What is Tahini?
The Arabi Pantry
What is Tahini?
طحينة
Sesame, ground until it confesses everything. Half of hummus is in this jar.
You are looking at tahini's greatest hit.
Tahini is nothing but sesame seeds ground to a pourable paste — and like olive oil or chocolate, that 'nothing but' hides an entire craft. The seeds are hulled and toasted (lightly, or the paste turns bitter), then stone-ground until the oil releases and the texture goes silk. Good tahini pours slowly off a spoon, tastes nutty with a pleasant whisper of bitterness, and never needs sugar to be interesting.
It is the quiet workhorse of the whole cuisine: half the flavor of hummus, the entire backbone of the sauce on your falafel, the smoke-softener in baba ghanouj, and — beaten with lemon, garlic and water — the white sauce (tarator) that follows grilled fish and shawarma everywhere they go.
How to use it
- The generous half of real hummus
- Tarator sauce: tahini + lemon + garlic + cold water, whisked to silk — for falafel and grilled anything
- The fold in baba ghanouj
- A sweet turn: drizzled over dates with a crumb of halva
The Jar Itself
The jar that's in half the recipes on this site.
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Questions people actually ask
Why does tahini separate in the jar?
The sesame oil rises — it's a sign of a natural paste, not a flaw. Stir it back down with a butter knife (or store the jar upside down for a day and let gravity do the work).
What's the difference between good and bad tahini?
Seed quality and roast. Bad tahini is thick, chalky, and aggressively bitter; good tahini pours, tastes nutty, and finishes clean. A thin bitter tahini makes a thin bitter hummus — the jar matters more than any other single choice.
Is tahini the same as sesame paste in Asian cooking?
Cousins, not twins — Chinese sesame paste uses unhulled, deeply roasted seeds and tastes much darker. For hummus and tarator you want Middle Eastern tahini from hulled, lightly toasted seeds.