Nyameba Limited

Made into a wine as an offering to the gods, baked into modern day breads and cookies, pressed into nutritious oil: there’s no question sesame seed is a diverse crop with a rich and colorful history and a variety of uses.

In this blog, we’ll showcase the flavor, history, and common uses of sesame seeds, and discuss the many ways it’s used today. 

Flavor

Sesame seeds have a mild, sweet, and nutty flavor and a satisfying crunch when eaten whole. They’re often baked or toasted to bring out a stronger almond-like flavor and aroma and make the seeds more evident in dishes. 

The oil of sesame seed is pale yellow and odorless with a faint, mellow nutty flavor that makes it great for cooking and an excellent addition to stir fries and Asian-inspired cuisine. 

When eating sesame seeds of different colors, you’ll notice that the flavor varies slightly between them. Black sesame seeds, for example, have a more earthy flavor than the other colors.

Appearance

Sesame seeds are found inside the fruit of a sesame plant, which is an oblong pod with ridges that contains small oval seeds that measure about ⅛ inch long. To remove the seeds from the pod, the sesame fruit is dried which causes it to begin to open, making it easy to shake the seeds free. Sesame seeds are covered in a husk that is a darker shade than the seed itself, and are most often removed from the husk before consuming. When revealed from the husk, sesame seeds can be white, black, red, brown, or tan,-. depending on the variety of the sesame plant itself. Most of the sesame seeds you’ll see in the U.S. are creamy white, while black sesame seeds are most commonly used in Chinese cooking.