Garlic Paste Toum Recipe

Toum is a popular Middle Eastern garlic paste sauce that is often used as a substitute for mayonnaise. If you had never toum before, it is a delicious and bold, smooth, and creamy garlic sauce that can use as a spread or a dip. It is a versatile condiment that is essentially emulsified garlic. It is very garlicky with a pleasant tangy from the lemon juice. If you love garlic, this is a sauce for you. This sauce is pretty much the ultimate dream for any garlic lover because you can't get any more garlicky than this sauce.

As a family who makes many Mediterranean dishes, having a garlic paste toum recipe is essential. We often use this condiment with chicken shawarma or dipped with french fries. You can use this garlic paste toum pretty much on anything. And a great thing about making your own toum, you only need five ingredients that you most likely already have right in your kitchen.

Before you go ahead and read my garlic paste toum recipe, scroll down and read the secret to make this successful garlic paste toum.

Ingredients

4-5 Cloves Of Garlic Peeled
1/2 Small Lemon
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
1 Tablespoon Ice Water With Some Crushed Ice
1 Cup Of Neutral Oil (Grape seed oil, Sunflower Oil but you can use avocado oil or olive oil)

Directions

1. In an immersion blender cup, add garlic, lemon juice, salt, and a portion of the ice water. You will do the same thing if you will make this recipe with a food processor or a blender.

2. Blend to make sure all the ingredients are mix well. At this point, your mixture should be white in color.

3. Slowly drizzle in your oil and pulse with your immersion blender regardless of which method you are using. As you slowly add more oil and pulse, you will notice your mixture starts to have form volume. Once in awhile drizzle in some ice water. Repeat the process until you run out of oil. The whole process should take you a few minutes.

4. Once the sauce can't handle taking any more oil, transfer your toum sauce into a container and place it in the fridge. By putting it in the refrigerator it also help with forming a thicker consistency.

Tips

• You must use fresh garlic to make this recipe. You can not substitute it with garlic powder. 
• Don't skip the lemon juice. Lemon juice not only will balance out the flavor in this recipe but also act as a preservative. 
• Patience is the key. Do not rush the emulsification process. You must slowly add the oil into the mixture as the blender whip the garlic. When I say slow, I'm saying drizzle a few drops at a time slow. If you rush this process, you will end up with garlic oil.
• No fancy equipments needed. While you don't need to have any fancy equipment but they do help speed up the process. You can make this recipe with either an immersion blender, a food processor or a sauce blender. If you don't have any fancy equipment, you can make this recipe with a mortar and pestle.
• All about the oil. To make this recipe, you need to use a neutral oil because they have no taste. Some of the neutral oil includes grape seed oil, sunflower oil, canola, or vegetable oil. Traditionally, toum is made with canola or vegetable oil. I have made this recipe with avocado oil, and it turns out to be fine. Olive oil is not recommended because it has a strong flavor, and over time it will get bitter. 

3 Reasons why you would love this recipe

• This recipe is vegan friendly! Some recipes will call for egg white or yogurt to help with the consistency. With my recipe, no animal product is being used. 
• To make this recipe, you only need five ingredients, and you probably already have these ingredients right in your kitchen.
• The whole process will take less than 10 minutes.

How To Make Toum

Traditionally toum is made with mortar and pestle, but it takes a slightly longer time to make toum. If you want to shorter the time, you will need either a handheld blender, food processor, or a blender. You can make this condiment with a blender if you can open the top of your blender cup to drizzle the oil in.

To make toum, you want to blend fresh garlic with lemon juice, salt, and ice water first. Then slowly drizzle in oil, and ice water in. It will emulsify over time. If it is not emulsifying for any reason, you are probably drizzling your oil in way too fast.

If you failed the first few times, don't feel discouraged. You can still use the garlic oil in cooking to add it to your other sauces like marinara or pesto.

What do you eat toum with?

You can pretty much use it for anything from the spread on your sandwich. It has a bold garlic flavor, so as long as you want to add some garlicky taste to whatever you are eating, spread some garlic paste toum. 

Toum is often paired with vegetables, chicken, and lamb in Mediterranean cuisine. You can dip your kebab or pair it with grilled lamb shank. To be creative, you can also dip french fries in toum. It is like dipping into a garlic aioli. 

Some of the creative ways you can use this garlic paste toum include:

• Add it on top of pizza or pasta
• Add into your pesto sauce
• Spread on bread and bake it in the oven
• Dip with french fries
• Add on top of a baked potato

How To Store Your Toum and How Long It Last

There definitely will be leftovers because little of the condiment will go a long way. Leftover toum should be store in an airtight container in the fridge. You can keep toum in the refrigerator for up to 4 weeks. If you are not planning on using it for a while, you can freeze toum up to 6 months.

Is Garlic Sauce Toum Healthy?

Toum is not a low-calorie sauce because the majority of the ingredient is oil. Depends on what type of oil you use, some will be healthier than the other. Traditionally, toum is made with canola and vegetable oil. Vegetable oils are refined and highly process, which makes it less nutritious. When it comes to canola oil, unfortunately it is also a highly processed oil, making them lack in nutrients. 

To make toum healthier, shop and use oil that is certified organic, cold-pressed, unprocessed and unrefined. Under these requirements, the oil is much more nutritious and better for you.

I know a high calories spread isn't exactly what you want to eat. But the good news is toum is packed with healthy fat if you used the right oil. Plus, a little bit of the condiment goes a long way, so you don't need a whole lot to enjoy the bold flavor.

What To Do If It Failed

If, for any reason, you failed to achieve the right consistency and end up with a liquid form, don't panic and don't throw it away. You can use garlic oil and make other recipes. For example, you can add some basil to make pesto, marinara sauce, or use the oil for cooking. If you failed the first time, do not feel discouraged. Figure out why it failed and try again.