Traditional Toum (Lebanese Garlic Sauce) Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Lebanese garlic sauce made of? ›

Toum is a bold and creamy Middle Eastern garlic sauce made of garlic, oil, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt with just a little bit of water. You can make this in a snap with the a help of a food processor and one important technique.

Alternating oil and water will yield a fluffy, thick, and stable garlic sauce. Add more oil for a thicker and milder spread or garlic dip, less for a more pungent and free-flowing sauce.

Next, slice the garlic cloves in half lengthwise and remove the germ inside, which is a little green stem. Removing this ensures the toum does not come out bitter, so don't skip this step.

One of the big reasons that your toum is thin is because your ingredients got too warm while processing. All you need to do is take a tablespoon of ice cold water and drizzle it into the processor while it is on. Let it process and watch it thicken up. If it is still not thick enough, add another tablespoon of water.

Meaning of toum in English

a sauce from the eastern Mediterranean, made from garlic, lemon juice, and oil: Toum is a fantastic accompaniment for grilled meats. You can use toum in most dishes that require crushed garlic.

It's a great source of antioxidants; it also has anti-inflammatory properties. Some studies have shown that eating garlic may help lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So toum is not only tasty, but it's also good for you.

Do be sure to use the freshest garlic you can find: Older garlic tends to result is a very spicy toum. If your toum is too spicy at first, it should mellow out after a couple of days in the fridge.

If you keep it in an airtight container, this garlic sauce will last 3-4 months in the fridge! After that time, the strength of the garlic will start to fade.

Toum's aggressive flavor is best paired with ingredients that can compete—grilled meats are the obvious choice, but the sauce can be mashed into charred eggplant to make a dip or drizzled over roasted vegetables. Anything that needs a hit of garlic and acid will be better with toum.

Spices mask bitter flavors, so don't be shy. Add some spicy peppers or powders to your cooking, or sprinkle some onto your dishes for a little bit of extra heat. Black pepper in particular has compounds that counteract bitterness. Some other great spices include cayenne, red pepper, paprika, and chili powder.

Why does my garlic sauce taste bitter? ›

When garlic tastes bitter when added at the end of making a pasta sauce, it's often due to overcooking or burning the garlic. Garlic contains natural sugars that caramelize and sweeten when cooked gently, but when it's cooked too long or at too high a temperature, these sugars can turn into bitter compounds.

In the Lebanese city of Zagarta, fresh mint leaves are often included, and it is called zeit wa tum ("oil and garlic"). Toum sauce differs from aioli in the proportion of garlic added, which is much higher in the case of toum.

However, if your toum breaks, you can take 1 egg white and add it to a small amount of your broken toum, add into food processor, then continue to stream the rest of your broken toum. This should help to bring it back together. However, note your toum should only be used for 2 weeks if egg was added.

If the mixture didn't get fluffy and looks more liquid, it's possibly that it didn't emulsify. I would recommend adding 1-2 boiled potatoes to the food processor and allowing the potato to help emulsify it. In that case though, be sure to only store the garlic sauce no more than 7-10 days.

Add some lemon juice if the recipe allows. Add some cane sugar, maple syrup or honey to the lemon juice if necessary to reduce the acidity. Lemon juice not only reduces the 'heat', or 'bite' and breath-smell of garlic but also softens the taste.

A very simple garlic sauce can be made by adding crushed or minced garlic to strained yogurt, mayonnaise or sour cream. Lemon juice, salt, pepper and herbs such as dill can be used to impart additional flavour.

In the Lebanese city of Zagarta, fresh mint leaves are often included, and it is called zeit wa tum ("oil and garlic"). Toum sauce differs from aioli in the proportion of garlic added, which is much higher in the case of toum.

A thick garlic sauce, aioli is a traditional condiment in the cuisine of Provence, France, and Catalonia, Spain. True aioli is an emulsion created with just garlic and extra virgin olive oil. This makes the common menu item, “garlic aioli,” rather redundant.

Toum is made from fresh garlic but also emulsified with oil, slightly preserving it. To err on the side of safety, it should be consumed within a month and stored in a sealed container in the fridge. You may also portion out into smaller containers and freeze up to 6 months.