Toum is the fluffy, intensely garlicky Lebanese sauce served with shawarma and grilled chicken: an emulsion of garlic, oil, lemon and salt, with no egg at all.
It looks like a simple white sauce, almost like a thick mayonnaise, but it is entirely eggless, just garlic, oil, lemon, and salt whipped into something impossibly light and fluffy while still tasting like a punch of pure, raw garlic.
The technique is the whole trick here: garlic gets pureed with lemon juice first, then oil gets added in a slow, patient stream while the food processor runs, the same emulsification logic behind a good aioli, except toum gets there without any egg at all.
Get the timing right and you end up with a cloud-like sauce that holds together for weeks in the fridge. Rush it and you get a broken, oily mess, so patience matters more than any other single ingredient.
A jar in the fridge goes on nearly everything savory: grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, even a sandwich in place of mayonnaise. If you have made our Muhammara (recipe on the site), toum is the same Levantine pantry logic in a completely different direction: bold, simple, built from almost nothing.
Toum (Lebanese Garlic Sauce) Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup peeled garlic cloves (about 4 to 5 heads)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
- 2 cups neutral oil, such as canola or a light olive oil
- 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water, as needed
Instructions
- Place the garlic cloves and salt in a food processor. Process until finely minced, scraping down the sides as needed.
- Add 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice and process another 30 seconds until the garlic forms a smooth paste.
- With the processor running continuously, begin adding the oil in a very slow, thin, steady stream, just a few drops at a time at first.
- Once the mixture starts to thicken and turn pale (after about a third of the oil is in), you can add the oil slightly faster in a thin stream, alternating occasionally with a teaspoon of the remaining lemon juice or ice water to keep the sauce loosening and emulsifying rather than tightening.
- Continue until all the oil is incorporated and the sauce is thick, white, and fluffy, similar in texture to whipped marshmallow. Taste and adjust salt or lemon juice as needed.
- Transfer to a clean jar and refrigerate. The sauce will firm up further as it chills.
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