Creamy Garlic TAHINI SAUCE

 
 
 
 

Here at Dak & Ju we love a creamy tahini dressing: the kind you find at your favorite Mediterranean or Middle Eastern restaurant. This elusive sauce strikes the perfect balance between the nuttiness of the tahini, the tang of lemon and punch of raw garlic. And most of all, it’s velvety smooth in a way we’ve previously found challenging to achieve at home.

Now, thanks to the tips from Eden Grinshpan (one of our celebrity chef crushes), we all can achieve the perfect tahini dressing with a simple addition: cold water. For so long, we've tried to simply whisk our tahini sauces into oblivion, hoping they'd take on the lush texture we've had at Middle Eastern restaurants. Eden's trick for creating creamy tahini sauce (which she learned from Mike Solomonov) is to mix tahini paste with ice water. At first it seizes, tightening around the whisk in a particularly clump-tastic fashion, but eventually it loosens into the condiment of our dreams. In her cookbook—Eating Out Loud—Eden refers to this as the Swiss Army Knife of condiments, and we happen to agree. Do we know the science behind why it works? Not a chance (if you do please let us know!). But does it work? Absolutely.

Depending on the type of tahini you use, and whether it's the beginning of a new jar or you're toward the end, you may need to use more water. If you like a tangy tahini sauce, you can also add a little extra lemon juice—we did this.

We like to have this in the fridge for all kinds of uses: we drizzle it over meats, vegetables and grains. We use it to loosen hummus. We even mix a spoonful with a little more lemon, salt, cracked pepper and olive oil to create a fabulously simply but satisfying dressing. This is one of just many great recipes in Eden’s debut cookbook. Check it out!

— Dak and Ju

 

Ingredients:

1 cup tahini paste

1 garlic clove, grated or finely minced

2 tsp lemon juice, plus more to taste

1/2 cup ice cold water, plus more if needed

1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste

 

Instructions:

  1. In a medium sized bowl mix together tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and ice water using a whisk. As you whisk, the mixture will go through several transformations and will first become lumpy.

  2. Continue to whisk through the lumpy texture stage and soon the mixture will start to lighten in color and become smoother. Continue to whisk, adding a splash of cold water as needed. We found that we needed to add a little more liquid than expected, as we were using a thicker tahini paste.

  3. Once your tahini sauce has lightened and is completely smooth, taste for seasoning and add additional salt or lemon as needed.

  4. Store in a jar in the fridge and use for salads, topping grains, vegetables, meat or eat by the spoonful.

    Makes about 2 cups of tahini sauce