How To Make Toum, the Lebanese Garlic Sauce You’ll Want to Eat on Everything (2024)

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updated Jan 29, 2021

Think of Toum as a heavenly vegan oil emulsion or an aioli without the egg

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Toum, the smooth, fluffy Lebanese garlic spread people the world over go bonkers for, is the ultimate expression of pure garlic flavor —a must-have in my fridge at all times. Think of toum (which is vegan) as an aioli without the egg. The ingredients are simply garlic, neutral oil, lemon juice, and salt, expertly combined to create a heavenly emulsion you’ll want to eat on everything.

Toum is the Arabic word for —you guessed it! —garlic. In Middle Eastern cuisine, toum is traditionally served as an accompaniment to grilled kebabs, but you can use it for much more than that. I serve toum as a dip for bread, chips, or crudité; use it as a sandwich spread; stir it into vinaigrettes for salad or vegetables; add it to pasta sauces or pretty much any recipe that calls for minced garlic; and, of course, serve it alongside my kebabs and shawarma.

Of the many dishes I learned growing up as a second-generation Lebanese American, toum was not one of them —I had only ever eaten it at restaurants. My friend Janet, whose husband is Lebanese, once casually asked me, “Don’t you just live for toum?” That set me on a path of toum discovery, landing me in the kitchen with what could only be described as many toum fails (and a deeper appreciation for why Mom wasn’t making much toum at home).

In my initial attempts, I struggled to get the garlic to emulsify with the oil. I had never made my own mayo before, so I didn’t have that as a guiding light. I had also never used the drip hole in the food processor, so I didn’t know this would assist in the necessary, ever-so-slow marrying of oil and garlic.

But the road to greatness is paved with failures —that is, opportunities, right? Eventually I cracked the code and found toum success. Here, I’ll walk you through how to make smooth, fluffy toum every time, so that you can skip the trial and error and head straight to perfection.

How to Make Foolproof Toum

Toum is made with very few ingredients, so it’s important to choose them carefully. Look for garlic that is very firm and always use fresh lemon juice. And this isn’t the place for that fancy olive oil. The assertive flavor can overwhelm the garlic, which is the star here. Instead, go for an oil with a neutral flavor, like canola or safflower.

Once you’ve gathered your ingredients, it’s time to get started. Toum can be made two ways: by hand or in a food processor. Toum made by hand is not as smooth, but it is equally delicious and you can make it in smaller quantities. Which route you take dictates the amount of garlic you start with.

After combining the garlic with salt and lemon juice, begin adding tiny drops of oil. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. I have made (and messed up) enough toum to know that the key to toum success is slowly adding the oil in very, very small quantities. Use a teaspoon for better control and dribble one droplet at a time into the bowl or the spout on the top of the food processor, whisking or processing constantly as you add the oil.

You’ll know you’re on the right track if the garlic takes on a slight creaminess. When the oil is introduced too quickly and/or too much is added, the garlic just looks like garlic coated with oil. “Failed” toum is a thin, liquidy mixture —it’s still usable as a delectable, drizzle-able garlic, but it’s not toum. The good news is that you don’t have to painstakingly dribble in the oil for the entire process. Once creaminess is achieved, it doesn’t really matter how much more oil is added.

Lemon juice and ice water are important for balancing out the strong flavor of toum. To adjust the flavor or thin the toum into a sauce, whisk or blend in ice water one tablespoon at a time at the very end of the process, after the emulsion is set. Taste the toum after each addition for desired flavor and thickness. If the garlic flavor is still too strong, pop it in the fridge for a few days — the flavor will mellow as it sits.

Toum will keep for up two weeks in an airtight container in the fridge. But trust me: Once you begin experimenting with all the ways to eat it, it certainly won’t last that long.

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