Za'atar Seasoning: Ingredients and Uses

Brush a flatbread with olive oil, scatter on za’atar, and you’ve got one of the eastern Mediterranean’s great simple pleasures. Za’atar is a seasoning of dried herbs, usually with sumac and toasted sesame, and it’s also the Arabic name for the wild herbs it’s built on. It tastes herbal, sour and nutty. There’s no single recipe, though: one named version uses twice as much sumac as sesame, and another about four times as much sesame as sumac.

At a glance


The herb	Arabic zatar or satar covers several native herbs, including oregano, marjoram, thyme and savory¹; Origanum syriacum is one plant known in Arabic as za’atar²³
The blend	Dried thyme and oregano or marjoram, ground sumac, toasted sesame seeds, usually salt
Region	Origanum syriacum is native from the eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Peninsula
Flavor drivers	Thymol and carvacrol from the herbs; organic acids from sumac; toasted-sesame aroma⁴⁵⁶⁷
Main uses	With olive oil on flatbread; on eggs, vegetables, chickpeas and hummus, chicken, fish and kebabs
Allergen	Contains sesame, a major food allergen in the U.S.⁸

The herb called za’atar

In the eastern Mediterranean, names like Turkish kekik and Arabic zatar or satar get applied to a whole range of native herbs, including oregano, marjoram, thyme and savory, according to Gernot Katzer.¹ One species stands out. Origanum syriacum, sometimes called Syrian oregano, is known in Arabic as za’atar.² Kew gives its native range as the eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Peninsula.

If you can’t get it, Susan Belsinger suggests equal parts thyme and marjoram, oregano or both as a stand-in.³

Three named versions side by side

There’s no single recipe. In Jordan, Katzer notes, zahtar usually means a spice mixture containing these herbs.¹ Powdered sumac is sometimes part of it, and so are sesame seeds. Here’s how three named sources build it.

	Laura Crowley, UC Master Food Preservers⁹	Susan Belsinger, Fine Gardening (2010)³	Rexford H. Talbert, as cited by Belsinger³
Herbs	1 tbsp dried thyme; 1 tbsp dried oregano, marjoram or a mix	2 tbsp dried thyme; 2 tbsp dried marjoram and/or oregano	4 parts Origanum syriacum
Sumac	2 tbsp ground	About 1 tbsp	1 part
Sesame	1 tbsp toasted white	1/4 cup, toasted pale gold	4 parts, roasted
Salt	Optional, 1 tsp to 5 tbsp	2 to 3 tsp kosher or coarse sea salt	1 part
Character	Sumac-forward	Sesame-forward	Herb- and sesame-forward

The proportions are all over the place. Crowley’s version uses twice as much sumac as sesame. Belsinger’s uses about four times as much sesame as sumac. Talbert’s puts the herb and sesame at four times the sumac. All three agree on the core: a za’atar herb (or thyme with oregano or marjoram), sumac and sesame, plus salt.

Flavor and the compounds behind it

Thyme and oregano. The characteristic compounds of thyme oil are thymol and carvacrol.⁴ The same two phenols make up roughly 78 to 85% of oregano essential oil.⁵ They’re behind za’atar’s warm, resinous, slightly medicinal edge.
Sumac. Katzer describes sumac as tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones, and puts the sourness down to organic acids, including malic and citric acid.⁶ Sumac is where the blend’s lemony note comes from.
Sesame. Some of sesame’s aroma compounds form only during toasting. At mild toasting temperatures (around 160 °C), pyrazines dominate the flavor.⁷ That’s the nutty note.

How to use it

On bread. Brush flatbread, pitas, rolls or pizza with olive oil and sprinkle with za’atar, or work it into bread or cracker dough.
As a dip. Belsinger mixes the blend with an equal amount of olive oil for dipping, and keeps it in the fridge for up to a week.³
On eggs and vegetables. Crowley pairs it with eggs, chickpeas and hummus, and vegetables like cauliflower, cucumber and eggplant.
On meat and fish. Sprinkle it on chicken, fish or kebabs.
On grains and salads. Belsinger also uses it on grains, legumes, salads and soups.

Buying and making your own

Store-bought blends vary as much as the recipes above, so check the label for salt, and for sesame if anyone at the table is allergic. To make your own, toast the sesame first. Belsinger toasts until the seeds just turn pale gold, cools them, and grinds them lightly with some of the salt before stirring in the herbs and sumac.³ Look for sumac that’s deep red and tart.

Health and safety

Sesame allergy. Sesame became the ninth major food allergen in the U.S. when the FASTER Act took effect on 1 January 2023, and it now has to be declared on food labels.⁸

Sumac and blood sugar. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of sumac supplementation trials found improvements in blood sugar and blood lipid measures. But the authors rated the indirectness of the evidence as serious, because the trials came from a narrow set of countries.¹⁰ Those trials used sumac supplements, not the amount in a sprinkle of za’atar, and they don’t show that za’atar treats or prevents any disease.

Za’atar substitutes, za’atar uses and cooking with za’atar
Sumac, sumac substitutes and sumac uses
Thyme, oregano and marjoram; oregano vs thyme and marjoram vs oregano
Sesame seeds and hulled vs unhulled sesame seeds
Hyssop, a different herb sometimes confused with za’atar
Other blends: dukkah and baharat; hummus spices

Oregano, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³
Hyssop, Plants of the Bible, Old Dominion University. ww2.odu.edu · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Susan Belsinger, “Za’atar: An Exotic Herb Blend,” Fine Gardening, 2010. finegardening.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
Thymus vulgaris, PROSEA. uses.plantnet-project.org · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Lombrea et al., International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2020. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩²
Sumac, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Sesame, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²
An Update on Sesame Allergen Labeling on Food Packages, FDA, 2023. fda.gov · Regulator ↩ ↩²
Laura Crowley, Za’atar Spice Blend, UC Cooperative Extension Master Food Preservers of El Dorado County. ccfruitandnuts.ucanr.edu · Reference work ↩
Jafari et al., Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, 2025. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · Peer-reviewed ↩

Also drawn on

Origanum syriacum L., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org