Where I live, pure sesame oil can be hard to come by, and it is usually a blend of some sesame oil but mainly something else, like peanut oil. That is why I decided to make my own homemade sesame oil.
Making your own sesame oil at home is easier than I thought, but the yield is so small, so you would need a LOT of seeds to make a decent amount of pure oil. Alternately, you can make a sesame oil blend with a neutral flavored oil, such as peanut, but that has a slightly different methodology than what we are about to get into here.
What Can Sesame Oil Be Used For?
The good thing is pure sesame oil has a strong flavor, and you usually only use a little bit in recipes for this reason. It works well in Asian cuisine and is often used for stir-fries, dressings, marinades, and more. It cannot be used for high-heat cooking, though, as it has a smoke point of around 350 degrees.
Do I Need Any Special Equipment To Make Sesame Oil At Home?
You don’t really need specialized equipment, I did it with a not-so-powerful blender, but a powerful blender would have made it easier and probably increased how much oil I got out of it. A cheesecloth could be considered another special bit of equipment, but you can use a clean cotton t-shirt if you don’t have one of those.
To make pure sesame oil at home, you will need:
- A frying pan
- A wooden spoon
- A rubber spatula
- A powerful blender
- A cheesecloth OR alternative (I used a clean cotton t-shirt)
- A deep bowl
- A glass container
- A stainless steel spoon
Ingredients To Make Sesame Oil At Home
- Raw sesame seeds (I used a cup to yield 1 tbsp of oil)
- Clean water
How To Make Sesame Oil At Home
Pour your sesame seeds into a fry pan on medium heat, and toast, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 2-3 minutes or until they start to smell nutty. You don’t want them to go dark brown, just light brown. This helps to release the oil from the seed and give it a nice flavor.
Once they have been toasted, pour them immediately onto a cool plate to cool down so they don’t keep toasting.
Let them cool, then pour them into your blender.
Blend until it forms a paste. We are talking a nut butter paste, so a powerful nut butter blender is best, and it may take a while. As you can see with mine, it isn’t powerful, and I had to add water to get it to a paste, which may have messed with my yield. So yeah, a powerful blender is best.
Pour the paste out of the blender and into a deep bowl. A stainless steel mixing bowl works well.
Add 1.5 cups of warmish water to the paste.
Mix the paste into the water, and use your hands to do it! That way, you will be able to separate any lumps. Mix until as much of the paste is dissolved into the water as possible. It should look like milk with little floaty bits of seed.
Next, strain the water and paste mixture through the cheesecloth (or t-shirt) into a glass container. It should now look like milk with no bits! If the chaff/paste left in the cloth still feels oily, then you can repeat steps 5 to 8 with the chaff.
Put a lid on the container and place it in the fridge or freezer for 2 hours or until the water separates from the oil. The oil will move to the top!
Now it might look like just two segments, the sediment at the bottom and then water above it, but if you look at the top of the water there is a tiny tiny third line, and that’s the oil. It was around a small tablespoon in the end and I’m not sure it was worth all of the effort! Now I understand why pure sesame oil is so darn expensive!
Use your stainless steel spoon to carefully scoop the oil off the top of the water and put it in a separate jar, and store it in the fridge.
Notes/Tips/Troubleshooting
- Sesame oil varies in color and flavor. Usually, the darker one will mean the seeds were toasted for longer at the beginning. In hindsight, I should have toasted mine until they were a bit browner for better flavor, maybe it would have helped with my oil yield.
- When blending the seeds, you may need to stop the blender several times and use a rubber spatula to scrape the sides down (particularly if your blender is not a strong one)
- If you use a t-shirt as a cheesecloth, ensure it has no holes!
- Pure sesame oil you have made yourself won’t last longer than 6 months. Keep it in the fridge, and if it tastes bitter when you use it, it is rancid.
- Would I make this again? Perhaps, but its quite a bit of work for such a small amount of oil, that I think I would prefer to just buy it.
Nutritional Facts
A tablespoon serving of sesame oil contains:
Calories: 120
Protein: 0 grams
Fat: 14 grams
Carbohydrates: 0 grams
Fiber: 0 grams
Sugar: 0 grams
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FAQs
Not much, as you can see from my attempt. If you do it well or professionally, you can extract around one cup of oil per pound of seeds. I managed a tiny tablespoon from an entire cup!
If you make it yourself, it won’t last long, a few months really before it starts to taste bitter. Store-brought virgin sesame oil lasts around a year. I store mine in the fridge to stretch this time out a bit. You will know when it is rancid because it is YUCK.
How to Make Homemade Sesame Oil
Making your own sesame oil at home is easier than I thought, but the yield is small, so you would need a LOT of seeds to make a decent amount of pure oil. Alternately, you can make a sesame oil blend with a neutral flavored oil, such as peanut, but that has a slightly different methodology than what we are about to get into here.
Ingredients
- Raw sesame seeds (I used 1 cup)
- Clean water
Instructions
- Pour your sesame seeds into a fry pan on medium heat, and toast, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 2-3 minutes or until they start to smell nutty. You don’t want them to go dark brown, just light brown. This helps to release the oil from the seed and give it a nice flavor.
- Once they have been toasted, pour them immediately onto a cool plate to cool down so they don’t keep toasting.
- Let them cool, then pour them into your blender.
- Blend until it forms a paste. We are talking a nut butter paste, so a powerful nut butter blender is best, and it may take a while. As you can see with mine, it isn’t powerful, and I had to add water which probably messed with my yield.
- Pour the paste out of the blender and into a deep bowl. A stainless steel mixing bowl works well.
- Add 1.5 cups of warmish water to the paste.
- Mix the paste into the water, and use your hands to do it! That way, you will be able to separate any lumps. Mix until as much of the paste is dissolved into the water as possible. It should look like milk with little floaty bits of seed.
- Next, strain the water and paste mixture through the cheesecloth or t-shirt into a glass container. It should now look like milk with no bits! If the chaff/paste left in the cloth still feels oily, then you can repeat steps 5 to 8 with the chaff.
- Put a lid on the container and place it in the freezer for 2 hours or until the water separates from the oil. The oil will move to the top!
- Use your stainless steel spoon to carefully scoop the oil off the top of the water and put it in a separate jar, and store it in the fridge.
The reason you would need a lot of Sesame Seeds, is because you’re using Water instead of Oil :S After roasting the Sesame Seeds, a couple tablespoons is enough by the way, then add about a 1/2 cup of Oil, and blend, then strain 🙂 Not sure where the water idea came from? As that wouldn’t make it an “Oil” and “Oil” and “Water” don’t mix…