To be perfectly honest with y’all, the very first time I tried tahini, I wasn’t sold. I didn’t like the taste of it, and I couldn’t ever picture myself liking it. I’m a massive fan of peanut butter and other nut butters, and since tahini appears to be similar to peanut butter, I thought it would taste similar, as well. Well guess what? It doesn’t. I’m not a quitter, though, and I wasn’t going to give up on tahini just like that. Instead, I tried a taste of it again the next day, and I found that it wasn’t actually as bad as I had thought! After that, I kept trying it again and again, until I finally came to my senses and realized that it’s actually pretty darn good! In fact, tahini is quickly making its way up to the top on my list of favorite foods!
What Is Tahini?
So what in the world is tahini, you might ask? Tahini is a paste made from grinding up sesame seeds until they’re smooth and creamy, just like the consistency of peanut butter or almond butter. Unlike nut butters, though, tahini isn’t sweet at all and has almost a bit of a bitter factor to it on top of the nutty flavor. Most often, it’s used in Middle Eastern or Mediterranean dishes like hummus, but don’t let that fool you – there are actually several different ways to use tahini in your everyday lives. Aside from hummus, here are some fun ways to use tahini:
- Salad dressings
- Pasta sauces
- Slathered on toast
- Used in baked goods (such as brownies, cookies, or banana bread).
- Used as a tip for carrots, pretzels, or pitas
- Drizzled on top of roasted veggies, chicken, burgers, falafels, or salmon
- Eating it straight from the jar, just like peanut butter!
Tahini is so incredibly versatile in the ways it can be used, and I’ve been having so much fun experimenting with new ways to use it. And the more I use it in my recipes, the more I grow to love it.
What Does It Taste Like?
As I mentioned before, tahini has a very nutty flavor to it, almost toward the bitter side. Tahini adds tons of creaminess and tang to foods, nuttiness to hummus and dips, and also does a great job of binding ingredients together, such as burgers or desserts. You can certainly eat tahini all by itself or drizzle it on top of other foods for more flavor and texture, but if you pair it with something acidic (lemon juice or apple cider vinegar) and something sweet (like honey or maple syrup), it takes things up to a whole new level and adds spectacular flavor to the dish.
Where Do I Find It?
If you’ve never heard of tahini before, you may think it’s some crazy ingredient that’s really hard to find in stores. But surprisingly enough, it’s actually sold in most grocery stores today, making it incredibly easy to find. Personally, I’ve seen store-brand versions of it in all of the grocery stores where I shop (Kroger, Fresh Thyme, Meijer, etc.), as well as in Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other specialty grocery stores.
My Favorite Tahini:
My absolute favorite tahini of all time is Soom Tahini, and unfortunately, it isn’t found (yet) in grocery stores (unless you’re in the Philadelphia area). Luckily, it is found online on their website, and it’s also available on Amazon, so I highly recommend you test it out! And why is Soom my favorite, you might ask? For starters, it’s made from one ingredient only: sesame seeds. It doesn’t have any additional oils or salt added to it, which is just the way that it should be! Second of all, Soom tahini is sooooo silky smooth and runny, making it easy to drizzle on top of things or use in recipes. Some tahini can be super thick and chunky, making it taste funny in my opinion, but Soom is definitely not like that. At all.
Now back to the good stuff: this recipe! Today, the temperatures got well into the mid-90s here in Michigan, and tomorrow we’re supposed to hit 98, making the thought of eating anything hot or warm absolutely repulsive. Therefore, I had to come up with some cool foods to make for dinner, which led me to this curried carrot salad with tahini dressing.
I’ve worked with tahini enough to know that it has a very nutty and robust flavor, and that it doesn’t have the sweetness factor that some nut butters offer. Therefore, I wanted to combine the nutty and tanginess of the tahini with something a little sweet and acidic to give it the perfect balance of flavor. Luckily, I didn’t need many ingredients to do that, and they were all very common ingredients that I always keep stocked in my kitchen.
Whenever I make salads with a dressing, I always like to mix all of the salad components up first, and then I’ll add the dressing. This way, everything in the salad gets evenly coated with dressing, and nobody gets left out.
The dressing took me about 2 minutes to whip up, and once it was ready, I poured it right on top of the carrot salad and mixed everything up so it was evenly coated.
After that, I stuck it in the fridge for a few hours and let it cool down a little before dishing it out to eat. Once it had been chilling for a few hours and I just couldn’t wait any longer, I pulled it from the fridge, sprinkled it with some sesame seeds for additional texture, and then dove right in. Not only did the salad taste much better when it was chilled, but doing this also gave the flavors more time to blend together, making the dish more pronounced in flavor.
This dish ended up being extremely light and fresh, making it the perfect summer meal. It was still very filling, but not in a way that fills you up and makes you so uncomfortable to move. In terms of flavor, it was totally spot-on. A little tangy, a little sweet, a little bitter, and full of spice, yet everything came together perfectly. And texture? This dish had plenty of that: chewiness from the raisins, and crunch from the carrots and seeds (both pumpkin and sesame).
If you’re looking for a refreshing summer dish that doesn’t take long to make, then this is perfect for you. It’s also a perfect way to try out tahini for the first time, or if you’ve had it before, experiment with tahini in new ways!
Curry Carrot Salad with Tahini Dressing
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup + 1 TBSP tahini
- 1-2 TBSP curry powder based on taste preference
- ¼ cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
- 2 TBSP maple syrup
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ¼ tsp. each salt and black pepper
- 1 10-ounce bag matchstick carrots
- 1 cup golden raisins
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
- 1 TBSP nutritional yeast optional, or Parmesan cheese, if not dairy-free
- 2 TBSP sesame seeds
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the tahini, lemon juice, maple syrup, curry powder, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
- Add the carrots, raisins, and pumpkin seeds to a large bowl and gently toss. Pour the dressing over top and mix well. Top with nutritional yeast (or Parmesan), and mix once more.
- Refrigerate the mixture for at least 2 hours, or overnight for best results.
- Once ready to serve, add the sesame seeds and mix everything up. Serve chilled.
