Sumac Sauce (Thick and Creamy!)
This creamy Sumac Sauce will take your taste buds on a journey. Travel to the Middle East in just 10 minutes with a blend of sour cream, yogurt, lemon, olive oil, garlic and tangy sumac.
Make it thinner and drizzle the sumac dressing over a crisp garden salad or a hearty fattoush. Or serve the sumac sauce with sliced cast-iron chicken breasts and spicy pickled onions stuffed into a homemade pita pocket, and you’ll be transported to a different world.
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Recipe adaptation
This recipe is only slightly adapted from the Ottolenghi sumac sauce from the Jerusalem cookbook which uses a combination of sour cream and Greek yogurt in a 2 to 3 ratio. I have always made this recipe with equal amounts of low-fat regular yogurt and sour cream.
I was recently inspired to experiment with the base after realizing how similar the recipe is to classic buttermilk dressing. Given that you can substitute yogurt and lemon juice for buttermilk, you can imagine this recipe will taste like a buttermilk salad dressing with sumac.
Ingredients
This lemon sumac dressing is made with just a handful of ingredients:
- Sour cream and low-fat yogurt. See the discussion below about using other dairy products as the base. Buy organic dairy products if you can afford it, because the organic label means that the cows were not treated with hormones or antibiotics.
- Sumac (see below).
About sumac
Sumac is a tangy spice with a citrus-like flavor made from dried, ground sumac berries. It’s commonly used in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, including the classic Mussakhan, a Palestinian chicken recipe with sumac and red onion.
Please see the recipe card below for complete information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations and substitutions
- For a sumac spice substitution, use za’atar, a spice mixture with sumac, dried green herbs like oregano and thyme, and toasted sesame seeds.
- Make a sumac vinaigrette. Drop the sour cream and yogurt, and use a half cup of virgin olive oil, one tablespoon of white wine vinegar, and one tablespoon of lemon juice.
- Vary your base (see below).
The photo below shows bowls of Greek yogurt (#1) and equal amounts of sour cream and Greek yogurt (#2), sour cream and low-fat traditional yogurt (#3), and sour cream plus buttermilk (#4). Depending on what texture and consistency you want, those go from thickest to thinnest.
The table below has nutritional information for a quarter cup of organic sour cream, a full-fat Greek yogurt, low-fat traditional yogurt, and buttermilk. Do with this information what you will.
| Calories | Fat | Carb | Protein | % Daily Calcium | |
| Sour cream | 120 | 10g | 4g | 2g | 4% |
| Greek yogurt | 57 | 4.7g | 2g | 2.3g | 8% |
| Low-fat yogurt | 33 | 1g | 3g | 2.7g | 10% |
| Buttermilk | 25 | 0.6g | 3g | 2g | 8% |
Recipe tips and tricks
Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl. Taste and adjust the amount of salt, lemon juice, and other ingredients as you desire. There’s no right or wrong. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
In my experiment, the sumac sauce with Greek yogurt alone (#1) had a flatter taste than those made with sour cream. The one with half buttermilk (#4) was the runniest of them all. The sour cream plus Greek yogurt (#2) remained slightly thicker than the one made with traditional yogurt (#3), but tasters thought the flavor was about the same.
What to serve with sumac dressing
The sumac dressing is a great topper for a green salad. Or it’s traditional with fattoush, a Middle Eastern bread salad made with fried flatbread.
Make it on the thicker side, and use this creamy sumac sauce to serve with meatballs for dinner or in your meatball wrap for lunch. Just pick a recipe for meatballs or veggie balls like Greek chicken meatballs, lamb meatballs or quinoa balls with pine nuts and raisins.
In reality, you can serve the sumac sauce with just about anything. Try it with a recipe for Moroccan chicken and dates, these cauliflower burgers, or fawaffle or another savory waffle with kale.
Recipe FAQs
Sumac adds a tangy, almost citrus-like flavor to your salad dressings and other recipes.
Store your sumac sauce in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to one week. It will not freeze well.
There aren’t many great alternatives to sumac other than za’atar, a spice mixture that includes sumac. If you can’t find either, you can still make a delicious salad dressing without it. It just won’t have the same tangy flavor.
Related sauce and dressing recipes
Check out other Ugly Duckling Bakery sauces and dressings like:
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-heart 💜💜💜💜💜 rating in the recipe card below. Let me know how much you loved it, or any problems you had, in the comments section further down.
Recipe
Sumac Sauce
Ingredients
Sumac Sauce
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ cup low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt plus more as desired, see notes
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice plus more to taste
- 1 small clove garlic, finely minced or crushed
- 1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon ground sumac
- ½ teaspoon salt plus more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper plus more to taste
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.½ cup sour cream, ½ cup low-fat yogurt or Greek yogurt, 1 teaspoon lemon zest, 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 small clove garlic, finely minced or crushed, 1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon ground sumac, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Taste and add more lemon juice, salt, or pepper as desired. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
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I can’t wait to try this! Will make it for dinner with friends tomorrow evening. Having just gotten back from Dubai, and having eaten a ton of their delicious food for days, I think za’atar doesn’t bring me close to sumac in taste as I would imagine this sauce would “ask for”, to still taste somewhat the same… But I have Rød Skovsyre in my backyard (Red Oxalis Acetosella) here in Denmark and I think the flavor comes quite close, if I have to sub. But first I have to consume my whole kg of Sumac that I brought home, haha!
Loving the recipes!
I made this recipe tonight I served it over pan seared chicken thighs with jasmine rice and cucumber tomatoes and onions with this sumac sauce and it was amazing thank for this recipe a new family favorite
Symone – So glad your family loved this sumac sauce as much as mine does. Thanks for letting me know!