2-Minute 4-Ingredient Super Creamy Tahini Salad Dressing

This healthy super creamy tahini salad dressing requires only 4 ingredients, and is vegan, paleo, gluten free and sugar free. Read on to learn the TRICK that makes this (extremely reliable!) tahini salad dressing recipe different from all the others out there.

I find myself feeling downright silly right now. “Why?” you might ask. Because there I was, intensely brainstorming over what on Earth my next post should be about, while happily munching on my go-to gluten free, high protein VEGAN salad with a super special & super easy 4-ingredient tahini salad dressing. (Yes, “super” seems to be the word of the day.) A vegan salad that is incredibly delicious, but has for whatever reason not yet found its way on here. And neither has the tahini dressing. It wasn’t so much a ‘Eureka!’ as a facepalm moment. 

You’ll have to wait a tad longer for the high protein vegan salad recipe (Be excited! Be over the moon! That salad will change your life… or at least your lunches.) but we’ll get onto the tahini salad dressing momentarily. But first, let me explain why you should read on. I’m sure you’ve come across quite a few tahini salad dressing recipes so far. But what I’m offering is a tahini dressing with a twist – there’s namely a trick that I’ve always used (with 100% success rate) that I’ve not come across anywhere else.

And it’s this trick that results in the dressing’s silky creaminess – I mean, just look at it:

You’ll notice that I’m using similar or ever the same ingredients as many others that have found the wonder that is tahini salad dressing: tahini, water, lemon juice, salt (yes, 4 ingredients only, and it’s vegan, paleo, gluten free and sugar free).

The trick that allows this dressing to go from being yummy if slightly runny (or even having a split texture) to the delicious creamy decadence you see here is hot water. You see, it’s all to do with Chemistry. (Yay!) Water does most certainly not want to mix with the fatty tahini, especially when cold or at room temperature. But if you heat the water to a boil, and then mix it with the tahini – that’s how the magic happens. 

The high temperature allows complete incorporation of the water in tahini, making the mixture increase in volume and resulting in the creamy fluffiness that is then combined with lemon juice and salt.

The final product is a salty, creamy deliciousness with just the right amount of sourness from the lemon juice, which I’m always tempted to taste again and again until there’s nothing to put onto the salad. Oops.

This recipe embodies what cooking is really about – it’s the little tricks and tweaks that distinguish a mediocre but well-made dish from a mouthwatering finger-lickingly delectable taste explosion. Here, the little trick is hot water. So very simple, but so quickly overlooked.

And the result is a super creamy tahini salad dressing that requires only 4 ingredients, and is vegan, paleo, gluten free and sugar free. And the salad that it goes perfectly with? Well, you’ll need to wait a bit for that.