Creamy, nutty, and bright, this easy tahini sauce will become a staple in your kitchen. Drizzle it over falafel, grain bowls, salads, and more!
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that I love tahini. In the past, I’ve posted tahini cookies, salad dressings, oatmeal, and even ice cream, but today, I’m finally sharing my favorite 5-ingredient lemon tahini sauce recipe.
This tahini sauce is incredibly versatile, as it shines on salads, sandwiches, falafel, bowls, and more! My basic version is similar to what you’d find at any Middle Eastern falafel or shawarma restaurant, but I’m also including three delicious variations here. Honestly, I can’t choose a favorite. They all pack a punch of vivid color and bold flavor, and making them couldn’t be simpler. They keep for up to a week in the fridge, so prep one (or more) to jazz up your meals all week long!
If you’re not familiar with tahini, it’s a creamy, nutty paste made from ground sesame seeds. Popular throughout the Middle East, it’s a key ingredient in spreads like hummus and baba ganoush. These days, you can find it in most well-stocked grocery stores. I use tahini in lots of ways in my kitchen, but most often, I add it to this easy, versatile lemon tahini sauce.
Basic Tahini Sauce Recipe Ingredients
You only need 5 basic ingredients to make this easy recipe:
- Tahini – This recipe is all about the tahini, so choose a good quality one that isn’t too stiff or bitter. My favorite brands are Cedar’s, Soom, and Seed + Mill, all of which have a nice runny texture and nutty taste.
- Lemon juice – Squeeze it yourself for the best bright flavor!
- Garlic – Instead of using minced garlic, I finely grate it so that it fully incorporates into the sauce, adding a kick of garlic flavor.
- Water – Add water, as needed, to thin your sauce until it has a smooth, creamy texture.
- Sea salt – Stir it in to sharpen the sauce’s nutty, lemony taste.
Yum!
How to Make Tahini Sauce
To make this recipe, simply whisk the tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and water together in a bowl until they create a luscious, smooth sauce.
When you first add the water and lemon juice to the tahini, it will firm up and look something like this:
That’s totally normal! Continue whisking for a minute or so, and the ingredients will combine to form a smooth, creamy sauce. If your tahini is dry, or if you prefer a thinner sauce, add more water, as needed, to reach your desired consistency.
Then, taste and adjust your seasonings. If you prefer a brighter sauce, add more lemon. If it is too bitter, stir in 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup or honey. And if the flavor is too sharp, mellow it with 1/2 to 1 teaspoon olive oil. Enjoy!
Tahini Sauce Recipe Variations
Like my cilantro lime dressing, I like to make this dressing in more ways than one. The traditional version is delicious, but these colorful, flavorful variations are fun ways to change it up:
- Turmeric Tahini – Stir 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger, 1 teaspoon olive oil, and 1 teaspoon maple syrup into the base recipe to make this vibrant, sunny sauce.
- Beet Tahini – Beets + tahini are a match made in heaven! Make the entire recipe in the food processor, blending a peeled and roasted beet, 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin, and 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander with the base ingredients to give the sauce a sweet, spiced flavor. Add water as necessary to thin.
- Green Goddess Tahini – Like the beet variation, this super-green sauce comes together in the food processor. I pulse a heaping 3/4 cup fresh cilantro, a heaping 3/4 cup fresh parsley, 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon olive oil into the base recipe ingredients.
Let me know what variations you try!
Tahini Sauce Serving Suggestions
Tahini sauce is super versatile, and I use it in all sorts of ways in my kitchen. Most simply, I enjoy it as a dip with fresh veggies or pita bread, or I drizzle it over my morning avocado toast. Here are a few more of my favorite ways to use it:
- As a salad dressing. I love it on green salads, roasted vegetable salads, pasta salads, grain salads, and more.
- On grilled or roasted veggies. I especially like it with roasted cauliflower, squash, or Brussels sprouts!
- On sandwiches or wraps, like falafel wraps or chickpea shawarma wraps.
- On a grain bowl. I especially love the turmeric tahini dressing in this buddha bowl!
How do you like to use tahini sauce? Let me know in the comments!
If you love this tahini sauce recipe…
Try any of these flavorful sauces or dressings next:
- Tahini Dressing
- Green Goddess Dressing
- Tzatziki Sauce
- Carrot Ginger Dressing
- Sesame Ginger Dressing
- Easy Peanut Sauce
- Romesco Sauce
- Or any of these 15 Healthy Salad Dressing Recipes!
Tahini Sauce
Ingredients
Basic Tahini Sauce
- ½ cup tahini*
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 6 tablespoons water, plus more as needed
- 1 small garlic clove, grated or pressed
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the tahini, lemon juice, water, garlic, and sea salt. Season to taste. If you find the tahini sauce too bitter, add ¼ to ½ teaspoon maple syrup or honey to balance the flavor. If it’s too sharp, add ½ to 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil to mellow the flavor. If it's too thick, add water, as needed, to reach your desired consistency.See the blog post about for the turmeric, beet, and green tahini sauce variations.
Notes
Strange question but I don’t like beetroot’s flavour and I was wondering if anyone has a substitute. This is out of curiosity, I know you can just omit it but then the sauce would taste of “curry” without the beetroot to tone it down. Thoughts? 🙂
Also, I don’t like coriander’s flavour (cilantro) – it doesn’t taste of soap to me, it’s just floral and green and not in a tasty way lol. Would omitting just work or will the parsley be too intense like tabbouleh flavour (which I enjoy for reference). Again thank you for anyone’s thoughts 🙂
You can just skip the cilantro and keep the 3/4 cup parsley that’s in the recipe. It shouldn’t be too intense.
I would just skip the beet tahini and make one of the other options.
Wonderful sauce. I’m just introduced to this delicious sauce but got some beets to try that version as well. I paired this with your falafel recipe and it was fantastic!
I’m so glad you loved it!
Traditionally I’ve always made Hummus by adding the cooked ground chick peas (beans?) to a good Tahini sauce. Your is one of the better ones I’ve come across.
What is the brand of Tahini you use? The Trader Joe’s brand is bitter so I’m looking to find a different brand.
Hi Renee, the best brand is Seed & Mill, it’s so fresh and the least bitter, but you have to order it from them directly. My second favorite is Soom, followed by Ceadar’s and the Trader Joe’s brand. Tahini is a bit bitter in general, if you’re not a fan of the taste, I suggest trying out this Tahini Dressing recipe instead: https://www.loveandlemons.com/tahini-dressing/ … the sesame oil and maple syrup really offset the bitterness in a nice, balanced way. My husband is not usually a fan of tahini, but he loves that dressing. Hope this helps!
This sauce is super delish. I made the natural one and omitted the garlic but added one teaspoon maple syrup. Thanks for the recipe.
How to make tahini from scratch?
Hi! I am looking for vegetarian recipes, only, I don’t like most vegetables! I can’t eat fake-meat– it looks too real.
Is Tahiti sauce high in protein? I saw your blacked bean recipes and I’m excited to make them. I eat kale and raw spinach. Do you have anything you could think of that would help me get more than 16mg of protein per day? (I ear protein cookies and nuts for that bit.)
I’m so thrilled to have found you and your recipes! Thank you for any guidance you can share!
Sincerely,
Traci Starkweather
I am so in love with the tumeric tahini I can’t move on to another another variation!!
Ha, I’m so glad you loved it!
Yum!!! Perfect consistency 🙂 Can you recommend what you use to store sauces like this? Mason jars? Tupperwares? I need to invest in some nice containers so I can have your sauces on hand and storing well for days. Thank you!
Hi Carolyn – either one! Any airtight container with a lid will be great.
I’ve just started washing and reusing jars such as mayo and mustard ones. I’m using those for dressings. I joined a local co-op where you can bring your used jars to get bulk things like tahini, milk, various oils, etc. It feels great to not dump perfectly useful containers into a costly recycling system which has a carbon cost or landfill.
OMG ALL your recipes are incredible. I especially like the salads., as like to make all different types of salads. Thank you so much. I have your first cooking and love it!
I wouldn’t cheat on the Tahini. Freshly homemade is sooo much better. It only takes 1 cup of hulled sesame seeds, 2-4 T neutral oil, (I like using a light olive oil) and a pinch of salt. To make: Toast sesame seeds lightly (not browned, just a bit blond or golden) over medium low heat for 3-5 minutes stirring constantly. Cool them on a plate. Then put into food processor and pulse about a minute until a crumbly paste forms. Add 3 T neutral oil and process 2-3 minutes more, scraping sides of bowl from time to time, until it is smooth and pour-able. It should not be gritty. If it is too thick add the other Tbs of neutral flavored oil and process an additional minute or so, until it is smooth and pour-able. Test flavor and add salt to taste. Salt is optional if you have health issues but it tastes better with some salt. And this recipe comes from “Inspired Tastes” blog called “Easy Tahini Recipe–Better than Store bought.” And it is. And I have been using this recipe for a couple years now. It bested my best. If you google it there is also pictures to help you and a video as well. I don’t know your site as well to look for one here. I assume you don’t have one or you would have linked it. The Tahini sauce is fine but it needs a homemade Tahini. I feel so strongly about that that I do not see any reason to bother making this at all unless you are going to make homemade Tahini–which fresh is far better than ANY commercial including those you mentioned. It’s leagues better with fresh.
Do these sauces freeze well?
I think you have the sequence a bit off. You want to do the water first. And you want the water to be ice water. ice cold. At the very end you add the lemon as it reacts with the sesame paste and changes its texture.
Hi Jeanine,
I LOVE all your recipes. I tell everyone who wants to cook about your site and your books. Your Macro Bowl was absolutely my favorite by far. But I’m so sad because the link to the recipe has changed, and so has the turmeric tahani dressing in this post. The old recipe with steamed veggies and that lovely dressing did not contain ginger. Can you re-post the old recipe somewhere, or at lease just the sauce?
Hi Sarah, I apologize for the confusing changes… the macro bowl recipe is still in this post (we just changed it’s name): https://www.loveandlemons.com/buddha-bowl-recipe/
Here is the original tahini dressing that went with it:
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon tahini
1/2 tablespoon water
1/2 garlic clove, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
sea salt
we also updated the photos and added some other grain/protein options but the core recipe is still the same. I hope that helps!
I’ve been making this tahini sauce/dressing regularly for a month or so–I drizzle it on a salad pretty much every day for lunch. It’s so good and versatile.
Random things I’ve added include red pepper flakes, Dijon mustard, honey, celery greens, and lots of different herbs and spices, depending on my preference that day. Still, the basic recipe is so delicious!
Also, hot tip: I throw everything in a blender. No need to whisk. 🙂
Thank you for sharing!
Looks wonderful! How long with this keep in the refrigerator?
Hi Sarah, about 1 week for all of the variations except the green one which lasts about 4 days. I hope you enjoy!
Tahini sauce will add some new flavors to falafel’s. I was planning to surprise my husband on karwa chauth by cooking something different and I think falafel with tahini is perfect for the occasion 😋
love making sauces, dips, etc from scratch and had not had a tahini recipe of any kind so I really appreciate this one and all of the tweaks, the beet version especially!
Love this receipe!
I am sure that I will use it every week:-)
Can I substitute a gf flour (grain, bean or nut) for the whole wheat in your falafel burger recipe? I’m curious to try this tahini recipe on homemade falafel.
Thanks
Hi Keyen, I don’t think they would hold together well enough, but if you stay tuned for Sunday’s post, I have a GF falafel recipe coming up that doesn’t require any flours.