Tahini

You can make tahini at home with plain sesame seeds, oil, and salt to taste. Use a food processor, blender, or tahini and pestle to grind the seeds. A restaurateur and food writer, Saad Fayed has published hundreds of recipes and articles about Middle Eastern cuisine.

2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. Luckily, tahini is incredibly easy to make at home. Additionally, if you’re able to find sesame seeds in bulk bins, which is often the case at international markets or a natural foods store, making your own tahini is inexpensive. Transfer the toasted seeds to a tray and let them cool completely.

Pour sesame seeds into the food processor. Slowly drizzle in the oil while the processor is running, blending for 2 minutes. The goal is a thick, yet pourable texture. Add more oil and blend until desired consistency. Toasting the sesame seeds isn’t strictly necessary. If you don’t have a food processor or blender, crush the seeds with a mortar and pestle. It will take more work and might result in a less-creamy texture.

Tahini will keep in a refrigerator for up to three months if it’s stored properly in an airtight container. Use unhulled sesame seeds for richer-tasting tahini with more nutrients. Tahini can be made without any extra oil if you’re looking to cut down on the grams of fat in the final product. However, the tahini will not be as creamy and will take longer to grind down to a paste. I don’t like this at all. Also known as tahina, this finely ground paste of husked and roasted sesame seeds is an absolutely basic ingredient and flavouring of Middle Eastern foods. See our tahini recipes for inspiration.

Buy in small quantities to avoid this, or keep it well sealed and cool or refrigerated, where it will be safe for many months. Olive oil might be mixed with the paste to make a gentler flavour and it can also be found mixed with cocoa, honey and other ingredients. This website is published by Immediate Media Company Limited under licence from BBC Studios Distribution. Learn about versatile tahini, including how to select, store and cook with it. A small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically modified seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically modified produce. Mobile App Download EWG’s Healthy Living App Today!

Ratings for more than 120,000 food and personal care products, now at your fingertips. Download EWG’s Healthy Living App Today! Middle Eastern condiment made from toasted ground hulled sesame. Tahini is used in the cuisines of the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean, the South Caucasus, as well as parts of North Africa. Look up tahini in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word tahini appeared in English by the late 1930s. The oldest mention of sesame is in a cuneiform document written 4000 years ago that describes the custom of serving the gods sesame wine. Tahini is mentioned as an ingredient of hummus kasa, a recipe transcribed in an anonymous 13th-century Arabic cookbook, Kitab Wasf al-Atima al-Mutada. Sichuan cuisine uses it in some recipes for dandan noodles.

Sesame paste is also used in Indian cuisine. In North America, sesame tahini, along with other raw nut butters, was available by 1940 in health food stores. Tahini is made from sesame seeds that are soaked in water and then crushed to separate the bran from the kernels. The crushed seeds are soaked in salt water, causing the bran to sink. The floating kernels are skimmed off the surface, toasted, and ground to produce an oily paste. Because of tahini’s high oil content, some manufacturers recommend refrigeration to prevent spoilage. Others do not recommend refrigeration, as it makes the product more viscous and more difficult to serve.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Tahini-based sauces are common in Middle Eastern restaurants as a side dish or as a garnish, usually including lemon juice, salt, and garlic, and thinned with water. Hummus is made of cooked, mashed chickpeas typically blended with tahini, lemon juice and salt. It sometimes has mashed or sliced pistachio pieces sprinkled inside or on top.