Tahini Cookies Recipe and Baking Tips

Tahini cookies are sweet, buttery, and nutty cookies made with tahini. Tahini is a sesame seed paste and is a common ingredient in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foods like hummus and halva.

Tahini has a nutty flavor, pale brown color, and texture similar to natural peanut butter or almond butter. In cookies, tahini provides a smooth, fatty element, resulting in a chewy and tender cookie. Jump to recipe.

Use the five tips below for making sweet, tender, and nutty tahini cookies:

1. 1. Add chocolate chips. Tahini is a very nutty flavor, and just like chocolate pairs well with nut butter, it pairs well with tahini too. Put milk, semisweet, or dark chocolate chips in the cookie dough.
2. 2. Customize the recipe for dietary restrictions. Make tahini cookies dairy-free or gluten-free by swapping out some key ingredients. Use almond flour or your favorite gluten-free flour blend instead of all-purpose flour and vegan butter or coconut oil instead of dairy butter. Look for a recipe specific to the dietary restrictions to ensure the ratios of the ingredients are correct.
3. 3. Know the different types of tahini. There are four types of tahini; hulled, unhulled, raw, and roasted. Unhulled and roasted tahini is the most common and has the deepest flavor. Raw tahini is also relatively common; look for “raw” on the label. Unhulled, raw Chinese sesame paste is a good substitute.
4. 4. Refrigerate the cookie dough before baking. Similar to natural nut butter, tahini is fairly runny at room temperature. After mixing the cookie dough, cover the mixing bowl and refrigerate the dough for about an hour before using a cookie scoop or spoon to portion out the cookies. Chilling the dough allows all the flavors to come together and helps the cookies keep their shape while baking.
5. 5. Use more brown sugar than granulated for a chewy texture. Using all granulated sugar produces a thinner, more crispy cookie while using brown sugar alone results in a soft and chewy cookie. For a cookie that’s chewy in the middle but crispy at the edges, use a combination of granulated sugar and brown sugar, usually half and half.