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Tags: tahini, sauce, Lebanese, falafel
How to Make Thick Tahini Sauce
![Pin it](http://assets.pinterest.com/images/pidgets/pinit_fg_en_rect_gray_20.png)
Toronto's falafel shops vary widely in quality. The tahini sauce is one of the ways to tell if you're dealing with the real thing or a cheap imitator. Watery tahini that pools in the bottom of the pita without sticking to anything on the way down is a sure sign of an inferior establishment. And tahini sauce isn't just important for falafels. With its balance of tangy lemon, salt and sesame, it makes a great salad dressing, and it's fantastic in pretty much any vegan meal-in-a-bowl that includes quinoa. So you can imagine my disappointment when tried to make it for myself and got low-quality, tahini-flavoured water. I obviously had something to learn about technique. Turns out that tahini needs to be handled in a certain way if you want the sauce to be thick and rich. You can't just throw the ingredients in a blender and press start, as the cookbook I was using had suggested. Fortunately, the fix is really simple and it also provides vegans with a new use for their underused whisks.
If you're looking for something to make to test out your tahini sauce skills, I've posted recipes for homemade falafels and a tofu-quinoa bowl with roasted broccoli. Hope you enjoy them.
Ingredients
1/2 cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons' worth)
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup tahini paste
1/2 cup ice water
Directions
I start with tahini paste, which is just pure, ground sesame seeds.
![tahini paste](tahini1_t.jpg)
Put the tahini paste in one bowl and the lemon juice in a second bowl with the salt. Mix the contents of both bowls well. (The oil in the tahini probably separated, so it will need a particularly good mix.)
![tahini in one bowl, lemon in the other](tahini2_t.jpg)
Place the cup of ice water nearby and get your whisk. Add the tahini to the lemon/salt mixture.
![add tahini to lemon and salt](tahini3_t.jpg)
Start whisking. After about 10 seconds, you should notice the mixture coming together and thickening dramatically. Stop whisking.
![whisking the mixture](tahini4_t.jpg)
![the mixture thickens](tahini5_t.jpg)
Add a litte ice water and whisk again.
![adding ice water](tahini6_t.jpg)
The same thing should happen, but the mixture will be a little thinner. Continue adding little bits of ice water and whisking until you get a consistency a little thinner than ketchup. That's the sweet spot for salads, quinoa bowls and falafels.
![the finished tahini sauce](tahini7_t.jpg)
Enjoy!
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Posted: Saturday, February 6, 2016
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