How to Make Toum

A garlic lover’s dream 🧄💫

Get Young Sun Huh’s recipe for Toum — a thick and fluffy Lebanese sauce that’s popular throughout the Middle East 👇

Toum
Recipe courtesy of Young Sun Huh for Food Network Kitchen
Level: Intermediate
Total: 35 min
Active: 20 min
Yield: about 3 cups

Ingredients:
3/4 cup garlic cloves, peeled (from 2 to 3 heads; see Cook’s Note)
Kosher salt
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus more as needed
2 1/4 cups neutral-flavored oil, such as canola, avocado or sunflower
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water, plus more as needed

Directions:

Cut each clove of garlic in half lengthwise, remove and discard the small sprout inside the clove (if it comes out easily) and transfer the garlic halves to a food processor. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and pulse until finely chopped. Add the lemon juice and puree until mostly smooth. Scrape down the sides to clump all the garlic together on the bottom. Let the garlic sit with the lemon juice for 15 minutes to mellow some of the garlic heat.

With the food processor running, slowly drizzle in about 2 tablespoons of the oil through the chute (see Cook’s Note). Stop and scrape the bottom of the processor bowl to mix the oil into the garlic. Turn the processor back on and start adding the oil in a thin drizzle, about 1/4 cup at a time, stopping and scraping the bowl after each addition and making sure the mixture stays creamy and emulsified.

After the addition of each cup of oil, add about a tablespoon of ice water (this will help the emulsification and give the sauce a fluffy texture). If at any point the toum looks like it will separate, mix in a little ice water to bring it back together. After all the oil has been added, add 1 to 2 tablespoons more ice water. You should have a thick, fluffy white sauce, similar in appearance to mayonnaise. Taste and add more salt and lemon juice if desired. The toum can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 7 days.

Cook’s Note
Using fresh garlic that you peel by hand will give you the best tasting results, of course, but we found that pre-peeled garlic also works if you don’t have the time or dedication to peel so many cloves. If your food processor pusher (cylindrical piece that goes into the chute) has a small hole in the bottom, you can pour the oil directly into the pusher and it will slowly add the oil in a thin, controlled stream for you. This makes the process of making toum much easier! If the sauce breaks, you can bring it together with some aquafaba (liquid from cooked homemade or canned chickpeas). Transfer the broken sauce from the food processor to a large liquid measuring cup or something with a spout. Add about 1/3 cup of aquafaba to the food processor and with the processor running, slowly drizzle in the broken sauce.

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