Cooking With Sumac: Salads, Onions, Grilled Meat and Za’atar

Want lemony tang without thinning out a dressing or making the rice soggy? That’s sumac’s trick: sourness in dry form. The dried, ground fruit of Rhus coriaria tastes tart and sour with a slightly astringent edge, and it’s a very popular condiment in Turkey and Iran. It gets rubbed into raw onions, sprinkled over rice and whisked into fattoush dressing, and it brings a dark red color too. Below: how much recipes use, and two cautions, including how to tell it from poison sumac.

Where sumac goes

Onions. Sumac mixed with freshly cut onions is a frequent appetizer. Sliced raw onion rubbed with sumac and salt is the simplest way to learn what it tastes like.

Grilled and roast meat. Döner kebab is sometimes flavored with sumac powder. A 2022 review describes sumac rubbed on meat, chicken or fish in North Africa.¹ Which meats suit it best is up to you; no source we found singles out lamb or duck.

Rice. Ground sumac gets sprinkled liberally over rice, and it’s a very popular condiment in Turkey and Iran.

Salads. In fattoush, a salad of toasted flatbread, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and herbs, sumac goes into the dressing. Angela Nahas’s recipe for SBS whisks 2 teaspoons of sumac with the juice of a lemon, 80 ml olive oil and a teaspoon of water, for a salad that serves six, then lets the dressed salad stand 10 minutes before serving. She describes sumac as having a zesty lemon flavor.²

Za’atar. Ground sumac is often part of za’atar. America’s Test Kitchen’s version uses 1 1/2 tablespoons of sumac with 2 tablespoons of dried thyme, plus oregano, toasted sesame and salt.³ See also cooking with za’atar.

Sour liquid. In Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, the fruits get cooked down with water to a thick, very sour essence.⁴ You’ll see suggestions to put sumac in Bloody Marys or brew it as tea, but we couldn’t find any source behind them.

How much to use

These come from named recipes:

For a finishing sprinkle, start with about 1/2 teaspoon over a plate of rice, salad or grilled meat for two, then taste. Sumac is gentle next to lemon juice, so it can sit up front or stay in the background.

Technique notes

• Add it at the end or raw. Most of the uses above are uncooked: dressings, onion salads, a sprinkle over rice.
• Use it for color. Sumac fruits are red drupes, and the ground spice gives pale food like yogurt, hummus or eggs a dark red finish. Use it the way you’d use paprika.
• Check the label for salt. Katzer notes that ground sumac is often mixed with salt.⁴ If yours is, cut back on other salt in the dish.
• Out of sumac? The Spice House suggests lemon juice or vinegar at about half the volume, adding more to taste.⁵ More options on sumac substitutes.

Storage

We found no published shelf-life figure for sumac. America’s Test Kitchen and the University of California Cooperative Extension give ground spices 1 year in general,⁶⁷ and the UC extension names air, light, moisture and heat as what speeds flavor and color loss.⁷ Keep sumac sealed and out of the light, and judge it by its color and sourness.

Two cautions

Allergies. Sumac belongs to the cashew family, Anacardiaceae. The 2022 review suggests people allergic to related foods be cautious with it.¹ That doesn’t establish that a cashew or mango allergy means a sumac allergy. If this applies to you, ask an allergist.

Poison sumac is a different plant. Poison sumac was once placed in the genus Rhus but now belongs to Toxicodendron. Its fruit is a dull yellowish-white, and Katzer notes that Toxicodendron fruits are white to pale ochre, not red.⁴ Contact causes skin redness, itching, blistering and swelling.⁸ Culinary sumac comes from red-fruited Rhus species, but never forage sumac without a reliable identification.

Related

• Sumac
• Sumac uses
• Sumac substitutes
• Za’atar seasoning blend
• Za’atar uses

Footnotes

1. Batiha et al., “Rhus coriaria L. (Sumac), a Versatile and Resourceful Food Spice with Cornucopia of Polyphenols”, Molecules, 2022. openscholar.ump.ac.za · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²

2. Angela Nahas, “Fattoush”, SBS Food. sbs.com.au · Publication ↩ ↩²

3. Bryan Roof, “Za’atar”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2017. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩²

4. Gernot Katzer, “Sumac”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. “Sumac Substitute”, The Spice House, 2018. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩

6. “Keeping Spices and Dried Herbs Fresher Longer”, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩

7. Anna Martin, “Add a Little Spice to Your Life! Part II”, University of California Cooperative Extension, 2002. ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²

8. “Toxicodendron vernix”, North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, NC State University. plants.ces.ncsu.edu · Reference work ↩

Also drawn on

• Sumac, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com