Green Tahini Dressing- simple and delicious.
Green Tahini is such a yummy and nutritionally powerful meal pimper! It’s great for pimping up a salad, a steak, a soup, a curry and so much more ….. so delicious! As a result I love to have a jar on hand in the fridge as it instantly up levels almost any meal I add it to!
Tahini is a paste made of ground sesame seeds and is staple in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. Sesame seeds are tiny powerhouses of nutrition and consuming them as a paste, rather than the whole seed (which is hard to chew!) makes their goodness more available for us to absorb.
A Short Geek Out on Sesame
There are some pretty fascinating studies done on the humble sesame seed. The results suggest regular inclusion certainly provides many health benefits. To get just a little sciency, some of the major compounds of sesame that have been studied include sesamin, sesaminol, sesamol and sesamolin. These compounds provide anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic activities. Due to the impact of inhibiting inflammatory cytokines and other inflammatory mediators (immune compounds) these compounds help prevent or relieve symptoms of many chronic inflammatory conditions. Think about it – almost all chronic illnesses these days involve chronic inflammation. We’re talking things like osteo or rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases (like dementia), lung disease and inflammatory bowel disease. Therefore millions could benefit from including tahini in their diet!
Synergy With Added Herbs and Spices
Green tahini is a flavour bomb of tahini blended with aromatic herbs and spices. Nutritionally and phytotherapeutically the addition of herbs and spices hugely increases the health benefits.
This delicious green tahini is a rich source of calcium, magnesium and good fats (thanks tahini). It contains immune boosting pathogen (think viruses, bacteria, yeast and parasites) ass-kicking herbs (garlic and coriander) and acts as a great detoxifier too (coriander, parsley and lemon). As a result it makes for a great meal addition when you’re keen to stave off an infection or clear out some heavy metals from your system!
The Recipe – Green Tahini
Use the following recipe as a guide. That way you can mix it up according to your taste. The fun thing is you can mix up the type of herbs you use, so if you’re one of those weird people who don’t like coriander, you could put mint in there instead, for example.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup tahini (I go for unhulled).
- 3/4 cup of water (vary this depending on how thick you want it)
- 1 handful of fresh parsley leaves
- 1 handful of fresh coriander leaves (if you have the roots, throw them in to too for some extra yum!)
- 1 teaspoon coriander seed powder
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seed powder
- 1 teaspoon good quality salt
- Juice of half a lemon
- 30ml raw (unpasteurised) apple cider vinegar
Creation
This couldn’t be simpler! Place all the ingredients into a powerful blender. Blend on high speed for about 30 seconds to 1 minute until beautifully creamy smooth and then check the consistency. If you would like it a bit runnier, add more water.