Tahiiiiinnnnniiiiiiii!

February 14, 2010 12:00 PM

What can we do with 15 or so ounces of tahini?

My girlfriend made a bunch of super delicious hummus on Friday, but now we have about 15 ounces of tahini left over. What, besides more hummus, can we make with it?

posted by notswedish to food & drink (26 answers total)

I'll be you dollars to donuts that it would be pretty excellent mixed 50/50 with peanut butter for just about any recipe that uses peanuts from thai food to PB&J sandwiches.
posted by carlh at 12:07 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can make halva!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:07 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Miso tahini nut paste for broiled vegetables. But tahini will last for some time in the fridge without going bad.
posted by crush-onastick at 12:23 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

X tbs tahini mixed with X tsp honey (where X is constant) = great toast spread
posted by Burhanistan at 12:41 PM on February 14, 2010

You can make this warm butternut squash and chickpea salad. I've made it twice and can't wait to make it again. Make sure you let the squash get really caramelized. I actually bought the jar of tahini for this dish and have been pondering what else to make with it, so thanks for asking this!
posted by HotToddy at 12:41 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Baba ghanoush!
posted by The Michael The at 12:42 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Cold Noodles with Sesame Sauce
from The Minimalist Cooks Dinner by Mark Bittman

12 oz pasta (I use soba)
2 T toasted sesame oil
1/2 cup tahini
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
tabasco or other hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste
at least 1/2 cup minced scallions

Boil and drain the noodles, then rinse in cold water. Toss with 1 tbsp of the sesame oil.
Beat together the tahini, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, and remaining tbsp oil. Add a little hot sauce, and salt and pepper if necessary.

Thin the sauce with hot water, so that it is about the consistency of heavy cream.
Toss together the noodles and the sauce. Garnish with the scallions and serve.

(It's best served right away, because the sauce can get sort of sandy when refrigerated, but if you add a little more hot water it'll become smooth again.)
posted by palliser at 12:43 PM on February 14, 2010 [4 favorites]

Goddess dressing!
posted by miss tea at 12:46 PM on February 14, 2010

In this episode of the Splendid Table she answers your questions in the Trivia/Calls section. You can listen to just that section. I don't recall what her answers were but I know she gave it a good couple of minutes.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 12:57 PM on February 14, 2010

i would like to strongly second the halva suggestion. Halva is basically the greatest thing.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:13 PM on February 14, 2010

Save it in the fridge for your next batch of hummus?
posted by special-k at 1:24 PM on February 14, 2010

Spread it on bread, with honey. Great for breakfast.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:33 PM on February 14, 2010

Make armenian tahini rolls - like cinnamon rolls, but less sweet and more delicious.
posted by donnagirl at 1:41 PM on February 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mix with lemon and olive oil, spread over a fish filet, top with sliced onion, and bake. Classic Middle Eastern dish.
posted by neroli at 2:14 PM on February 14, 2010

I can second Hot Toddy's butternut squash and chickpea recipe. Nom nom nom.
posted by kestrel251 at 2:14 PM on February 14, 2010

I don't even put it in the fridge. As long as it has a layer of oil it'll last pretty much forever. Hummus and falafel sauce are all I make with my jars, and it takes me at least a couple years to go through one. I'm still healthy.
posted by rhizome at 2:20 PM on February 14, 2010

You can use it wherever you would normally use peanut butter: in sauces, dressings, and in sandwiches.
posted by salvia at 2:36 PM on February 14, 2010

Seconding hummus and the on-bread-with-honey suggestion. But here's something else: you can make a spicy sauce for meaty (ground lamb), chickeny, or even white-fishy oven dishes.
Example chicken fillets:
Preheat the oven to just above medium hot (210 degrees C, 410 degrees F).
Dilute some tomato puree with water (or take one cup of canned chopped tomatoes), add salt, oregano, ground cumin, some hot pepper flakes (one can really use whatever one has at home in this genre, but perhaps not too much) and pressed garlic. Cover the bottom of a flat oven dish with this mixture. Then squish some horizontally sliced-in-half chicken fillets into the tomato sauce.

Now, blend half a cup of tahini with roughly the same amount of water. The absorbing properties of tahini can vary. Also the total amount depends a little on how wide the dish is and how many fillets you're doing. What you want is a creamy, just pourable consistency. Add some salt, perhaps some spices (and, if you're cooking white fish instead: some lemon juice); but the tomato-gunk is already spiced, so some judgment must be used here.

Spread this mixture evenly across the whole chicken surface, and pour some olive oil on top.

All this goes into the oven for c. 40 minutes (fish fillets c. 30-35, minced lamb 45 or 50), or until it gets too brown.

What struck me as unexpected with this method was that the chicken remained reasonably soft to the bite even when completely and utterly done.
posted by Namlit at 3:12 PM on February 14, 2010

If you put a bit of tahini in a bowl, add a tiny driblet of cold water and stir, you will find it gets thicker. Do it again and it will get thicker still. Keep doing this, stirring until all the water disappears each time, and it will eventually stop getting thicker and start getting creamy. Once it's about the texture of dairy cream, stop adding water and just start whipping the bejeezus out of it, just as if you were making whipped cream. You'll find that the tahini+water "cream" does in fact stiffen just like dairy cream when whipped. You'll also find that once it is whipped, it's delicious.

If you use soy sauce instead of water during the original thickening-up phase, you'll end up with something even more delicious that you can use in most places that call for mayonnaise.
posted by flabdablet at 4:17 PM on February 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

tahini + honey + cinnamon (on toast)
posted by prettypretty at 4:39 PM on February 14, 2010

Make a tahinopita! Which is a tahini cake.
posted by liketitanic at 5:27 PM on February 14, 2010

I mix it 60/40 with butter (60 T / 40 B) - sesame butter.
posted by megatherium at 5:59 PM on February 14, 2010

I like to combine a few tablespoons tahini with a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder, a bit of agave, and a dash of water. Mix until it makes a fluffy chocolate sauce and dip dates, almonds, or berries in it. Yum!
posted by mynameisluka at 6:10 PM on February 14, 2010

Spicy Sesame Noodles
(same idea as palliser, different recipe- I've been tweaking this one for a while and am quite fond of it)

3 Tbs Tahini
3 Tbs Soy Sauce
3 Tbs Rice Vinegar (use the darker variety)
2 Tbs spicy sesame oil
1.5 tps Cayenne Pepper
1/4 Cup water

Mix, pour over angel hair pasta (I've used Soba, and honestly the difference is minimal), toss in a protein (I'm fond of Seitan for this actually), 1/4 cup chopped peanuts and some chopped (three stalks worth) scallions.

Very spicy, very delicious. If you're not a spicy person, decrease the chili oil and cayenne.

Pickled Chinese veggies work even better than the scallions.
posted by Hactar at 12:10 AM on February 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Smashed Chickpea Salad

Szechuan-style Baked Tofu...but I should warn that I tried this a while back and was very underwhelmed. I need to tweak it for more flavor.
posted by ifjuly at 1:27 PM on February 15, 2010

Tahinisalata either with halloumi, as per the link, or just a tasty alternative to houmous.

Tahini Chicken.
posted by Quantum's Deadly Fist at 6:22 AM on February 18, 2010