Toum Garlic Sauce

Toum is a creamy garlic sauce popular in the Levant region. Often spread over pita bread to make shawarma wraps, or served with shish tawook, grilled chicken, roast chicken, or served as a dip with fries. Just like mayo, it’s an emulsion of oil deeply flavored with garlic and a hint of lemon and salt.

Garlic Sauce Recipe

You probably had this special sauce at your favorite Lebanese restaurant with grilled chicken. Or maybe got it in 2 small plastic containers as you ordered a Lebanese take-out. Good news, you can make this at home in a bigger quantity.!

Toum is a condiment and a dip, the pungent and raw garlic in this sauce gives a real garlicky kick that makes your food taste amazing!

When I cook, I always think of condiments and what goes well with my meal. Condiments are very important as they enhance and balance flavors, and I have a full recipe collection for just sauces, dressings, and homemade seasonings. So make sure to check it out!

Speaking of condiments and Middle Eastern cuisine, you will love this homemade hummus recipe, my favorite baba ganoush, and this vibrant muhammara dip. And of course, this delicious toum sauce!

There are many versions of this garlic sauce, some use milk powder, other use egg whites. But my recipe here is vegan, and it only requires 4 simple ingredients. The success of this recipe relies on the technique, but it’s super simple and I’ll explain it below.

What is Toum

Toum or Toom in Arabic means garlic. This garlic sauce is often referred to as toum, tawmeyeh, or mutawama depending on the country and the dialect.

It’s common to the Levant region, and can usually be found at Shawarma shops and Levantine restaurants. It’s not something that you can buy at the grocery store though, so many people just make their own homemade garlic sauce.

Sometimes Toum is confused with aioli, but it has a different flavor and texture. Toum garlic sauce is creamy but has a gel-like texture rather than a mayo-like creaminess.

PS. The image above is showing a double batch. You don’t need that much garlic to make a single batch of Toum.

What Goes in Garlic Sauce

You only need 4 simple ingredients!

• Garlic – go for garlic that is fresh, and firm. If you slice a clove of garlic, and there’s a green sprout or germ, make sure to remove it as it will add bitterness to the sauce.
• Lemon – you will need the juice of a lemon, about 3 tablespoons.
• Neutral tasting oil – I used sunflower oil for this recipe, but you can use corn oil, canola, safflower, vegetable, or any neutral-tasting oil that you have (avoid olive oil). For my recipe, you need a cup and a half and that’s around 350ml in total.
• Salt – just a teaspoon of table or sea salt to help break down the garlic and bring out the flavors. Use double of the amount if using kosher salt.

How to Make Toum Garlic Sauce

Traditionally garlic sauce was made using a pestle and mortar, but as we now have food processors, that is a much easier method that gives us consistent results. However, a blender or an immersion blender is not recommended. I also found that this garlic sauce works best when using a smaller food processor.

• Peel the fresh garlic, place it in the bowl of the food processor. Add salt, half of the lemon, and about 2 tablespoons of the oil.
• Blend the peeled garlic until it’s minced and becomes quite creamy like a smooth paste or puree. This is very important for the emulsion to begin. Make sure that it’s not just minced garlic sitting in oil, but it needs to be “creamed”. Scrape down the sides with a spatula.
• Blend again, and keep the food processor on. Then with a steady hand, SLOWLY stream in the oil alternating with the rest of the lemon juice. This is very important. Keep adding the oil until you run out and the sauce is creamy like in the pictures below. The whole process takes about 10 minutes, so take your time and don’t add the oil at once as that can break the emulsion.
• Taste the sauce, and see if you need to add more salt. Blend for 5-10 seconds, and that’s it, your creamy garlic sauce is ready!

What to Serve Toum Garlic Sauce With?

If you haven’t had this garlic sauce before, you might be wondering what can you pair it with. I like to think of it as aioli or a flavorful mayonnaise. It has a different texture to mayo, but it’s still quite creamy and can be easily spread over flatbread or naan.

Below are a few great ideas:

• Shish tawook grilled chicken skewers
• Falafel
• Roast chicken or rotisserie chicken
• Roasted or grilled vegetable kabobs
• In sandwiches, or in hummus wraps
• Chicken shawarma
• Lamb koftas
• With pasta

Common Questions About Toum Garlic Sauce

More Homemade Sauces

• Ginger sauce (Benihana copycat!)
• Yum yum sauce
• Tartar sauce
• Bang bang sauce
• Sweet and sour sauce
• Alfredo sauce