This Easy 4-Ingredient Sandwich Spread Is A Garlic Lover's Must-Have

Allium lovers, this one's for you. Garlic isn't just for pasta and other hot dishes. Here at Tasting Table, we've long been singing the praises of garlic confit for adding pungent flavor to myriad dishes without extra prep steps. Now, we're shining the spotlight on one undersung sandwich spread that belongs on your radar: Toum. This vibrant, transformative condiment is a whipped Lebanese garlic sauce, and it pushes that umami-bomb star ingredient to the forefront. In fact, "toum" is the Arabic word for "garlic."

Creamy, bold toum can be purchased from your local Lebanese restaurant, but it's easy to whip up a flavorful batch at home. All it takes is four ingredients: garlic, lemon juice, neutral oil, and kosher salt. Opting for mild, neutral sunflower oil, grapeseed, or canola oil instead of bolder olive oil allows the flavor of the garlic to shine unobstructed. Some preparations also add white vinegar into the mix for an acidic kick.

Not unlike mayonnaise, toum is an emulsion — the process by which oil and water (which do not normally mix) are slowly incorporated together to create a creamy texture. From a food science perspective, mayonnaise is able to achieve cohesive surface tension thanks to the lecithin and proteins in the egg, which act as emulsifying agents. In toum, the emulsifying agent is garlic's plant tissues, which get released when the garlic is blended into a paste. That's why the first step in making toum is crushing up those cloves. 

Using a food processor, pulverize the peeled garlic and kosher salt into a mince. Add the lemon juice and pulse once more. Then, slowly stream in the oil, gradually drizzling in small batches and taking care not to rush. Texturally, the sauce should be smooth, fluffy, stable, and non-greasy. Feel free to add more salt or lemon juice to taste. Pro tip: Adding a teaspoon of ice water after every addition of oil can help prevent the emulsion from breaking. Worst case scenario and your toum breaks, you can always whisk an egg into ¼ cup of the broken emulsion, then slowly whisk the mixture back into the rest of the batch. Traditional toum doesn't include any eggs, but in a pinch, that powerful emulsifying agent can save the day. 

In Lebanese culinary tradition, toum is often served as an accompaniment to grilled meat and veggies. But this versatile, pungent spread is also a moisture component that works wonders to upgrade your sandwich game. A swipe of toum would lend umami dimensionality to a simple grilled cheese. Add it to a BLT with a fried egg, or to a toasty tuna melt. You could even spread some toum on the underside of a toasted bun for a deeply savory burger that's even greater than the sum of its parts. When garlic meets beef, it's a beautiful thing. In an airtight container in the fridge, homemade toum will keep for up to a month.