March 30

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Tahini Sauce – oil-free, whole food plant based

By Laura Nunemaker

March 30, 2022


It's not easy finding whole food plant based dressings and sauces at the store. You pretty much have to make them yourself. Thankfully there are easy and delicious ones you can make in no time at all like this Tahini Sauce. If you've ever had a falafel with tahini sauce, this one is very similar.

I use tahini a lot. It's always in my pantry because it's a great way to add creaminess without adding refined oil. In the past, I consider it a necessity.

I've shared another dressing recipe, my Sweet Tahini Dressing. While I love it, especially on salads, sometimes you don't want your sauce to have any sweetness to it.

This Tahini Sauce recipe isn't sweet which makes it a bit more versatile. You can use it on a salad, a buddha bowl, in a wrap, to top baked potatoes, and more! Here's how I used this sauce recently. This is a bowl with Instant Pot steamed potatoes on the bottom, steamed kale, grape tomatoes, cooked beets, soybeans, and a little bit of chopped red onion.

Meals like this are a mix of convenience and preparation for me. I steamed the potatoes, cooked up the soybeans, and washed and prepped the kale ahead of time. The beets I bought prepackaged. When it was time to make this meal, I steamed a portion of kale in the microwave, made the sauce, and chopped the beets, tomatoes, and onions. The leftover sauce was used to make this again for another meal. If you need a meal on the go, you could easily prep the "warm" foods in one container to heat up in a microwave, keep the "cold" foods and sauce separate to top.

Plastic Mason Jar Lids

You might have notices that my little mason jar above doesn't have the standard metal lid. If you're like me, you end up with lots of mason jars with rusty, gross lids. Did you know you can get replacement plastic lids? I picked up some locally and love them!

The ones I got are Ball brand but there are loads of different options out there. You can get different colors, shaker tops, pouring lids, drinking lids, sprouting lids, and more. Now my jars all get put to good use.

Tahini Sauce

Yield: 3/4 cup
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes

Keep this simple oil-free tahini sauce on hand to drizzle on your favorite buddha bowl or salad.

Ingredients

  • 1⁄2 cup water
  • 1⁄4 cup tahini
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 large clove garlic chopped
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
  • 1⁄4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Put all ingredients in a blender cup like a Nutribullet (works better than a full pitcher, if you have it) and blend until smooth. Will keep in the fridge for about a week. Double the recipe if you end up using it often. It’s also great on salads and wraps.

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Is tahini a staple in your pantry? What are your favorite ways to use it?

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Laura Nunemaker

About the author

Meat-free since 1996. Cow petter. Former vegan bakery owner. Full-time traveler for 5 years, usually in an RV, but not always. Half of VeganRV. Instant Pot lover. Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate, Completed January 2022, eCornell and T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies