This creamy, silky, luxurious lemon tahini salad dressing is packed with tangy goodness. If left thick, it doubles as a veggie dip and clings beautifully to leafy greens when thinned out. It's also delicious on our Crunchy Kale Salad. Like all of our recipes, this recipe is great for anyone that has prediabetes, diabetes or insulin resistance and is dietitian-approved!
Ingredients for Lemon Tahini Dressing
- Fresh Lemon Juice: Always opt for fresh citrus over bottled. The difference in taste is night and day, and you can always use the lemon peel for zest in another recipe (or here if you choose).
- Tahini: Most grocery stores now carry tahini, a common ingredient in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean kitchens. This creamy paste is made from ground sesame seeds. If you have a choice, we personally enjoy the rich, nutty taste of the roasted variety over the raw, but both are good options here.
- Olive Oil: While we love the flavor and nutritional benefits of extra virgin olive oil for salads, other good alternatives are avocado or flaxseed oil.
- Monk Fruit Sweetener: You may have heard by now that monk fruit sweetener is a natural sugar alternative that doesn't raise blood sugar levels. We like that it doesn't have a weird aftertaste like many other sugar alternatives. For this recipe, we used Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener (affiliate link) brand with Erythritol, which can be used as a sugar replacement in a 1:1 ratio. Allulose is another great option.
- Garlic: Again, fresh is always the best alternative. If you don’t have a fine grater, you can use a garlic press, or smash a clove on a cutting board with the side of a large knife, and then mince it finely by rocking your knife back and forth. If you use a blender to make the dressing, you can add whole cloves to the blender, but you may need to stop, stir, and re-start the blender a few times to ensure the garlic is blended thoroughly.
Ingredients for Lemon Tahini Salad Dressing Continued
- Toasted Sesame Oil: Toasting sesame oil creates an extra layer that is irresistibly nutty, but you can easily leave it out and still enjoy a delicious dressing.
- Salt: What’s so special about Diamon Crystal Kosher Salt? Oddly enough, it’s less salty by volume than other kosher salts, and its hollow flakes dissolve better. All in all, it’s easier to flavor food more evenly with this salt.
- Black Pepper: Fresh ground pepper gives the most flavor, but you can skip it altogether.
Making Lemon Tahini Salad Dressing Is Simple
- Place all prepared ingredients in a glass jar that has a lid.
- Whisk ingredients together to incorporate and remove any tahini clumps.
- Add cold water one tablespoon at a time until you achieve the desired consistency. Typically, you'll need to add 3-4 tablespoons of water.
- Keep whisking, or place the lid on the jar and give it a good shake.
Alternatively, you can use a blender and place the garlic cloves in whole to make it easier. Just be sure the garlic is completely blended before using.
Common Questions
Yes, depending on your preference, you could use organic liquid allulose or stevia. Monk fruit sweetener also comes in liquid form. Be sure to read the package to understand what is an adequate replacement quantity as replacements vary in ratio to sugar.
We find this Monkfruit Buying Guide by WhatSugar to be really useful in choosing the right monk fruit sweetener.
If you don't have fresh lemons on hand, you could sub apple cider vinegar in equal parts. Alternatively, you could use lime juice.
Defintely! If you don't like bothering with cleaning your high-powered blender for such a small task, a blender works great. You can even just blend whole garlic cloves in the blender instead of grating them. If you have a mini blender, that would be even better. The Magic Bullet Blender (affiliate link) is a great tool for small tasks such as this one and makes easy work out of meal prep.
How to Store Leftovers
You can make extra portions of this recipe and keep it refrigerated for several weeks for an easy and delicious way to dress your favorite salads. If the dressing is too thick, whisk in a little bit of cold water to thin it out.
Our Favorite Salad to Pair With This Dressing
We LOVE this dressing with our Crunchy Kale Salad. Everything about this salad, from the crisp apples, to the crunchy bell peppers and toasted nuts, screams for this dressing. Give it try and you'll see why.
As mentioned earlier in this post, if you skip the water and leave the dressing thick, it's great for dipping your favorite veggies.
We love sharing our recipes with you. If you make this one, please drop a comment below and let us know what you think!
Recipe
Lemon Tahini Dressing Recipe
Equipment
- 1 glass jar with lid
- 1 grater optional
- 1 mini blender optional (instead of a grater)
Ingredients
- ½ cup tahini roasted or raw
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice fresh squeezed
- ¼ cup olive oil extra virgin
- 2 tablespoon monkfruit sweetener
- 2 cloves garlic grated
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil dark, toasted (optional)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt more to taste
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper optional
- 4 tablespoon water or more
Instructions
- Place all prepared ingredients in a jar that has a lid.
- Whisk ingredients to incorporate and remove any clumps.
- Add cold water, one tablespoon at a time until you achieve the desired consistency. Between 3-4 tablespoons.
- Continue whisking, or place the lid on the jar and shake until combined.
Nutrition
Dietitian Approved -by Jen Birge, MS, RDN, CDCES
This dressing gets Jen's approval because it boosts the salad's amount of protein and fiber a little and does not have any added sugar. Most salad dressings just add fat and sugar, so I think this one is unique!
Lemon Tahini Salad Dressing Has A Good Protein to Carbohydrate Ratio
At Buena Wellness, we are careful to make sure our recipes have a good protein to carb ratio with at least 1 gram of protein to no more than 2 grams of carbs. This promotes a healthy glucose and insulin response which helps reduce inflammation and promotes a healthy weight.
This salad dressing has 2 grams of protein to 6 grams of carbs per serving. While this might seem above our recommended ratio for protein to carbs of 1:2, the carbs are from "sugar alcohols" found in the monkfruit erythritol blend and do not increase glucose levels. Keeping a balanced protein-to-carb ratio helps you have balanced energy levels throughout the day.
A nutrition bonus: the tahini in this dressing is a good source of lignans and tocopherols, which are antioxidants that are great for gut health. Tahini is also rich in key minerals including calcium and phosphorus. This article from the National Library of Medicine offers some information about the nutritional benefits of tahini.
Most importantly, the Lemon Tahini Salad Dressing is delicious and is perfect with our Crunchy Kale Salad! We hope you give them both a try!
Eva says
Love it! I've never been the biggest fan of tahini (or so I thought) but I gave this a try with their "crunchy kale salad" and was very impressed. The tahini has a nutty bitterness that helps balance out the sweetness of some add ins without overpowering the flavor (in this case it was the apples). I have some left over so I'm excited to try it on other salads!
Jen Birge, MS, RDN, CDCES says
I know, right?! This is Jackelin's creation (the Crunchy Kale Salad, also) - she is great at mixing together the right flavors and textures of food. Thank you for the review! Please keep trying our recipes - we LOVE the feedback 🙂