The ONLY Toum Recipe You Need (Lebanese Garlic Sauce)

Toum (or “thoum”) is a garlic sauce or dip with ancient origins. However, Toum as we know now was popularized in Lebanon. In Arabic, “toum” directly translates to “garlic.” You’ll see below that there are only FIVE ingredients to make Toum, and the main components are garlic cloves and oil. Toum is vegan and super easy to make, plus it’s incredibly versatile! You’ll see later on in this post plenty of serving suggestions to make Toum part of a hearty meal! Traditionally, Toum is made with a mortar and pestle, however, that method requires a heavy mortar and pestle and LOTS of work! In this recipe, I’ll show you a quick way to make it in the immersion blender!

Yes, you can get this garlic sauce at your local grocery store! I’ve easily found it at my grocery store, but to be honest I’ve never bought it myself. However, you may be able to snag a free container of garlic sauce from your local shawarma or restaurant serving Middle Eastern cuisine! I’ve done that before to save some dollars and have some freshly made garlic sauce on hand!

This is a question that is highly asked and debated. Yes, there’s vegetable oil in here, which is a refined oil. To make matters “worse,” there’s quite a lot of it! However, you need to put the quantities into perspective. You will be using all of that oil to make a fairly large batch of garlic sauce, but I doubt that you will have more than a tablespoon - perhaps two, max! - in one serving. As a result, one tablespoon is probably one twentieth of the recipe, or less! As a result, the oil in the small amount of Toum would not have any adverse affects on your health. Additionally, we should think more about the positive! Garlic itself has so many health benefits, including assisting in the reduction of blood pressure, boosting immunity, and antioxidants that can prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. For more information on the health benefits of garlic, then check out this article.

Vegetable is a cheap and easily accessible neutral oil that is versatile and will last a long time. However, if you don’t want to use vegetable oil or don’t have it, that’s not a problem! Other suitable neutral oils that you can replace vegetable oil with include canola oil, peanut oil, grapeseed oil, or even avocado oil.

Yes, there really is! Let me be frank with you, I first started to make the Toum in my Vitamix blender. If you’ve ever seen Vitamix ads, you know that it’s praised for being able to make ANYTHING! I’ve tried twice and the Toum split. It literally is because of the blades at the bottom, it just cannot emulsify the oil and the garlic into one smooth consistency. This Toum recipe is literally what made me go out and buy my food processor (and immersion blender!), and now I’m really happy with it! If you don’t believe me, check out my attempt below making Toum in the Vitamix.

It’s most likely that the Toum split and did not emulsify properly. This can happen due to the oil not being added in a gentle stream and allowed to emulsify well together. You also need to ensure that the ingredients are at room temperature before blending since cold ingredients can also cause the Toum to split.

It depends on what happened to you. Firstly, if it split, then you probably just want to discard it, since it’s not usable. If it’s too thin, then you can try to just keep emulsifying. You’ll see soon that the key that was a game changer for me to make it fluffy was… the VESSEL in which I emulsified! You want to use a wide base bowl or container when using an immersion blender so that there’s enough room to blend and make the mixture fluffy. Look at my picture guide or video to see what container I used.

First of all, if this is your question, then this implies that your Toum has likely not split, so congratulations! You made it through a tricky part. Now, the good news is that you can definitely troubleshoot this problem! You likely need to emulsify and blend the mixture further to ensure it gets fluffier. Some cold ice water can also be added to help make the mixture fluffier. Potentially adding all the oil at once can cause Toum to be too thin, as you can see in the images below. Furthermore, I’ve observed that the Toum is too thin when I was using an immersion blender in a container that was too thin! The main takeaway you need from this recipe is that you CAN use an immersion blender, but your jar or container needs to wider than the mouth of the blender in order to get proper aeration and emulsification. Look at my picture guide or video to see what container I used.

Toum would be its thickest when freshly prepared due to the incorporation of air during the emulsification process. Most likely in the fridge the Toum will start to get thinner. But, if this happens, simply use your immersion blender and blend it again for longer to obtain the previous texture.

Not really, unless you find garlic spicy. There is a spicy version of a Toum, commonly known as spicy garlic sauce which may be more your fit if that’s what you’re looking for.

If you don’t want a super potent garlic flavour, the solution is simple! For your Toum to be less garlicky, just add more oil in comparison to garlic. The standard ratio is one part garlic to two parts oil, but you can add even more oil if you or whomever you’re serving the Toum to is sensitive to garlic.

Place the garlic and salt in a wide mouth mason jar or plastic jar with a base that is wider than the immersion blender.

• Shawarmas: I love shawarmas! These are Lebanese meat sandwiches that are made with chicken or beef, and garlic sauce is the main white sauce that you see spread on the pita bread before the toppings in shawarma shops.
• Salad dressing: Why not! You’ve got flavour that can be incredible to add over an Arugula Salad with Goat’s Cheese, a Vegan Lentil Salad, or a Mediterranean Couscous Salad.
• Bread: You can spread over pita bread just for a snack or even any other kind of bread, such as naan or perhaps rotis!
• Sandwiches and wraps: As I mentioned above, the most typical sandwich Toum is used in is a shawarma. However, since this toum recipe will yield a fair amount of garlic sauce, you can use garlic sauce in any kind of sandwich and wrap of your choice! For some more direction on how to incorporate new sauces and dips in some tasty lunch sandwiches and wraps, be sure to refer to my guide to prep the perfect sandwiches.
• As a dip: You can dip your Lebanese Beef Kafta Skewers, Shawarma Chicken, or even just some Grilled Chicken in Toum. Actually, the original purpose of Toum was to dip meats into it! However, I’ve always loved to dip my Roasted Potatoes in garlic sauce - I used to get those all the time at shawarma shops!
• Fries: Why not dip your fries in some garlic sauce? It’s a really good combination! Try it with your Air Fryer French Fries, Waffle Fries, Sweet Potato Fries, or even Curly Fries.
• Marination: You can use your garlic sauce for Middle Eastern-style marination where garlic and olive oil would typically be used.

2-3 weeks is the common refrigeration guideline Toum. However, if you want to be extra careful, I recommend that store Lebanese garlic sauce in the fridge for 7-10 days. While refrigeration below 40 F or 4 C and lime juice helps inhibit and slow down bacteria growth and therefore botulism risk, it doesn’t stop it.

You have a few options for storing your Lebanese Garlic Sauce. For easy spooning for spreading, transfer the garlic sauce into a clean mason jar or in an airtight container. To drizzle the garlic sauce over sandwiches, then store the garlic sauce in a squeeze bottle, but make sure that you cut a portion of the spout out. Because the sauce is a bit thick, it can be hard to pour it out of the thin nozzle. Before consuming, be sure to always check for any signs of discolouration, foul smells or mold