Roasted garlic tahini sauce has a rich, creamy texture and is infused with the flavor of sweet, savory roasted garlic cloves. Create delicious pasta suppers in an instant by adding the sauce to your favorite freshly cooked pasta shape. Or, keep a jar of the sauce in your fridge to use as a dip, sandwich spread, or topping for grain bowls.
This roasted garlic tahini sauce is adjacent to tahini dressing, which is a weekly staple in my home.
What distinguishes the sauce it is a thicker, richer consistency. This makes it suitable as a dip or a sandwich spread. But it’s downright ideal for mixing with freshly cooked pasta and a splash of hot pasta water.
The sauce isn’t my first experiment with tahini and pasta (or noodle) combination. Creamy tahini pesto and a curried tahini pasta salad are both favorites of mine, especially during the summer months.
This sauce, and the pasta that results from it, is more reminiscent of alfredo. That said, I think it’s a little lighter than the cashew or cauliflower-based alfredo sauces that I’ve made over the years.
More importantly, it features the intense and irresistable flavor of roasted garlic.
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The magic of roasted garlic + tahini
I think that roasted garlic and tahini are an ideal match.
Oven-roasting softens the aggressive, spicy kick of raw garlic cloves. The flavor of roasted garlic is very nearly sweet, which is a perfect counterpoint to the slight bitterness of tahini.
I’ve relied on the roasted garlic and tahini combo to make white bean dip and smashed white bean salad.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before I combined the ingredients into a sauce.
One jar, many pasta possibilities
While it’s good to have a go-to list of complete pasta recipes, it’s also so useful to have a trusty jar of sauce at the ready.
From there, you can dress up different pasta shapes and make any additions—protein or vegetable—that suit you.
A jar of marinara sauce is a household staple for me and many others, of course. But it’s good to mix things up, and it’s especially nice for those who don’t like or can’t tolerate tomato-based sauces to have a trusty alternative.
Once you’ve got a jar of roasted garlic tahini sauce in the fridge, you can take your pasta meals in many directions. Try adding roasted vegetables, such as eggplant, peppers, or cauliflower.
For something fresher and with more texture contrast, you can mix the roasted garlic tahini sauce and pasta with crisp, steamed veggies.
It’s so good with all manner of peas: shelled peas, snow peas, or sugar snap peas. That combination is what you see pictured in this post.
A Grain, a Green, a Bean
A simple trinity of plant-based foods—grains, greens, and beans—will set you up to create an array of beautifully balanced and complete meals. Bring the beans and grains in your pantry to life with more than 80 wholesome recipes and a world of possibilities!
If the grain + bean + green combo speaks to you, you can create a pasta dish with crispy roasted chickpeas and lightly sautéed spinach or kale. Or you could use chicken-style soy curls for an even more protein-packed meal.
Any one, two, or three of these pasta dishes could appear on your dinner table over the course of a couple weeks. As written, this recipe will create four servings, enough for about 8 ounces of pasta + add-ins.
However, doubling the batch will give you something to freeze and use later. Increasingly, multi-tasking staple sauces like this one have become absolutely essential to my meal prep.
How to make roasted garlic tahini sauce
Step one: roast the garlic
To roast garlic, I begin by slicing the top of a bulb of garlic off crosswise. I drizzle some oil over the exposed cloves, then I wrap the whole bulb in foil.
This recipe calls for two bulbs of garlic, which sounds like a lot. But the beauty of roasting garlic is that even two bulbs won’t be overpowering in flavor. Oven-roasting mellows garlic in the best possible way.
Once you’ve prepared your bulbs for roasting, pop them into the oven for about 35 minutes.
After roasting, the garlic cloves will have shrunken and turned a golden color. Once you allow them to cool a little, you ought to be able to pop them out of the bulb by squeezing it from the bottom.
Step 2: Add the garlic to the tahini sauce base
After roasting the garlic, you’ll add it to the other ingredients needed for the sauce.
These include the usual suspects: tahini, water, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The olive oil helps to create an emulsified, silky texture when the sauce is added to pasta. Without it, the sauce is less smooth and luxurious.
I also add nutritional yeast to the sauce. This adds a hint of savory, cheesy flavor, which makes the sauce reminiscent of, but not identical to, alfredo.
Add all of these components to your blender or food processor. Squeeze the freshly roasted garlic cloves in after them.
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 your fridge for up to five days, or freeze it for up to six weeks.
Optional step 4: Make pasta
If you’d like to make pasta with the roasted garlic tahini sauce, go ahead and bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil.
Add eight ounces of any pasta shape to the water and cook it according to package instructions (or to your preferred texture).
When you drain the pasta, be sure to reserve about one cup / 240ml of the hot pasta water. Return the pasta, along with any other components you like (roasted or steamed vegetables, beans, toasted pine nuts, etc.) to the pot over low heat, along with the sauce.
Add a half cup / 120ml of the pasta water to the pot. Give everything a stir and heat it through. Continue adding splashes of pasta water as needed, until the pasta is creamy but has some lightness and looseness. Plate and enjoy!
Alternative serving suggestions
If you like the idea of this sauce but aren’t especially excited about pasta, there are many other things you can use it for.
A few bowls that would be especially good with the sauce spooned on top: quinoa beet bowls, warm winter squash bowls, and vegan harvest bowls.
Keep in mind that the sauce is thick, intended originally to be thinned with pasta water. I recommend diluting it with a few tablespoons of extra water if you use it for drizzling.
I’d use the sauce for all kinds of sandwiches. Roasted garlic is such a more interesting flavor than traditional mayo! It would be an excellent base for my vegan chickpea tuna with artichoke hearts and chickpeas, too.
Finally, you can try serving the sauce as a dip. It’s great with crudité, sure, but it’s also great for dunking sheet pan smashed broccoli florets or roasted cauliflower florets, crispy artichokes, or air-fryer mushrooms.
Roasted Garlic Tahini Sauce (for Pasta)
Author –
Yields: 4 servings
- 2 bulbs garlic
- 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
- 1/4 cup tahini (60 mL)
- 1/4 cup water (60 mL)
- 1 1/2-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (adjust to taste)
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 8 ounces pasta shape of choice (for serving, if desired)
Preheat the oven to 375°F / 190°C. Use a chef’s knife to slice off the top 3/4-inch/2 cm of each bulb of garlic in a crosswise fashion, exposing the cloves. Drizzle each head with a teaspoon of olive oil. Wrap each bulb in foil and transfer them to a baking sheet. Roast the bulbs for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves are tender and browning. Set the bulbs aside to cool for 10 minutes.
Add the tahini, water, lemon juice (starting with 1 1/2 tablespoons—you can add more to taste once you blend up the sauce), the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper to a blender. Invert each of the two roasted garlic bulbs over the blender and squeeze out all of the roasted cloves into the sauce mixture.
Blend the sauce for 1-2 minutes, or until thick and smooth. Transfer it to an airtight storage container. At this point, it can be stored for up to 5 days in the fridge or frozen for up to 6 weeks.
When you’re ready to use the sauce, boil your pasta shape of choice according to package instructions. Drain the pasta, reserving about 1 cup / 240ml of the hot pasta water. Return the pasta, along with any add-ins of choice (roasted vegetables, a bean, steamed greens, etc.) to the pot over low heat, along with the sauce*. Add 1/2 cup / 120ml of the pasta water. Heat and stir to incorporate the sauce into the pasta and serve.
The sauce can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days and frozen for up to six weeks.
**Try thinning the sauce with a couple tablespoons of water if using it as a dip or a sauce for drizzling.
If you’ve been aiming to make more homemade staples and sauces lately—and especially if you love tahini—then this recipe will serve you well. It’s easy and reliable, and I hope you’ll enjoy it!
xo
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I am a food blogger. I search for recipes and write to my blog. we have a small team of two people.
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