Elevate your salads, veggies, bowls, and more with this vibrant and creamy lemon tahini dressing. Packed with zesty lemon, nutty tahini, digestive spices, and the perfect hint of garlic, it's a healthy and versatile condiment you'll crave all week.
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Why This Recipe Works
While commercial dressings may seem convenient, they are packed with unhealthy ingredients like excessive sugar and salt, unhealthy fats, artificial flavors, preservatives, and thickeners. These additives make your salad (or any other food they are used with) unhealthy, but can also negatively impact your overall health. It's time to ditch the store-bought bottles and make this tasty lemon tahini dressing with real food ingredients. Here are some other reasons you will love to make this recipe over and over.
- The Flavor Combination is Unbeatable: Lemon's bright, citrusy tang perfectly balances tahini's rich, nutty flavor. Digestive spices like cumin and black pepper add an extra layer of warmth and flavor complexity to this lemon tahini dressing.
- It's Incredibly Versatile: This dressing isn't just for salads! It's delicious as a dip for fresh vegetables, a sauce for grilled meats or fish, or a flavorful addition to grain bowls.
- It Offers Nutritional Benefits: Lemon provides vitamin C, tahini is rich in calcium and minerals, and the spices boast anti-inflammatory properties. This dressing is a delicious way to sneak extra healthy ingredients into your meals.
Ingredients
This lemon tahini dressing uses all the real ingredients.
- Tahini: This has a naturally thick, luscious texture that creates the perfect foundation for a creamy dressing. It blends smoothly with other ingredients, delivering a rich consistency without relying on dairy or heavy oils.s
- Lemon Juice: The acidity of lemon juice is crucial for proper emulsification of the dressing. It helps to bind the tahini and other ingredients together, creating a smooth, creamy texture.
- Maple Syrup: This adds a gentle sweetness that balances the lemon's tanginess and the tahini's slight bitterness. It rounds out the flavor profile.
- Flavoring and Spices: Garlic's sharp, fresh flavor adds depth and prevents the dressing from becoming overly sweet or bland. Cumin's warm, earthy note with a hint of smokiness adds subtle complexity and works beautifully with the nuttiness of tahini and the brightness of lemon. Cinnamon adds an unexpected layer of warmth and sweetness. Black pepper provides a subtle bite and a touch of heat.
- Filtered Water: While tahini has some emulsifying properties, water plays a role in helping to fully bind the ingredients together, creating a smooth and homogenous dressing. This also helps replace oil in this dressing.
- See the recipe card for quantities.
How to make lemon tahini dressing
If you have the ingredients at hand, this lemon tahini dressing can be made in 5-10 minutes in just one step.
Add all the ingredients to a wet spice grinder and grind to a smooth consistency.
Hint: If possible, ditch the big blender! A small wet spice grinder is perfect for this dressing, minimizing waste and cleanup. I always use this dry-and-wet spice grinder (affiliate link) to clean the grill.
Substitutions
While this lemon tahini dressing tastes great just as is, the following ingredients can be substituted with a slightly different taste profile.
- Tahini -instead of tahini, you can use sunflower seed butter.
- Lemon Juice - use an equal amount of fresh lime juice.
- Maple Syrup - either use half-to-one date (pre-soak in warm water for 5 minutes if hard) or 2 tsp of date syrup. I have not tried it, but 2 tsp of raisins should also work. Presoak the raisins to
Equipment
Having the right type of blender/grinder is super important to keep it easy and doable to make any dressings frequently. While you can make this recipe in a blender, my go-to kitchen appliance for this recipe is this wet/dry grinder that not only makes the recipes, but also works as a storage container.
Variations
You can make the following variations of this recipe:
- Ditch the spices and make the basic lemon tahini dressing.
- Add 1/2 tsp of minced ginger and 1/4 tsp of ground turmeric to increase the health quotient of this dressing.
Storage and Meal Planning
Since you can use this lemon tahini dressing on salads, bowls, and as a dip, make the amount that would fit all of your meals. Here are some meal-planning tips with the dressing:
- Make as much as you would use on different types of meals within five days.
- Store in an airtight container for up to five days in the refrigerator.
Lemeon Tahini Dressing Storage Tip
This dressing stores well for up to five days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You can freeze it for up to four weeks and thaw it overnight in the refrigerator. However, remember that the frozen dressing, after thawing, comes out a bit watery.
Frequently Asked Questions
This lemon tahini dressing tends to become thick in consistency. Add a couple of teaspoons of water and lemon juice to dilute and stir well with a fork. To keep the flavor intact, add half water and half fresh lemon juice.
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Pairing
Pair this lemon tahini dressing with salads, bowls, and veggies.
Lemon Tahini Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 4 tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed, ~ 1 large lemon
- 2 tsp maple syrup
- 1/3 clove garlic increase to 1/2 for extra garlicky dressing
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp black pepper or to taste
- 1/4 tsp sea salt or to taste
- 1/3 cup filtered water
Instructions
- Wash the lemon and garlic. Juice the lemon.
- Add all the ingredients to a wet and dry grinder and blend. Finely mince the garlic and whisk all the ingredients in a wide-mouth bowl to make it without the grinder. Enjoy!
Notes
- This recipe makes around 10 tbsp of lemon tahini dressing.
- If you want the dressing consistency to be thinner, add 2-3 tsps of water.
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