Too Much Za'atar? How to Fix It

A heavy hand with za’atar can go wrong in several ways: too salty, too sour from the sumac, too herbal from the thyme and oregano or marjoram, or just dry and dusty. So taste before you fix anything. On bread with olive oil, the usual problem is dryness, and more oil fixes it. In a cooked dish, the salt and the sumac are what most often push it over the edge, and store blends differ a lot: one US label works out to about seven times the salt of a UK one.

Quick answer

What’s wrong	Fastest fix	If that’s not enough
Too salty	Add more of the unsalted parts of the dish: oil, bread, chickpeas, vegetables	A second unseasoned batch, combined; plain yogurt or labneh on the side
Too sour or puckery	Dilute	A pinch of sugar or a little honey
Dry and dusty on flatbread or in a dip	More olive oil	More bread or a plain dip to scoop with
Too herbal, medicinal	Dilute	Fresh parsley, mint or cucumber alongside
Scorched on bread or meat	Scrape off the darkest bits	A drizzle of fresh olive oil; a pinch of sugar for bitterness

Check the jar: how salty is yours?

Brands differ a lot. Two labels:

Blend	Ingredients, in order given	Salt or sodium as labeled
Spice Islands Za’atar (US)	Sumac, spices, salt, sesame seeds, rice concentrate¹	45 mg sodium per 1/4 tsp (1 g)¹
Tesco Ingredients Za’atar Seasoning (UK)	Sesame seed, sumac, thyme, marjoram, oregano, salt, basil, sunflower oil²	1.6 g salt per 100 g²

US labels give sodium and UK labels give salt. VicHealth’s conversion is to multiply sodium by 2.5 to get salt.³ By that math, the Spice Islands blend is about 11 g of salt per 100 g, roughly seven times the Tesco blend’s 1.6 g. The Spice Islands blend lists salt third; the Tesco blend lists it sixth, after sesame and the herbs.

Even the saltier jar is far milder than salt itself: 45 mg of sodium per quarter teaspoon against 590 mg for Morton table salt, about a thirteenth.¹⁴ So a too-salty za’atar dish usually means a lot of za’atar plus salt added separately. That’s easy to do when you use the blend like a condiment.

Homemade za’atar ranges just as widely. America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe uses 1/4 teaspoon of salt in the whole batch,⁵ Susan Belsinger’s uses 2 to 3 teaspoons, a ratio Belsinger cites from Rexford Talbert puts salt at 1 part in 10,⁶ and Laura Crowley of the UC Master Food Preservers says salt can go up to a 50/50 seasoned salt.⁷ The Spice House notes that za’atar sometimes brings extra salt to a dish.⁸ If you don’t know how your jar was made, taste a pinch on its own.

Too salty

Dilute. It’s the only fix that lowers the salt in each bite. On flatbread, brush more olive oil over a fresh piece of bread and serve the over-seasoned piece as a side. In a salad, grain bowl or chickpea dish, add more of the plain ingredients. In a soup or stew, add unsalted liquid; Sara Moulton notes that unsalted stock or tomatoes keep more flavor than plain water.⁹ If the pot won’t hold more, cook a second batch with no za’atar and combine the two, the method Tasting Table gives for too much garlic.¹⁰

Serve something plain alongside. Unsalted yogurt, labneh, cucumber or plain bread on the plate dilutes each bite.

A little sweetness, if it suits the dish. In a 2010 taste study, sugar cut the saltiness of a salt solution by 82.6%, though the authors say it’s unclear whether results from pure solutions hold for real foods.¹¹ A drizzle of honey on za’atar flatbread, or a few sweet roasted vegetables in a salad, can soften the edge. It changes the taste, not the sodium.

Too sour

Sumac brings the sourness. Recipes disagree sharply on how much goes in. Crowley’s za’atar uses 2 tablespoons of ground sumac to 1 tablespoon of sesame, while Belsinger’s uses about 1 tablespoon of sumac to 1/4 cup of sesame.⁷⁶

Dilute first, as above.

Then sweetness. In controlled taste tests with pure solutions, sugar significantly cut each of the other basic tastes it was mixed with, sourness included.¹¹ A pinch of sugar in a dressing, a little honey on bread, or sweet roasted onions in a chicken dish all fit the cuisine.

Salt also cuts sourness, according to a 1967 study of salt and acid mixtures in water and in a green bean purée,¹² but za’atar is often salted already. Use it only if the dish tastes sour and not salty.

Too herbal

Too much of the herbs comes across as a medicinal, resinous edge. Dilute, then add something fresh: chopped parsley or mint, cucumber, tomato or a squeeze of lemon give you something else to taste. That’s balancing, not removal.

Dry and dusty on bread

Za’atar is classically eaten with olive oil. Belsinger brushes bread with olive oil before sprinkling it on, and makes a dip by mixing about 1/4 cup of blend with 1/4 cup of olive oil.⁶ UNESCO describes the man’ouché topping as thyme, sumac, toasted sesame, salt and olive oil together.¹³ If a flatbread or dip tastes dusty and harsh, it probably needs more oil, not less za’atar. Drizzle more on, or stir more into the dip, and serve plenty of bread.

Scorched

Ground spices don’t do well under intense heat and can turn bitter.¹⁴ A za’atar crust under a hot broiler or on a very hot grill can scorch. Scrape off the darkest patches and drizzle with fresh olive oil. If it’s still bitter, use sugar, not more lemon. In the same taste tests, sugar was the dominant suppressor of other tastes and citric acid the weakest suppressor of bitterness.¹¹ On raw chicken or meat that’s just over-coated, wipe off the excess before cooking. Don’t rinse it, since the USDA says washing raw meat or poultry raises the risk of cross-contamination.¹⁵

Fixes that don’t hold up

More lemon to “brighten” it. If the problem is sumac, lemon adds more sourness to a dish that’s already sour. Save it for a dish that tastes flat.

A potato to absorb the salt. In Robert Wolke’s experiment, as Sara Moulton reports it, potatoes soaked up salty water but didn’t selectively pull out the salt,⁹ and a Tasting Table writer who uses the trick calls it “more of an aid than a final answer.”¹⁶ Potato in a stew still counts as dilution.

Extra sesame to bury it. Toasted sesame does add bulk and nuttiness, and it’s a fair way to stretch an over-sumaced homemade blend before it goes on food. Once za’atar is in the dish, though, extra sesame adds texture more than it dilutes the salt and sourness already there.

Preventing it next time

Use a named recipe’s amount. Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi’s roast chicken with sumac, za’atar and lemon uses 2 tablespoons of za’atar for one chicken cut into quarters.¹⁷ For a dip, Belsinger’s equal parts blend and oil is a good starting point.⁶

Taste the jar before you season. Labels show salt content varying about sevenfold,¹²³ and homemade recipes range from a pinch of salt to half the blend.⁵⁷ Hold back any other salt until the za’atar’s on and tasted.

Sprinkle at the end where you can. On bread, salads and dips za’atar goes on as a topping, and adding more at the table is easier than taking it back out. Make your own to control the salt and sumac; see za’atar substitutes for four named recipes.

Safety: salt

If you’re limiting sodium, a salty za’atar used by the spoonful adds up. FDA’s Daily Value for sodium is less than 2,300 mg a day.¹⁸ At the Spice Islands label’s 45 mg per quarter teaspoon,¹ a tablespoon (12 quarter teaspoons) carries about 540 mg. Check your own jar’s label.

Za’atar, za’atar substitutes and za’atar uses
Sumac and sumac substitutes
Thyme, oregano, marjoram, sesame seeds
Too much salt, too much thyme, too much oregano, too much vinegar

Za’atar, product page, Spice Islands. spiceislands.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Tesco Ingredients Za’atar Seasoning 35g, product page, Tesco. tesco.com · Merchant ↩ ↩² ↩³
How much salt should I eat?, VicHealth, 2021. vichealth.vic.gov.au · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Morton Iodized Table Salt, product page, Morton Salt. mortonsalt.com · Merchant ↩
Bryan Roof, Za’atar, America’s Test Kitchen, 2017. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩²
Susan Belsinger, Za’atar: An Exotic Herb Blend, Fine Gardening, 2010. finegardening.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Laura Crowley, Za’atar Spice Blend, UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preservers of El Dorado County. ccfruitandnuts.ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
Sumac Substitute, The Spice House, 2018. thespicehouse.com · Merchant ↩
Sara Moulton, Oversalted it? There is one solution, saramoulton.com, 2012 (updated 2016), reporting Robert L. Wolke’s experiment. saramoulton.com · Publication ↩ ↩²
Harmony Colangelo, Simple Ways To Tone Down The Pungency Of Garlic, Tasting Table, 2023. tastingtable.com · Publication ↩
Green BG et al., Taste Mixture Interactions: Suppression, Additivity, and the Predominance of Sweetness, Physiology & Behavior, 2010. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩² ↩³
Pangborn RM, Trabue IM, Detection and apparent taste intensity of salt–acid mixtures in two media, Perception & Psychophysics, 1967 (abstract). doi.org · Peer-reviewed ↩
Al-Man’ouché, an emblematic culinary practice in Lebanon, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2023. ich.unesco.org · Reference work ↩
Marco Rossi, How To Improvise Instant Pot Seasoning Without Burning Your Spices, Tasting Table, 2023. tastingtable.com · Publication ↩
Washing Food: Does it Promote Food Safety?, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. fsis.usda.gov · Regulator ↩
Alison Spiegel, How To Fix An Oversalted Soup, Tasting Table, 2016. tastingtable.com · Publication ↩
Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, Roast Chicken with Sumac, Za’atar and Lemon, via The Splendid Table. splendidtable.org · Publication ↩
Sodium in Your Diet, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. fda.gov · Regulator ↩

Too Much Za’atar? How to Fix a Dish That’s Too Salty, Sour or Herby