Recipe: D.I.Y. Tahini

Tahini is a major ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking, and it forms part of the standard recipe for many dips and spreads like hummus and baba ghanoush.

In the Middle East, tahini is just a paste of oil and lightly toasted sesame seeds. With a good food processor or blender it's a snap to make, and it will keep for a month or so in the fridge. We like to make a big batch to have on hand for impromptu hummus production.

D.I.Y. Tahini
about 2 cups

2 cups white sesame seeds
1/4 cup olive oil

Heat a heavy wide-bottomed sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the sesame seeds and toast lightly - about 2 minutes, shaking the pan so they toast evenly. Let cool completely.

Put in a food processor and drizzle in the olive oil. Pulse for 3-5 minutes, or until it's as smooth as you can get it. Add a little more olive oil if necessary. Refrigerate.

Comments (13)

Thanks! I hate buying a huge tin of tahini just to use a little bit in homemade hummus.

I fourth - but where do you get 2 cups of sesame seeds that's not outrageously expensive??

Good question - I almost put something about that in the article. Asian and sometimes Indian groceries sell sesame seeds in big bags for about the same amount of money as those tiny jars in the spice aisle at the supermarket. I think I paid about $5 for a bag with 3-4 cups of seeds in it.

Tahini should be a toasted sesame seed paste and out of the jar looks exactly like peanut butter (I don't know what that photo is).
Your recipe is a good one, though I'd recommend using only a tablespoon of sesame oil to get the right consistency for the sesame seed paste. Chances are buying good tahini at your local international grocery will cost you less than the sesame seeds, and be of better consistency.

Commercially made tahini separates the bran from the kernel and only grinds the kernel, which is why it is so smooth and thin. At home you're grinding both the bran and the kernel in a home food processor that isn't as powerful, so the resulting tahini looks gritty and sticky, like in the photo. It's more like thick peanut butter with small flecks of the bran.

I've used both homemade and storebought, thinner, tahini in hummus and baba ghanoush and the taste and texture are virtually identical - although I find leaving the bran in sometimes gives a more subtly nutty flavor.

I've made tahini at home with completely intact sesame seeds, in a coffee grinder with a blade and bowl that detached and could be washed. It came out beautifully, but I would probably not do it in a standard one-piece coffee grinder.

Costco sells sesame seeds for cheap.

Here's a blog post showing that homemade tahini is half the price of storebought: http://bit.ly/fvy5n3

I just purchase a bag of sesame seeds for $4 that holds about 4 cups. A 8 oz container of tahini at the store was $5.99. I would definitely say making my own is cheaper and less wasteful as I never use the entire container up before it goes bad.

raw sesame seeds can be purchased from swad distributed by rajafoods.com which will help you find a local store. i have been buying their products for years. the 14 oz. pkg costs about 2.50 near me. most stores that carry the swad line are either indian (asian), or asian, african or middle eastern. hope this helps.