How to make tahini, homemade sesame sauce

Tahini is a very versatile sesame cream: one of the fundamental ingredients for making hummus.

Ready to prepare tahini together, the sesame sauce used for hummus ? This sauce is very simple to make, and is made up of two main ingredients: sesame and oil. To tell the truth, it is much more versatile than you think, and thanks to its creaminess it can become a really interesting condiment for vegetables, salads or sandwiches of all kinds.

Try making it at home and you will see that it will be completely different from the ready -made ones. So, what are we waiting for? Let's go to the kitchen now!

How to make tahini sauce: the original recipe

1. Take the sesame seeds and sauté them in a non-stick pan without adding seasoning or toast them in the oven at 180°C for 5-10 minutes . Be very careful, this phase is delicate: you will have to be good at browning the sesame without letting it burn or dry out too much, otherwise it will not release oil and will be too bitter on the palate. So, pay extra attention and use low heat.
2. Once done, take the toasted seeds and put them in the blender and blend them until you obtain a sort of flour .
3. From this moment on, continue to blend the mixture, slowly adding the sesame oil . As an alternative to sesame oil you can use rice or sunflower oil, as long as it is very light so as not to alter the final taste.
4. Add a pinch of salt and continue blending until the sauce becomes nice and creamy . The amount of oil you will need to reach the right consistency may vary, so be careful and do not pour all the oil into the blender straight away.

And here is a video recipe very similar to our preparation, with some ideas for using the sauce:

Now that you know all the secrets of this preparation, also try making babaganoush , the delicious and perfect aubergine sauce to serve during an appetizer or a buffet at home !

storage

You can store purchased and opened tahini for about 3 months in a cool, dry place , away from sources of light or heat. Storage times double if stored in the refrigerator. However, if you have prepared tahini at home we recommend leaving it in the refrigerator, in a container with a lid, and consuming it within 2 months . We do not recommend freezing in the freezer.

Origins of tahini

Tahini sauce boasts very ancient origins: the first documented recipe seems to have been discovered in a 13th century Arab document . It is not surprising that this vegetable sauce spread to Greece, Turkey, North Africa and the Near East: these regions in fact cultivated sesame in abundance and these seeds have been used since ancient times. The plant was already cultivated then, so much so that sesame is considered one of the oldest known condiments .