Lemon Tahini Dressing and Green Herb Sauce
Two jars, one creamy and one sharp and green. Between them, they make a week of the same grain taste like two completely different meals.
Why it works
Sauce is what separates a week of meal prep you finish from one you abandon by Wednesday. The same bowl of grain and roasted vegetables turns into a different dinner depending on which sauce lands on it, creamy tahini or sharp herb, and making both takes ten minutes total. Tahini brings sesame to the table, dense in calcium and in lignans studied for cholesterol, and the fat in it does a necessary job too: it makes the carotenoids in whatever you pour it over absorbable. The herb sauce is basically a loose salsa verde, and the point of it is volume. A packed cup of parsley is a serving of vegetable, not a garnish. Both hold a week in the fridge, and the herb one freezes in an ice cube tray for whenever you need it.
Sesame lignans have trial support for modest cholesterol reduction. Fat being required for carotenoid absorption is well demonstrated in controlled feeding studies, no debate there.
Ingredients
- For the tahini dressing: 120 g tahini, 80 ml lemon juice, 2 grated garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp salt, 120 to 180 ml warm water
- For the herb sauce: 1 large bunch parsley, 1 bunch coriander, 100 ml olive oil, 3 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp capers, 1/2 tsp salt
Method
- For the tahini dressing, whisk the tahini, lemon, garlic, and salt. It will seize into a stiff paste, which is the expected and alarming part.
- Add warm water a tablespoon at a time, whisking, until it turns pale and pourable. Cold water makes it split.
- For the herb sauce, blend everything for the second jar until it is coarse rather than smooth. Over-blending herbs bruises them and turns the colour dull.
- Store both in jars. The herb sauce keeps its colour better with a thin layer of olive oil poured on top to keep air off.
- Freeze the herb sauce in an ice cube tray if you will not finish it, then bag the cubes.
