Lemon juice and refrigeration reduce Salmonella in tahini sauces
What it found
In lab tests, Salmonella in tahini sauces grew rapidly at room temperature when mixed with water, but lemon juice and refrigeration kept levels down or reduced them.
The authors say these steps can help lower risk for people preparing tahini sauces at home.
What they found
Animal and lab studies
Growth in water-based sauce
In sauces made with equal parts tahini paste and water and kept at room temperature, Salmonella increased from 2.1 to 7.9 log CFU/g over 24 hours. This shows the bacteria can grow quickly when tahini paste is diluted with water and left out.
Oil-based sauce
When vegetable oil was used instead of water, Salmonella levels stayed steady at about 2 log CFU/g over 24 hours at room temperature. The oil-based sauce had very low water activity.
Lemon juice effect
Sauces with 25% lemon juice kept Salmonella levels stable at about 2 log CFU/g over 24 hours at room temperature. With 50% lemon juice, levels dropped and no Salmonella were found by direct plating at 24 hours.
Refrigeration effect
At 4°C, Salmonella levels in water- and oil-based sauces stayed around 2 log CFU/g for two weeks. In the sauce with 50% lemon juice, no Salmonella were recovered by one week of storage.
Garlic powder
Adding garlic powder at 0.7% did not change Salmonella levels in the sauces compared with sauces without it.
Other findings
Salmonella in tahini paste
The three naturally contaminated tahini pastes had very low levels of Salmonella, about 0.4 cells per 100 g. This is roughly one cell in every 143 to 500 g of tahini.
What the authors conclude
“These findings support the use of lemon juice and refrigeration by end-users as effective interventions to help mitigate Salmonella risk in tahini sauces.”
Also in their conclusions
- They say that using commercial lemon juice and refrigerating prepared sauces can reduce Salmonella replication in tahini sauces.
- They advise that these steps are an additional layer of protection and will not eliminate the risk of illness if contaminated sauces are eaten.
- They conclude that controlling the tahini production process, using sesame seeds free of Salmonella and strict hygiene, will ensure consumer safety.
How it was done
Tahini paste has been linked to many Salmonella outbreaks, and when it is used to make higher-moisture foods like sauces and dips, any Salmonella present can grow. The authors wanted to give consumers practical guidance on how recipe ingredients and storage affect Salmonella in tahini sauces.
They tested three naturally contaminated tahini pastes for Salmonella and background bacteria. They also made tahini sauces from paste artificially contaminated with a five-strain Salmonella cocktail, using different amounts of water, oil, lemon juice, and garlic powder, and stored them at 22°C or 4°C for up to two weeks.
What it can’t tell you
- These tests used artificially contaminated tahini paste in the lab, so they cannot show exactly what happens with naturally contaminated products in home kitchens.
- The study did not test how the sauces taste or whether people would accept a sauce with 50% lemon juice.
- The results apply to the specific recipes and storage times tested, not to all possible tahini sauce preparations.
Who paid
- Funding
- Funded by Government of Canada (from the PubMed record).
- Conflicts
- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The paper
- Title
- Effect of recipe composition and storage conditions on Salmonella survival in sauces made from contaminated tahini paste
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Animals and lab studies
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Licence
- CC BY. Words in quotation marks are the authors’; the rest is our summary.
- Cite
- Rao M, Tamber S (2026). Effect of recipe composition and storage conditions on Salmonella survival in sauces made from contaminated tahini paste. Microbiology spectrum. doi:10.1128/spectrum.00520-26Free full textPubMed 42206853DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error