Golden Tahini Drizzle

Can you feel it? There has been a little spring in the air of late. Yes the nights and mornings are still ridiculously cold (for QLD), but the days have been glorious. I wore shorts this week. Shorts! To celebrate I decided to pack all that sunshine into a nice and bright Tahini dressing that, to be honest, kinda tasted a little like ginger beer - but in a good way....and as a salad dressing! It packs an antioxidant punch too, as this bad boy has got turmeric, ginger, pepper and citrus all mixed in to make your tastebuds sing. Great on salads, steamed veg or even used as a base for stir-fry.

I used hulled tahini for the dressing as I didn't want it to turn out too bitter, but if you are a connoisseur of tahini and love the bitterness - by all means use the unhulled variety instead, you'll get more nutrients that way too (NB there will obviously be a colour difference).

What's the Skinny on Tahini?

Tahini is made from sesame seeds that have been lightly roasted and ground into a paste. When it comes to nutrition un-hulled Tahini is superior as it uses the whole, intact seed. Regardless of whether you choose hulled or un-hulled, it can still be classed as a reasonably good source of fibre, antioxidants, zinc, iron, phosphorus, vitamin E and magnesium. Sesame seeds also contain lignins which have been shown to lower your LDL cholesterol (the 'bad' one). Choosing the hulled tahini will allow you to absorb more vitamin E, but you'll see a big decrease in calcium levels if you opt for the hulled variety.

20 g of unhulled tahini contains 172 mg of calcium, whereas the same amount of hulled tahini will only contain 66 mg.

Golden Tahini Drizzle

Ingredients

- 3 tbsp of your favourite tahini

- 3 tsp apple cider vinegar

- juice of 1 lime

- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric

- 1 tsp ground ginger

- 1/2 tsp reduced salt tamari

- 2-4 tbsp of water, dependent on the consistency you like (will thicken up again once refrigerated)

- pepper to taste (I like a fair few twists of the grinder!)

Method

1. Add tahini, turmeric, ginger and apple cider vinegar and tamari to a small bowl.

2. Juice lime and add liquid to bowl and stir with fork.

3. Add water one tbsp at a time until you reach your desired consistency - stir, stir, stir.

4. Pepper to taste. You're done! How quick and easy was that?!

I'm going to level with you for a second, Tahini isn't my favourite of the nut and seed butters (peanut butter for life, people) so I wasn't expecting this dressing would be knock your socks off amazing, but it was goooood. Hope you enjoy it just as much as I did!