We Found Best Tahini Sauce You Can Buy

I now know how to get to Sesame Street, and it is, unequivocally, by simply going to the tahini aisle at my local grocery store. Tahini is a pantry staple. It can be used to make hummus (one of the more common uses), halvah (one of the more traditional uses), and even cookies, salad dressings, and marinades (all of which I am sure you have seen recipes for on TikTok in the last five years, accompanied by a video of someone telling you tahini changed their life). Let me tell ya, tahini is some versatile goo, and today our job is to tell you which of these versatile, nutty, creamy, silky goos is the goo-dest.

What is Tahini?

Tahini is ground-up sesame seeds. They can be peeled, not peeled, roasted, or not roasted—regardless, still valid tahini. It is essentially unsalted, unsweetened sesame butter (but if you still have Qs, you can read more about it here).

What did we look for in the best tahini?

Savory flavor. The best tahini is nutty without being too bitter. It gives an illusion of saltiness even if none is added, and it doesn’t taste rancid, rubbery, plasticky, etc. No “off” flavors, please.
A nice, blended texture. It can be entirely smooth like hot fudge or tight and grainy like all-natural almond butter. We included a little bit of everything on our list.

I didn’t make hummus with all of these (I only have so much free time), but I did taste them all off a spoon to judge their merits. Here’s the best tahini for hummus, cookies, and more, from the best tahini brands at the grocery store.

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Best Chunky Tahini

Once Again Unsweetened Creamy Tahini

Instacart

If there were a “chunky peanut butter equivalent” in the tahini world, this would be it. The only ingredient is sesame seeds (true for many of our picks today, but still), and it has the texture of home-ground peanut butter—like a gritty paste but one that could still flow off a spoon…eventually. This tahini is bitter but not too bitter, and has the green nuttiness of fresh-from-the-shell peanuts at a baseball game. It also tastes a little savory even though it’s not salted, and in my mind, that is a plus. We didn’t get this jar of tahini at Whole Foods, but, aesthetically, it has a Whole Foods vibe. It’s the best tahini if you want something very natural.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks

Best Flavored

Sprouts Organic Roasted Garlic Tahini

Instacart

We tried a couple of different flavored tahinis, and this one stood out for having a bunch of different applicable use cases. This could serve as a hummus cheat code (all you would have to add are chickpeas, salt, and lemon), but it could also be a part of an excellent vinaigrette or tahini yogurt sauce for falafel. It tastes deeply umami like roasted garlic hummus, but still has some of the bitterness of tahini (though not a lot) and the lack of salt or acid that would be present in most hummus. This may taste like hummus, but rest assured, it is still a tahini at heart. Plus, the ingredients are just sesame seeds and garlic powder; no chickpeas were harmed in the making of this tahini.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

6.5/10

Sporks

Best Tahini for Dressing

Seed + Mill Organic Tahini

Instacart

Of all the tahini we taste tested, this was the creamiest of the bunch. It also made me pause and say, “That reminds me of salad dressing!” when I first tasted it. Can I put a finger on why that is? No, not really. It just has extreme salad dressing vibes, and sometimes, life is all about the vibes. What I mean to say is this might be an excellent choice if you are buying tahini to make a dressing. This one was the least bitter of the bunch, but it’s also a bit less nutty than some of the others. That said, mixed with a little lemon, salt, pepper, vinegar, fresh herbs, and olive oil, this would be quite a banger of a dressing.

Credit: Merc/ Instacart

Rating:

7/10

Sporks

Best Nutty Flavor

Sadaf Tahini

Instacart

Much like Once Again brand, Sadaf tahini once again has that less silky, more gritty, fresh-ground peanut butter/smooth almond butter texture going for it. It’s a bit more bitter than some of the others on this list, but it has a really specific nuttiness to it (less peanut-nutty, and more sunflower seed-nutty) that some people might prefer.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

7/10

Sporks

Toastiest Flavor

Joyva Sesame Tahini

Instacart

Joyva tahini has the perfect balance of nuttiness and toastiness, balanced with bitterness. It has a silky-smooth texture, the illusion of saltiness, and the warm nuttiness of roasted salted peanuts. This was one of the only tahinis on the list that I didn’t hate trying straight from the spoon, and after nine other tahinis, that is saying something.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

Best Overall

Mighty Sesame Co. Tahini

Instacart

This tahini has it all. It is exceedingly creamy and smooth, and it is only ever so slightly bitter, but it still has ample nutty flavor and is the consistency of fudge sauce or melted peanut butter. Plus, this bad boy comes in one of the coolest squeeze bottles I have ever seen (the rubber nozzle comes out of the cap and opens…I can’t even describe it; you have to see for yourself). I could see using this one across savory applications, sweet applications, and because of the squeeze bottle, this would also work in situations where you just need to squeeze tahini on stuff – like that thing of when you and your siblings get into a classic tahini fight.

Credit: Merc / Instacart

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks