trying my Tzatziki Sauce. (Greek Restaurant's favorite Yogurt-Cucumber Sauce).

In most Greek restaurants we visit in States, this sauce is by-far our favorite. Such a versatile sauce it is! It goes great with Shwarma, Gyros, Falafel.. I even love it on side with Chicken Souvlaki.  Bonus is the fact that is it so clean and simple to prepare. No eggs, no starch, no mayo and no fancy ingredients. Just good quality tahini paste (more on this ahead) and pantry ingredients - garlic, lemon, and cumin. If you always have these, you are just 10 minutes away from a homemade creamy and delicious Tahini Sauce. Make it once and you will never buy jar of pre-prepared sauce again. 

Let's dig in.

Tahini Sauce is often confused with Tahini Paste. Tahini Paste, as name suggests, is paste of ground sesame seeds. Tahini Sauce is creamy tahini-paste based sauce of consistency of heavy cream.

Tahini Paste is used widely in culinary world as a nutty and creamy base for lots of Mediterranean dishes. I'm sure you all are familiar with Hummus - a chickpea dip which gets rich and nutty flavor from Tahini Paste. Tahini Paste is also main ingredient of Tahini Sauce.

For delicious, and authentic Tahini Sauce, it is important to use good quality Tahini Paste.  I prefer to use fine ground Tahini paste packed in oil because it yields creamy sauce. To make sauce, I use on a tsp of the oil and rest paste. It is important to leave oil to keep rest of the paste in jar, fresher longer. After all paste is finished, sesame oil can be used to flavor any recipe asking for sesame oil.

I often get question, where to buy Tahini Paste. So, I'm adding two link to buy Tahini Paste in US and Online (everywhere else).

Specialty US stores like Whole Foods sell prepared Tahini Sauce. Pre-Prepared sauce does not have good shelf life. If you invest in buying Tahini Paste which stays good for a long time.  Any time you need Sauce, just grab some garlic, lemon, cumin and prepare fresh sauce in no time!

How To Get Lump-Free & Smooth Nut Butter Sauce or Tahini Sauce:

To prepare Tahini Sauce, I start by heating a 1/2 cup of water in microwave. Yes, the warm water is solution to smooth butter-based sauce. Tahini, just like other nut butters resist mixing into lemon/vinegar initially. To make this process easy and to create a smooth sauce, I like to mix in few teaspoons of warm water which helps paste loosen-up yielding a creamy, lump-free sauce.

There are two ways to mix the sauce: Blender or Bowl with Wooden Spoon. When I'm time pressed, blender is my method of choice. I add all ingredients for sauce into blender and pulse until consistency is smooth. Adding water until sauce has heavy cream consistency works perfectly. (usually 1-2 tbsp warm water is all it needs to make sauce creamy).

In bowl, it takes time to mix tahini with rest of ingredients. Slowly adding tsp of water at a time is the best way to get consistent creamy sauce.

How to Use Tahini Sauce?

1. Serve on side of Grilled Meat.
2. Drizzle on Veggies or Falafel Wraps.
3. Drizzle on your favorite Greek Salad.
4. Serve as Dip with French Fries.

Friends, tahini sauce is a delicious condiment which every cook should have in his repertoire. Today, I have given you a restaurant-style creamy, garlic tahini sauce recipe. Try it at home and enjoy with you favorite Greek Dinner.

-Savita x