Garlic Toum: How to Make the Sauce you Didn’t Know you Needed

Garlic toum is one of those Lebanese condiments that you didn’t even know you were missing in your life until you have it. One day, you don’t even know what garlic toum is and then next you are jonesing for it so bad, you must have it now.

If this describes an experience you had after a indulging on chicken shawarma, at first thinking, “is that white fluffy stuff mayonnaise?” only to discover that no, this is not mayonnaise. It’s something way, way better and you must know how to make it, well look no further than my recipe for garlic toum.

If you are not familiar with garlic toum, it is basically an aioli that does not use eggs. Instead, it relies on garlic and lots of it. And that’s really all there is to it; garlic, lemon, salt, and a neutral oil like canola. This condiment is typically found served with chicken shawarma, shish tawook, mishwi, or any kabobed meat. But, you might like this so much that you start putting this sh*t on everything. So give it a try, you will not regret it!

This recipe makes about 2 cups of garlic toum and stores well in a airtight container in the fridge for 2 months or so.

Tools Needed:

You could use a mortar and pestle, but you will regret it. Get yourself a food processor.

Ingredients:

1 cup peeled garlic, hard ends removed

2 teaspoons of kosher salt

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup of canola oil

Garlic Toum Instructions:

1. Add the garlic and salt to a food processor and pulse until those cloves are pulverised. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
2. Add the lemon 1 tablespoon at a time as the food processor spins away, of course, scraping down those side as needed.
3. Slowly drizzle in the canola oil while the machine continues to run. The mixture should become fluffy and thick. Continue to run the food processor for 3-5 minutes until it is smooth and looks kind of like mayonaise.