5-Minute Fluffy Toum (No Food Processor!)

Toum is a bold and creamy Lebanese garlic sauce that’s famously served with chicken shawarma, grilled meats, and even fries. This easy toum recipe comes together in just 5 minutes—no food processor or eggs needed! You’ll get that authentic, restaurant-style texture and flavor with minimal effort.

Awesome Sauce = Toum.

You know the saying “awesome sauce”? I think it’s about Toum. It’s the sauce I refuse to eat chicken shawarma, chicken skewers, or any rotisserie chicken without.

It’s thick, creamy, and garlicky; not for the faint hearted. It’s so addictive, and I’m usually spooning it on my wraps, or whatever I’m eating it with (everything). Also, by the way, toum just means “garlic” in Arabic.

It comes together by emulsifying garlic and oil, with lemon juice and salt. Toum is not the same as Mayonnaise, because mayonnaise is made from emulsifying egg yolks and canola oil. Since toum is egg-free, it’s actually a type of aioli.

Now before I learned this method, I used to only buy my toum. But now… I only make it at home. If you want to also convert to a toum-maker, follow this recipe.

There are two common ways that toum is made today:

1. using a food processor, or
2. using an immersion blender.

I’ll discuss the differences in the next section, but spoiler alert, I highly recommend the immersion blender method. Because It’s quicker, easier, and more people have that in their kitchen vs a pricier food processor.

You only need 4 ingredients for Toum!

Grab your ingredients. A few important notes:

• Garlic: Make sure you use fresh garlic; this is important. I actually use fresh pre-peeled garlic to make this a truly 5-minute recipe. If you’re using pre-peeled, make sure it is from a trusted supermarket and freshly peeled (locally sourced if possible). If not, you can peel garlic really quickly by smashing them on a board with a chef’s knife.
• Neutral Oil: It’s important to use oil that doesn’t impart any flavour, in order to let the garlic shine. My choice of oil is avocado oil, but I know it can be pricy, so feel free to also use canola oil, sunflower oil, vegetable oil, or grapeseed oil.

TIP: Do not use olive oil for this recipe. It is not a “neutral” oil, it’s flavour will impact the final flavour of the sauce, and it will be more yellow in colour.

How to make Toum using an Immersion Blender

• In order for this recipe to be a truly 5-minute toum recipe, I use pre-peeled garlic cloves. I buy them from a trusted local middle eastern shop that I know has freshly peeled cloves. Otherwise, you can peel them by smashing them with a chef’s knife and loosening the skin.

• Next, slice the garlic cloves in half lengthwise and remove the germ inside, which is a little green stem. Removing this ensures the toum does not come out bitter or too spicy, so don’t skip this step.

• Next, in a long jar or container that fits your immersion blender, add the garlic cloves, lemon juice, and salt. Blend until a foamy garlic paste is formed, ensuring all the garlic is pureed. This should take 20-30 seconds (depending on the power of your blender).

• Next, with the immersion blender still inside the container, pour all of the oil on top of the garlic paste. Blend for 3-4 minutes, slowly pulsing the immersion blender up and down in micro movements to help the sauce emulsify. The emulsification will slowly move all the way up the jar until the result is a homogenous toum sauce.

• You can continue to pulse the immersion blender up and down and blend for 1-2 more minutes. This helps thicken the toum a bit more. You can also get a thicker toum by using more oil than my recipe. It will also further thicken in the fridge once cooled.
• Once you’re done, do not add any lemon juice as it will cause the sauce to break.

• Store the toum in an airtight Mason Jar and keep it in the fridge for 2-3 months. The flavour of the toum will continue to mellow out over time.

Immersion Blender vs. Food Processor

When testing this recipe, I went into a deep dive comparing these two methods for making toum. Here are my findings:

Food Processor Method:

Here are the reasons I don’t like using a food processor:

The food processor size vs. the amount of toum you are making. The first time I tried to make toum with my 7-cup food processor, it was a major fail. The garlic cloves were flying all over the place and not making contact with the blade, so the garlic failed to puree. Therefore, if you have a large food processor, you need a double or triple batch. If you want a small batch (like this recipe), you need a food processor that has a smaller work bowl you can insert.

The need to continuously stream in oil and process duration. The oil is streamed in a small amount at a time, alternating with lemon juice, until the toum emulsifies. That means you are adding 1-2 tablespoons at a time, either yourself or using a food processor streamer attachment.

Because you are streaming in the oil and lemon juice 1-2 tablespoons at a time, the process likely takes between 10-20 minutes. A lot longer than an immersion blender!

The plus side: toum yield is likely fluffier/thicker. Because the process is slower in a food processor, the toum tends to yield a slightly “fluffier” or thicker consistency than the immersion blender method. Not a big difference for me, but something to keep in mind.

Immersion Blender Method:

Here’s why I love this method plus a few key notes:

No need to stream in the oil. With this method, after the garlic is pureed with the salt and the lemon juice, the oil is added right on top. The oil won’t mix right away, but as you blend, the oil starts to leak through the garlic “barrier” and start to emulsify with it, until the whole thing is emulsified. I’m not sure of the exact science, but it just works.

It’s quicker. The process of emulsifying using this method takes 2-3 minutes, and a maximum of 5 minutes (the blender power likely has an impact here), because you don’t need to stream in the oil.

Toum yield is likely less thick. But still plenty thick! It’s just not *as thick* as the food processor method because it’s faster. When the toum cools in the fridge, it will also get slightly thicker, so this is totally fine by me.

Here’s How to Make Toum Using a Food Processor

If you don’t have an immersion blender or would like to try the food processor method to bake a big batch or to get a much thicker consistency, here’s how you can do that.

First, make sure you use a large food processor that has a smaller work bowl to insert inside (the 7-cup or 9-cup processors won’t work unless you make a very large batch). It also helps to have the streamer attachment so the oil and lemon can stream hands-free.

Next, cover the food processor, and while it is running on high speed, start by streaming in the oil, starting with just one tablespoon. Do this very slowly by hand or using the streaming attachment. It must be done slowly in order to emulsify.

Continue adding another tablespoon of oil, stopping to scrape the bowl down as necessary. The mixture will start to look emulsified like the photo on the left.

Next, start adding in the lemon juice, a few tablespoons at a time and also slowly, alternating between the lemon juice and oil. Do this while the food processor is running on high speed. It’s important to make sure the last thing you stream is the oil, not the lemon juice. This process will take 15 to 20 minutes.

After you finish streaming in the oil and the lemon juice, the toum will look fluffy and like the photo above on the right.

Why I don’t recommend using egg whites in Toum

There are a lot of people who use egg whites in their toum. That’s because egg whites are excellent for emulsification due to their chemical properties. However, when using egg whites, toum can only be used up to 7 days in the fridge, due to the egg white’s fridge life.

How to Make Toum More Mild

Toum is a lot of garlic. So if you’re making it, I take you you’re a garlic fan. But I know that there’s likely people out there who want it slightly more mild in flavour. Here are a few things to consider if you want a milder toum:

• Once you make it, allow it to sit in the fridge for 2-3 days. The flavour of toum will naturally mellow out in the fridge and take the edge off.
• When you’re ready to enjoy toum, mix it with half the amount of plain yogurt (so if using 1 tablespoon toum, add about half a tablespoon yogurt). This will make the toum less concentrated and it will still taste delicious.

How to store toum

Simple! Just put it in an airtight glass jar and store it in the fridge. I love using mason jars, and this recipe makes exactly one 16 oz (453 g) jar. When using the toum, try not to contaminate it by always using a clean utensil when scooping it out. It will keep in the fridge easily for 2-4 weeks.

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