Garlic Sauce

If you’re looking for something to give any dish a hit of flavor, then this Garlic Sauce aka Toum will be right up your street. A traditional middle eastern condiment, Garlic Sauce Recipe is basically an amazing garlic sauce that adds flavor to so many dishes. Perfect to have on hand when you need a satisfying sauce to enhance your meal.

 

Why make Toum Lebanese Garlic Sauce?

If you love the flavor of fresh garlic, then garlic sauce is for you. This traditional Lebanese and middle eastern condiment can give your meal quite a spice kick from all the fresh garlic used.

It’s quite similar to garlic mayonnaise but has a stronger garlic flavor and is traditionally cooked without eggs – yay, it’s vegan too! With all these amazing reasons to try making this garlic sauce, what are you waiting for?

I use it endlessly! It’s made of only 4 ingredients and I’m sharing a video plus tips and troubleshooting.

Garlic Sauce Recipe

This is quite a quick recipe to make, made easy with the use of a food processor. Follow the instructions, and you’ll have a great Toum sauce you can enjoy with all your dishes in no time.

I was inspired to make this recipe into a video after learning it from my friend Cosette who makes the BEST Toum. I have adapted and adjusted her recipe just a little bit because I end up needing half the recipe she makes. Halving recipes can be a bit tricky.

I haven’t had much success halving her recipe, so I played a bit with ingredients ratios and it worked for me this way! Whenever I need the FULL recipe I’ll use Cosette’s recipe, and when I need just half of it, I’ll use the one below 🙂

Check out her post and detailed connection of her Lebanese heritage and Toum 🙂 

Garlic Sauce Ingredients

Each ingredient here has an immense role in your recipe. While they’re simple basic and only 4 ingredients, together they create a garlic sauce recipe you’ll fall in LOVE with like no other!

1. Garlic : Make sure the garlic is fresh and peeled. Fresh garlic is tastier of course, but more importantly, it has a crunch and texture that breaks down beautifully to create the sauce.
2. Lemon Juice : It’s tasty and adds tang to the balance the strong garlic flavors, but most importantly as well, it stabilized and thickens the sauce.
3. Salt : Always use Kosher or sea salt because they help break down the garlic and don’t have a strong or salty after taste in your Toum recipe. 
4. Oil : While I love olive oil ( I even love Olive Oil Cake and Olive Oil Pasta) , I have to say that a neutral oil here is all you can use. This is the only way the garlic flavors can shine so beautifully! 

How To Use Garlic Sauce?

• As a salad dressing or sauce in this Baked Salmon With Greek Dressing
• Marinades such as Lamb Gyro Recipe
• Pizza topping for No Knead Overnight Pizza Dough
• No cook pizza sauce flavoring for Pizza Sauce recipe.
• Dips like Tartar Sauce Recipe with Calamari
• Overall the best way to add intense garlic flavor without bits of garlic in your recipe!

How to Make Garlic Sauce

Firstly peel the garlic cloves and then place your peeled garlic into a food processor with a drizzle of oil and kosher salt. Process your garlic down until it’s a very smooth garlic paste.

To get your garlic well and truly broken down, you will need to continually stop the food processor and scrape down the sides of the food processor, and the garlic will keep sticking to the sides.

Once you have gotten your garlic to a pulp-like consistency, it’s time to start adding the oil and lemon to the garlic mixture.

To do this, you need to keep your food processor running while you add the oil and the lemon juice. You add these two ingredients in bits at a time. So you’ll slowly drizzle a small bit of your oil and then a small bit of your lemon.

Keep doing this with the processor running until you’ve added all of your oil and lemon to the mixture.

Once you’ve completed this last step, you should be left with a lovely smooth and creamy garlic sauce you can serve right away with whatever you are eating. Or store in an airtight container for later use.

It’s a good idea to give your garlic sauce a quick taste check before serving. You may want to add some extra salt and pepper for personal flavor.

Troubleshooting your garlic sauce recipe

If you find your Toum sauce hasn’t quite come together properly and doesn’t have the right consistency, there is a really easy way to fix it, so you don’t waste your ingredients, and you still get a lovely creamy garlic sauce.

That basically has to do with the emulsion process. The process of integrating the oil into the garlic mixture into one smooth emulsion is where most of the trouble happens. So if the mixture isn’t thick and creamy you’ve probably had one of the following issues:

• Your garlic was NOT fresh. 
• The garlic didn’t break down enough before proceeding with the oil.
• You didn’t add the oil in a slow steady stream, rather you rushed this step.
• The lemon juice was late to go in the mixture.
• Your food processor isn’t strong enough to break down the garlic. You really need to break it down at the initial step only, but during the oil stream you won’t require a strong processor.
• Alternatively, you may want to break down the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle until smooth, and then proceed with the food provessor.
• You’ve used a food processor that’s too big or too small for the recipe. For this amount of garlic sauce you can use anywhere between a 7 -9 cup food processor.

To Fix the Garlic sauce recipe:

Firstly take your mixture out of the food processor and set it aside. Then add an egg white into the food processor, and with it running, very slowly add the garlic oil lemon juice mixture to the egg white.

Here you’re creating a new emulsion using egg whites. From this, you should get a really good consistency you can enjoy.

Cooking tips for creamy garlic sauce

1. The mincing of the garlic before starting the oil drizzle is crucial. For that you need to make sure of a few things. 
2. First of all, use fresh garlic. Don’t use the store peeled garlic, frozen garlic or old garlic.
3. If your food processor isn’t strong enough to mince the garlic well before adding in the oil, you can use a mortar and pestle.
4. Make sure you use the correct size food processor as this will affect the sauce as well. For todays recipe, you can use a 7-9 cup food processor. If doubling the recipe, you’ll need the 10-13cup.
5. Make sure you constantly scrape down the sides of the food processor when you are processing the fresh garlic. Your fresh garlic needs to be broken down into a pulp-like consistency. It will keep sticking to the sides of your food processor before it gets to this stage. If you don’t do this, you won’t get your garlic into a paste.
6. Ensure you add your oil to the food processor slowly. If you do it too fast, then you will risk the sauce not coming together properly.
7. Always alternate the lemon juice during the oil streaming, this will thicken the garlic sauce.
8. It’s better to avoid olive oil in this recipe as it can give your Toum garlic sauce a strong flavor. A mild oil such as sunflower oil works great with this recipe.
9. Make sure you read the troubleshooting section!

Toum sauce FAQ’s

How long will my Toum recipe last?

Your Toum sauce can last weeks so long as you keep it stored in the fridge with a lid on. I love that you can make it, and you can have it when you need it for weeks afterward.

However, if you used eggs to fix a Toum recipe that didn’t go to plan, it won’t last anywhere near as long. You’ve got about three days to enjoy it before you’d need to throw it away.

How should I store my Toum sauce?

To ensure your Toum sauce stays nice and fresh, you should store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

What can I use Toum sauce with?

What’s so great about Toum garlic sauce is that it is so versatile. It goes with so many dishes to enhance them. It’s great on sandwiches and meats. Perfect for shwarma, kebabs, or falafels to give them some spice and sauce. It’s also great used in salad dressings, on pizza, or even to saute vegetables in.

There really is no end to the foods you can enjoy it with, so experimenting using it with the things you like could go a long way.

Is Toum recipe gluten-free?

Yes, Toum is gluten-free. It contains no ingredients that have gluten in it. It’s also dairy-free.

Do I need a food processor to make Toum?

Using a food processor is definitely needed with this garlic sauce recipe. Especially for the part where you add the oil as the sauce won’t come together without one. You can use a mortar and pestle to pulp the garlic, but this would take quite a lot of effort on your part.

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