Pantry Staples

Sesame Seeds

Sesame is grown mainly for its seeds today, but the plant's leaves and young pods have traditionally been eaten as a vegetable in parts of Africa, a far less familiar use than the seed itself outside those regions.

It's a foundational flavor across dishes as different as a Chinese sesame chicken glaze, a Middle Eastern za'atar blend, and a Japanese goma-ae vegetable dressing, each drawing on the seed in a genuinely different form, whole, oil, or ground paste.

A sesame seed's tiny size and light weight make it prone to scattering everywhere once a bag or jar is opened, which is part of why many cooks keep them in a small, wide, shallow container rather than a tall narrow jar for easier scooping.

Toasted, ground sesame seeds become tahini, a foundational ingredient in hummus and a wide range of Middle Eastern and Levantine sauces and dressings — the same seed transformed by grinding into a smooth, nutty paste with a completely different texture and application from whole sesame seeds sprinkled as a garnish.

Black sesame's deeper color and bolder taste make it a favorite for a visual contrast dusted over a pale dessert or a bowl of rice, chosen as much for how it looks against a lighter dish as for its flavor.

Sesame's drought resistance made it a reliable oilseed crop in regions where other crops struggled, which helped it spread and become embedded across an unusually wide range of cuisines, from bagels to Chinese sesame chicken to Middle Eastern za'atar.

Sesame's long cultivation history across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia owes a lot to its unusual drought tolerance, which let it thrive as a reliable oilseed crop in regions where other crops failed.

Halva, a dense, sweet confection made from ground sesame paste (tahini) and sugar, is a traditional treat across the Middle East, the Balkans, and parts of South Asia — another example of sesame's transformation from whole seed into a completely different textured food.

Benne seeds, an heirloom African sesame variety brought to the American South through the transatlantic slave trade, remain a distinct culinary thread in Lowcountry Southern cooking today.

Sesame allergy has become a recognized major food allergen in the US in recent years, prompting new labeling requirements similar to those for peanuts and tree nuts.

Sesame oil, pressed from the seeds, comes in toasted and untoasted forms with quite different flavors, the toasted version considerably more aromatic and commonly used as a finishing oil.

Sesame ranks among the oldest oilseed crops cultivated by humans, with archaeological evidence of its use stretching back several thousand years across the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, well before many other now-common oilseeds entered cultivation.

A bagel's sesame topping is pressed onto the raw dough before baking, letting the seeds toast directly in the oven's heat alongside the bread rather than being added afterward as a separate step.