Tahini Salad Dressing

We are long on tahini at the moment so I've been playing with tahini salad dressing. I mixed up a batch today and like it enough that I'm posting it for future reference.

After a couple batches with ¼ cup of tahini, I decided to try ½ cup. Yum!! I really like how the nutty flavor of the tahini comes through more. Today's concoction was:

2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp ginger juice
½ cup tahini
1 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp green curry paste
¾ cup olive oil

I put everything except the olive oil in the blender and pulsed it for a few seconds. Then, I took out the center section of the blender lid, inserted a funnel into the hole, turned on the blender and gradually added the olive oil. When I was finished, I thought is was just a tad thick, so I added 1 tbsp of white wine.

Of course, I was tasting all along the way (and multiple-dipping with my tasting spoon). I think the tahini, cumin and ginger juice taste are great together. Freshly grated ginger would be lovely, but ginger juice is soooo handy to have around. If I were short on either lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, I'd try a full ¼ cup of the one I had. I didn't think the dry mustard made much of a difference, so that's probably optional. The curry paste was for a bit of heat, so there are all kinds of options there. Before I started writing this post, I googled "tahini salad dressing" and several of the ones I found include tamari/soy sauce. I might try adding that next time. Maybe instead of the 1 tbsp of white wine.

I didn't think to take in-process photos, but with something this simple, who needs them. So instead here are ...

The mess when I finished (really, not that bad)

A pint jar with the dressing. (I guess I know that this recipe makes about 2 cups of dressing.)

The salad bowl with some dressing in the bottom. (After I poured the dressing from the blender into the pint jar, I took the bottom off the blender jar, placed the bottom-less jar in the salad bowl and scraped down the sides of the blender jar right into the bowl. Then I scraped what was still in the bottom piece of the blender jar into the bowl. You know, waste not and all.)

A very, simple salad of greens tossed with dressing ...

And finally the plated salad with freshly grated parm, ground pepper and a few sprinkles of Hawaiian red salt. Plus, toast with scape oil. (Thank you Bill!)

Delicious!!