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Home » APPETIZER IDEAS » Toum - Lebanese Garlic Sauce

Toum - Lebanese Garlic Sauce

By Sachi | Published Oct 25, 2021 | Updated Jan 16, 2022 | 12 Comments

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Hey garlic lovers! Do you love garlic? Do you love mayo? Then you'll love toum - a delicious, creamy, garlicky dip that you'll never tire of eating! It's a Lebanese garlic sauce that whips up like mayonnaise. It's an easy to make diabetic-friendly keto snack recipe. Toum is dairy-free, eggless, gluten-free and vegan too!

Total Carbs 1g (per tablespoon)

Toum is a Lebanese Garlic Sauce in a bowl and surrounded by carrots cucumbers endives and peppers for dipping
Toum is great for dipping raw veggies in.

This season I received extra garlic after helping out with the garlic harvest at MEVO Fresh Roots Farm. The farmers told me to make Toum. I've never heard of toum, though I now realize that's the yummy garlic sauce I've been eating with my shawarma all this time, I just didn't know what it was called.

What is toum?

Toum (pronounced "Toom") is a fluffy, savory, whipped Lebanese garlic sauce used as a condiment. The best way to describe Toum is that it is like an eggless mayonnaise where the emulsifier is garlic, rather than egg. It is a diabetic-friendly, vegan-friendly, vampire repellant and tasty snack you definitely must try.

Why eat toum if you are diabetic?

This diabetic-friendly snack is low in carbs and full of beneficial garlic. According to food and nutrition research published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, ingesting garlic was found to improve blood glucose control.

Is toum keto friendly?

The quick answer is: that depends!

If you follow this keto-friendly toum recipe, then you are guaranteed a keto friendly Lebanese garlic sauce. Other recipes may suggest using potatoes to thicken or fix a broken sauce, which would add carbs and the sauce will no longer be keto. Some recipes also suggest adding egg to fix a broken sauce. This would keep it keto, but would not be appropriate for vegans.

Recipe Ingredients for Homemade Toum

This is what you need to make toum at home. Toum is made with 4 simple ingredients:

  • fresh garlic
    Use fresh garlic for best results. You need the kind that sticks to your fingers and knife when sliced.
  • salt
    Use a course, abrasive salt like Kosher salt or sea salt. This is perfect for pulverizing the garlic.
  • oil
    Use a neutral flavored oil such as safflower, canola, vegetable or sunflower oil. Do not use olive oil as it has a bitter flavor profile that will dominate the garlic whip.
  • lemon juice
    You'll need a bit of acidity from the lemon juice to both brighten up the whip, preserve it and help stabilize the garlic and oil emulsion.
Fresh garlic bulbs for making toum
Fresh garlic is best for making Toum

How To Make Toum

The secret to making toum is to use fresh garlic and take your time! It's worth it and lasts a long time.

Start by breaking down the garlic into a paste by processing it with course salt. This breaks down the garlic's cell walls which releases emulsifiers. This is what helps the ingredients bind and whip together into a mayonnaise-like fluffy texture, instead of an oily sauce!

Although easy to whip up, toum does require a bit of time and patience. Do not use a blender, as it requires too much liquid up front to get the paste started and this will prevent emulsification. Use a food processor and add liquid in tiny amounts, pulsing as you go, alternating between lemon juice and oil. If you add all of the liquid up front, the emulsion will not take and the sauce won't whip together like mayo, but be liquid like sauce. Avoid leaving the food processor running since that will generate heat and this can also prevent or break emulsification.

Ingredients for making toum are lemon garlic oil and salt
Ingredients for Toum - Salt, Lemon, Garlic, and Oil

It's gonna take time

A whole lot of precious time

It's gonna take patience and time, mmm

To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it

To do it right, child

George Harrison -Got My Mind Set on You

Things You’ll Need:

  • Food Processor
  • Spatula
  • Measuring cups
  • Measuring spoons
  • Cutting board
  • Knife

How To Fix Broken Toum Emulsion

If your toum comes out more like a sauce than a mayo, then that means that the emulsion is broken. You can solidify it by removing most of the garlic toum from the food processor. Then process a chopped cooked potato with a bit of that toum. Add a little toum at a time back into the potato/toum mixture while pulsing the food processor until incorporated into a thicker paste.

Serving Suggestions

What do you eat with toum? Toum is so versatile:

  • Enjoy it with chicken or lamb shawarma in a lettuce wrap.
  • Toum's bold, spicy garlicky flavor is great straight up as a dip for pita, pita chips, veggie dippers like radishes, endive spears, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, sliced peppers, tomatoes and any vegetable you like!
  • Add a dollop of toum on top of steak for dairy-free garlic butter.
  • Toum is a great spread for grilled meat, fried fish, and sandwiches.
  • Mix toum into omelettes.
  • Mix toum into dips like baba ghanoush, tzaziki, hummus, sour cream sauce, and guacamole.
  • Season salads with toum. Use it in 3 bean salad or spicy tuna salad or chopped salad.
  • Use toum in marinades, salad dressings and sauces.
  • I recently used it to make Teriyaki sauce for my steak. I ended up with creamy Teriyaki sauce! Yum!
  • I even made Caesar salad dressing with toum. Just add lemon juice, anchovies, Parmesan cheese and lots of freshly cracked black pepper.
  • Mix toum into soups to give soup a good kick of flavor!
  • Use toum anywhere you want to add flavor and combat bland food.

Storing Toum

Store in the fridge

Store in a sealed container (such as a jar) in the fridge for 2-4 months.

Store in the freezer

Store in small sealed containers in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you pronounce toum?

"Toom". Basically the same way you pronounce "Toon", but with an 'm' at the end.

Is toum the same as aioli?

No. Although they are both emulsifications that contain garlic, toum uses garlic as the emulsifier and therefore contains a larger volume of garlic compared to aioli. Toum also does not use olive oil. Aioli uses garlic mostly for flavoring, so there is substantially less garlic. Aioli also contains eggs and olive oil.

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Toum Lebanese Garlic Sauce served as a dip in a bowl with fresh raw vegetables

Toum - Lebanese Garlic Sauce


★★★★★

5 from 12 reviews

  • Author: Sachi
Print Recipe
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Description

Hey garlic lovers! Do you love garlic? Do you love mayo? Then you'll love toum - a delicious, creamy, garlicky dip that you'll never tire of eating! It's a Lebanese garlic sauce that whips up like mayonnaise. It's easy to make, keto-friendly, dairy-free, eggless, gluten-free and vegan too!


Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 1 cup raw, fresh garlic cloves, peeled
  • 3 cups oil, use a neutral flavored oil such as safflower, canola, vegetable or sunflower oil
  • 1 tablespoon coarse salt, such as Kosher salt or sea salt
  • ¼ cup fresh lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Place garlic and salt in a food processor and pulse until garlic is minced. Scrape down the sides of the food processor occasionally between pulses to get all the garlic minced.
  2. Add a spoonful of lemon juice and pulse until the garlic becomes a paste.
  3. Slowly drizzle in about a half cup of oil in a thin stream while pulsing. Then add a spoonful of lemon juice and pulse. Then slowly add another half cup of oil and pulse. You may need to stop the food processor and scrape down the sides at times. Keep alternating between oil and lemon juice and pulsing until the mixture emulsifies and all of the liquid has been incorporated and you have a fluffy, whipped toum.

Notes

  • Take your time. Be patient.
  • Use fresh, sticky garlic. Old, dry cloves may not emulsify.
  • Use coarse salt to grind the garlic into a paste.
  • Use neutral flavored oil. Don't use olive oil.
  • Do not use a blender, as it requires too much liquid up front to get the paste started and this will prevent emulsification. 
  • If you add all of the liquid up front, the emulsion will not take and the sauce won't whip together like mayo, but be liquid like sauce.
  • Avoid leaving the food processor running since that will generate heat and this can also prevent or break emulsification.

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Click the stars at the top of this recipe card and leave a comment!

Then share the recipe on social media! Thank you 😀

@wecountcarbs  #wecountcarbs

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About Sachi

What's cooking, carb counters?! I’m Sachi, I'm the carb counting recipe developer at We Count Carbs! Need help figuring out what to make for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner? Do you wish recipes came with carb counts and nutrition facts labels? You've come to the right place. We count carbs because carbs count!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Robin Donovan says

    October 25, 2021 at 12:29 am

    Love this!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  2. Cindy says

    October 25, 2021 at 12:40 am

    So much flavor! Great recipe!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  3. Anne says

    October 25, 2021 at 1:37 am

    Yum, I love garlicky sauces!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  4. Kathy Hester says

    October 25, 2021 at 1:51 am

    This is so tasty!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  5. Linda says

    October 25, 2021 at 4:05 am

    I'm all about garlic and this one is a must-try recipe. Sooo good and easy to make

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  6. Mandy Applegate says

    October 25, 2021 at 9:14 am

    What a tasty sauce - thank you!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  7. Lynn Polito says

    October 25, 2021 at 9:55 am

    Delicious! I love this garlicky sauce!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  8. Jennifer says

    October 25, 2021 at 12:57 pm

    This is incredible! I can't believe so few ingredients can turn into something so amazing!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  9. Aimee says

    October 25, 2021 at 1:20 pm

    If you love garlic (like me), you'll love this!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  10. Sherry Ronning says

    October 25, 2021 at 7:53 pm

    What a great alternative to mayo!! A very flavorful garlic sauce!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  11. laura L sampson says

    November 01, 2021 at 4:37 am

    Mmmm a delicious low carb dip that we loved!

    ★★★★★

    Reply
  12. Cery says

    November 02, 2021 at 5:12 pm

    I LOVE garlic! Can't wait to try this on all the things!

    ★★★★★

    Reply

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