When I ran my factory in Beirut, the falafel shops in our neighborhood all argued about tarator. One man said you must use ice water. Another said garlic goes in last. A third said let it sit for one hour before serving.
They argued every day about this.
Here is what I learned making tahini for twenty years. The technique that matters is simple. When you add lemon juice to tahini, it will seize up. It gets very thick, almost like cement. This is normal. Every Lebanese cook knows this will happen.
You keep whisking. Don't panic. After one minute, maybe two minutes, the sauce transforms. It becomes pale cream color and smooth. This is proper tarator.
We use this recipe to test every batch at our facility in Michigan. If tahini makes good tarator, we know the sesame quality is correct, the roast is correct, the grind is correct.
The Difference Between Lebanese Tarator and American Tahini Sauce
Americans make tahini sauce very thin. Like salad dressing. They add maple syrup or soy sauce or other ingredients.
These are fine, but they are not Lebanese tarator.
Lebanese tahini sauce is thick. It coats the spoon. When you dip falafel, the sauce stays on the falafel, it doesn't run off. When you dip pita bread, you taste the sauce, not just wet bread.
The flavor is sharp from lemon, strong from garlic, nutty from tahini. Clean taste. No sweetness. In Lebanon we don't add fusion ingredients to tarator. Just sesame, lemon, garlic, salt, water.
The Recipe
This makes about 1.5 cups. In my house it lasts maybe three days in the refrigerator. Yours will last longer.
What you need:
1 cup tahini (room temperature, stir the jar first if oil separated) 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (3 or 4 lemons) 2 cloves garlic, crushed to paste with salt 1/2 cup cold water, maybe more 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (some regions add this, some don't)
How to make it:
Put tahini in a bowl.
Add crushed garlic and salt. Mix together.
Add half the lemon juice. Start whisking.
The tahini will seize. It becomes very thick, like paste. Almost like concrete. You will think something is wrong.
Nothing is wrong. This is what tahini does.
Keep whisking. Don't add more liquid yet. You must work the lemon into the tahini first. After maybe 30 seconds, 45 seconds, you will see it start to loosen a little bit.
Now add quarter cup of the water. Keep whisking.
Watch what happens. The color changes from dark beige to pale cream. The texture becomes smooth, almost fluffy. Like soft butter. This is the moment when the emulsion forms.
Add the rest of the lemon juice. Whisk it in. The sauce gets thinner.
Add the rest of the water slowly while you whisk. Stop when the consistency is what you want. Thick for dipping, thinner for drizzling on food, very thin for salad.
Taste it. Add more salt if you need. Some people want more lemon. Some people want more garlic. This is your sauce, make it how you like it. If you want cumin, add it now.
Let the sauce sit for 10 minutes before you serve it. The garlic gets less sharp. The flavors come together. If it gets too thick while it sits, add one or two tablespoons of water and whisk again.
Why Your Tahini Tastes Bitter
People tell me their tahini sauce is bitter. This is always the tahini, not the recipe.
Sesame seeds have natural compounds that taste bitter if you roast them too dark or if you don't remove the hulls properly. Some companies roast very dark because they think it makes stronger flavor. But in sauce where tahini is the main taste, this becomes a problem.
In our Michigan facility, we check roast temperature many times during each batch. We want the point where the sesame oil develops good nutty flavor but no char, no bitterness.
When you buy tahini, look for light tan color. Not brown. If you can smell it before you buy, it should smell like toasted sesame. Not burned.
If your tahini is bitter, you can try adding more lemon or a small amount of sugar. But you are fighting against the tahini. Better to buy different tahini that tastes good when you taste it straight from the jar.
Different Ways to Make This Sauce
Once you know the basic recipe, you can change it for different foods.
For falafel and shawarma: Make it thick. Add one more clove of garlic. Some street vendors in Beirut add small amount of cayenne pepper. Not traditional everywhere, but common.
Green tahini sauce: Put handful of fresh parsley in a blender with the finished sauce. Or cilantro. The sauce becomes bright green color. This is good with fish or roasted vegetables.
With yogurt (we call this tahini ma laban): Use yogurt instead of half the water. Makes it thicker and more tangy. Good for dipping raw vegetables.
Spicy version: Add half teaspoon Aleppo pepper. Or quarter teaspoon cayenne. Or one spoon of harissa paste if you want more complicated spice flavor.
For grain bowls: Make it thinner than normal. Add extra water or one tablespoon olive oil. You want it to pour easily on rice or quinoa.
If Something Goes Wrong
Sauce won't come together, stays grainy. You added liquid too fast. Tahini needs time to mix with lemon juice before you add water. If this already happened, add one more tablespoon of tahini and whisk it, then add water slowly.
Too thick. Add cold water, one tablespoon each time. Remember tahini sauce gets thicker in refrigerator, so make it a little thinner than you think you need.
Too thin. Add more tahini, one tablespoon each time. Or put it in refrigerator for one hour, it will thicken by itself.
Garlic too strong. Raw garlic gets milder after 15-20 minutes in the sauce. Wait before you serve it. If you don't like raw garlic at all, put the cloves in boiling water for 30 seconds before you crush them. This removes the sharp taste but keeps the garlic flavor.
Color is gray, not cream. Your tahini had too much hull in it or was not ground fine enough. It will still taste okay but the color won't be nice. Next time buy tahini that is ground very smooth.
What We Eat with Tahini Sauce in Lebanon
In Lebanon, tahini sauce is at almost every meal. Not just for falafel.
The most common is falafel and fried vegetables. Cold creamy sauce with hot crispy falafel. Put a lot of sauce. Add pickled vegetables on the side.
Grilled meat gets tahini sauce at most restaurants. Chicken taouk, lamb kofta, beef kebab. The lemon in the sauce cuts the fat from the grilled meat.
Roasted cauliflower or fried cauliflower with tahini sauce. This is one of my favorite ways to eat vegetables. Roast the cauliflower until it is very brown, almost burned in some spots. Serve it hot with cold tahini sauce. If you have pomegranate seeds, put some on top.
Fish with tahini sauce surprises most Americans. In Lebanon we make samke harra, which is fried fish covered with spicy tahini sauce, cilantro, and walnuts. Or just plain grilled fish with tahini sauce on the side. Very common.
At breakfast we put small bowl of tahini sauce on the table with hummus, labneh, olives, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. Use it for dipping pita bread or spread it on the bread.
For mezze platters, you must have tahini sauce. Put out hummus, baba ganoush, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, fattoush. Always include bowl of tahini sauce.
How to Store It
Put leftover sauce in container with lid. Keep in refrigerator about one week. It gets thicker while it sits because tahini absorbs the liquid.
Before you use it again, let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Then add one or two tablespoons of cold water and whisk to make it smooth again.
Don't freeze tahini sauce. When you defrost it, the emulsion breaks. You get separated, grainy sauce that is very difficult to fix.
The garlic flavor gets stronger after one or two days in refrigerator. If you are making sauce ahead of time for dinner party, use less garlic than normal to account for this.
Why Tahini Quality Matters
I have made this sauce with many different tahini brands. In Lebanon. Here in the US. The recipe works with any tahini. But the results are very different depending on what tahini you use.
Tahini made from lightly roasted sesame seeds with hulls removed makes sauce that is pale color, smooth texture, nutty taste, no bitterness. Tahini made from darker roasted seeds or seeds with hulls still on makes stronger sauce, sometimes bitter sauce, needs more lemon to balance.
The grind is important too. If tahini is ground coarse, sauce will be grainy. If tahini is stone-ground very smooth and pourable, sauce will be very silky.
When we developed our production process in Michigan, we used this sauce as one of our main tests. If tahini makes good tarator, we know sesame sourcing is correct, roasting is correct, grinding is correct.
Good tahini will mix smoothly with lemon, turn pale cream color (not gray), taste nutty and clean, not need many adjustments. If your sauce is difficult to make, probably the problem is the tahini, not your technique.
Making Large Batches
You can double or triple this recipe easily. Use large bowl or stand mixer instead of whisking by hand. The technique is the same.
For very large batches, more than 6 cups, use blender. Put all ingredients in at once. Blend on medium speed for about 1 minute. You get perfectly smooth sauce, no whisking. The texture is a little different, more uniform, but some people prefer this.
If you make sauce for meal prep for the week, make it without garlic. Store in refrigerator. Add fresh crushed garlic to portions when you use them each day. This way garlic flavor stays fresh instead of getting stronger over several days.
About the Ice Water
Some recipes say you must use ice water. Some say regular cold water is fine.
The difference is small, but ice water does help. The cold temperature keeps the tahini oil from separating when you add liquid. It makes the sauce a little fluffier, a little lighter.
Room temperature water works. The sauce will still come together. But ice water gives you more room for error if you are making tarator for the first time.
In Lebanon, especially in summer when it is very hot, we always use ice water. This way the sauce stays cold even if it sits on the table for long time during meal.
What I Want You to Remember
This sauce looks very simple. Only five or six ingredients. But small details make big difference between okay sauce and sauce that people remember.
First thing: don't panic when tahini seizes up after you add lemon. This happens to everyone. Even cooks who make this every single day. Keep whisking. The sauce will come together.
Second thing: start with good tahini. You cannot fix bad tahini with good technique. The sesame flavor will be the main taste in your sauce. If tahini tastes wrong, sauce will taste wrong.
Make this sauce a few times. You will learn the exact consistency you prefer. You will know if you like more garlic or less garlic. You will find which foods it works best with for your family.
After that, you can make it without measuring, the way my mother did, the way every Lebanese cook learns eventually.
