The roasted garlic tahini sauce has a rich, creamy texture and is infused with the sweet and flavor of roasted garlic cloves. Create a delicious pasta dinner in an instant by adding sauces to your favorite fresh pasta shapes. Alternatively, place a jar of sauce in the fridge and use it as a dip, sandwich spread, or topping in a grain bowl.
This roasted garlic tahini sauce is adjacent to the tahini dressing. This is a staple meal every week at my house.
What distinguishes sauces from dressing is thicker and richer consistency. Suitable for spreading dips and sandwiches. But it is really ideal to mix with freshly cooked pasta and hot pasta water splashes.
The sauce is not my first experiment with tahini and pasta (or noodles) combinations. The creamy tahini pesto and curry tahini pasta salad is both my favorites, especially during the summer.
This sauce and the pasta that comes from it are reminiscent of Alfredo. But it’s a little lighter than the various cashews and cauliflower-based alfredo sauces I’ve made over the years.
More importantly, it features an intense and fascinating flavor of roasted garlic.
Roasted Garlic + Tahini’s Magic
Roasted garlic and tahini are the perfect match.
Oven roast softens the aggressive and spicy kick of raw garlic cloves. The roasted garlic flavor is very sweet. This is the perfect contrast to the slight bitterness of Tahini.
I resorted to a combo of roasted garlic and tahini, soaking the white beans and destroying the white bean salad.
I think it was only a matter of time before the ingredients were combined into the sauce.
One jar, many pasta possibilities
It’s good to have a go-to list of complete pasta recipes, but having a jar of reliable sauces ready is also very handy.
From there, you can dress up different pasta shapes and add protein or vegetables, etc.
Of course, jars of marinara sauce are a household staple for me and many others. But mixing things up is a good thing, and it’s especially great for those who don’t like or can’t tolerate tomato-based sauces, who have a reliable alternative.
Once you get a jar of roasted garlic tahini sauce in the fridge, you can take a pasta meal in many directions. Try adding roasted vegetables such as eggplant, peppers, and cauliflower.
For something fresher and more textured contrast, you can mix roasted garlic tahini sauce and pasta with crisp steamed vegetables.
All kinds of peas are very good: shell pea, snow pea, or sugar snap peas. (The combination is depicted in this post!)
Grains, greens, beans
A simple trinity of plant-based foods (grains, greens, beans) set to create a beautifully balanced, complete dietary array. Bring your pantry to life with beans and grains in a world of over 80 healthy recipes and possibilities!
If the Grain + Bean + Green combo talks to you, you can make a pasta dish that lightly stir-frysed crunchy roasted chickpeas and spinach or kale. Alternatively, you can use chicken-style soy curls to have a more protein-filled diet.
Of these pasta dishes, one, two or three dishes may appear on the dinner table for weeks. As written, this recipe creates 4 servings and is enough for about 8 ounces of pasta + add-in.
However, double the batch will give you something you’ll freeze later and use. More and more, such multitasking staple sauces have become absolutely essential to my meal preparation.
How to make roasted garlic tahini sauce
Step 1: Roast the garlic
To roast the garlic, start by slicing across the top of the garlic bulb. Drizzle oil over the exposed cloves and wrap the entire bulb in foil.
This recipe requires two bulbs of garlic. This sounds like a lot. But the beauty of roasting garlic is that even two bulbs don’t overwhelm the flavor. Oven Rast gives garlic the best possible way.
Once the roasting bulbs are ready, place in the oven for about 35 minutes.
After roasting, the garlic cloves shrunk and turned golden. Once it cools a little, you should be able to squeeze it out of the light bulb by squeezing it from the bottom.
Step 2: Add garlic to the tahini sauce base
After roasting the garlic, add it to other ingredients needed for the sauce.
These include suspects such as tahini, water, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Olive oil helps create an emulsified silky texture when you add sauce to pasta. Without it, the sauce is smooth and not luxurious.
Also add nutrient yeast to the sauce. This adds hints of a cheesy flavour. This means that the sauce is not identical to Alfredo, but not identical.
Add all these components to your blender or food processor. Squeeze the freshly baked garlic cloves later.
Step 3: Blend (or process)
Finally, blend or process the ingredients into a silky sauce. Transfer it to a jar and store the jar in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 6 weeks.
Optional Step 4: Make the pasta
If you want to make pasta with roasted garlic tahini sauce, go ahead and lightly bring to a boil a pot of salted water.
Add 8 ounces of pasta shape to the water and cook according to the packaging instructions (or to your preferred texture).
When draining pasta, reserve 1 cup/240ml of hot pasta water for about 1 cup. Return the pasta to the pot over low heat with the sauce along with other components of your choice (roasted or steamed vegetables, beans, toasted pine nuts, etc.).
Add pasta water to the pan. Stir everything and heat. The pasta will be creamy, but continue to add a splash of pasta water if necessary until it is light and loose. Plate and enjoy!
Alternative serving suggestions
If you like the idea of this sauce but aren’t particularly excited about the pasta, there are plenty of other things you can use.
A bowl that is especially good with a spoonful of sauces on top, such as a quinoa beet bowl, a warm winter squash bowl, or a vegan harvest bowl.
Please note that the sauce is rich and originally intended to be thinned with pasta water. If you are using it for drizzle, we recommend diluting it with a few tablespoons of excess water.
Use sauces for all types of sandwiches. Roasted garlic has a more interesting flavor than traditional mayonnaise! It’s also a great base for my vegan chickpea tuna with artichoke hearts and chickpeas.
Finally, the sauce can be served as a dip. Certainly, it’s great in the crudite, but it’s also great for the dunking sheet pan to pound broccoli florets, roasted cauliflower florets, crunchy artichokes or air fryer mushrooms.
Roasted Garlic Tahini Sauce (for pasta)
author –
yield: 4 Serving
Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. Using the chef’s knife, slice the top 3/4 inch/2 cm of each garlic bulb laterally to expose the cloves. Drizzle each head with 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Wrap each bulb in foil and transfer to the top. Roast the bulbs for 30-35 minutes or until the cloves are soft and brown. Set the bulb aside and let it cool for 10 minutes.
Add tahini, water, lemon juice (starting with 1 1/2 tablespoons. Blend the sauce to add flavor), the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil, nutrient yeast, salt and pepper to the blender. Invert each of the two roasted garlic bulbs onto the blender and squeeze out all the roasted cloves into the sauce mixture.
Mix the sauce for 1-2 minutes or until thick and smooth. Transfer to an airtight storage container. At this point, you can store it in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze it for up to 6 weeks.
When the sauce is ready to use, follow the instructions on the package to bring the pasta shape to a boil. Drain the pasta and reserve about 1 cup/240ml of hot pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot over low heat with the sauce* along with the selected add-in (roasted vegetables, beans, steamed greens, etc.). Add 1/2 cup/120ml of pasta water. Heat and stir to incorporate the sauce into the pasta and serve.
The sauce can be stored in a fridge airtight container for up to 5 days and frozen for up to 6 weeks.
**Try diluting it with 2 tablespoons of water.
If you’ve been aiming to make more homemade staples and sauces these days, especially if you love Tahini, this recipe will help you. It’s easy and reliable and hope you enjoy it!
xo
