Sumac Uses: Onions, Chicken, Rice, Salads and More

Sumac is the dried, ground fruit of Rhus coriaria, a shrub native from Macaronesia and the Mediterranean to Afghanistan.¹ Gernot Katzer describes it as tart and sour with slightly astringent overtones,² and a 2021 review credits the sourness mainly to malic acid.³ Use it wherever you’d want a squeeze of lemon but not the liquid. Katzer calls it a very popular condiment in Turkey and Iran,² and that is the best guide to using it: as a finishing sour on onions, rice, grilled meat, salads and dips.

This page covers what to put sumac in. For technique, storage and cautions, see cooking with sumac.

Where sumac goes

Use	Example	Source
Raw onions	Onions mixed with sumac as an appetizer	Katzer²
Chicken baked on bread	Palestinian musakhan	Sami Tamimi⁴
Roast chicken	Ottolenghi and Tamimi’s sumac and za’atar chicken	Ottolenghi and Tamimi⁵
Rice	Sprinkled liberally over rice	Katzer²
Kebabs and minced meat	Döner kebab; minced meat	Katzer; Alsamri et al.²³
Meat, chicken and fish	Rubbed on before cooking	Batiha et al.⁶
Salads	Fattoush dressing	Angela Nahas⁷
Hummus	A pinch over the top with olive oil	Eden Grinshpan⁸
Spice blends	Za’atar	Katzer; America’s Test Kitchen²⁹
Sour cooking liquid	Sumac boiled down to a thick essence	Katzer²

Onions

The simplest sumac dish is raw onion. Katzer notes that sumac mixed with freshly cut onions is often eaten as an appetizer.² Sliced onions tossed with sumac and salt are a common side with kebabs and grilled meat; that pairing is common practice rather than a sourced recipe.

Musakhan and roast chicken

One main dish built on sumac is musakhan, which chef Sami Tamimi calls the hugely popular national dish of Palestine.⁴ He writes that it was traditionally made around the olive oil pressing season in October or November, and is now cooked year round, layered with taboon or pita bread.⁴ His recipe for four uses 3 tablespoons of sumac in all: 2 tablespoons cooked into 500 grams of thinly sliced red onions, and 1 1/2 teaspoons sprinkled over the finished dish.⁴

Ottolenghi and Tamimi also give a simplified oven version of the dish: a quartered chicken marinated with 1 tablespoon of sumac and 2 tablespoons of za’atar, then roasted.⁵

Rice, kebabs and grilled meat

Rice. Katzer writes that the ground fruits are liberally sprinkled over rice.²
Kebabs and minced meat. Döner kebab is sometimes flavored with sumac powder, Katzer says,² and a 2021 review notes that sumac is offered with minced meat to add a lemony taste.³
Meat, chicken and fish. A 2022 review describes sumac rubbed on meat, chicken or fish.⁶ Fattier cuts and lamb are a good match for its sourness, in our view; we found no source singling out particular meats.

A widely repeated claim says sumac tenderizes meat. We found no source for it.

Salads

In fattoush, a salad of toasted flatbread and vegetables, sumac goes into the dressing. Angela Nahas’s recipe for SBS whisks 2 teaspoons of sumac with lemon juice, olive oil and a little water for a salad that serves six.⁷ Sumac on tabbouleh, leafy green salads or tomatoes is common practice; we found no named recipe for those within this review.

Hummus, dips and cheese

Eden Grinshpan finishes her hummus with a little olive oil and a juicy pinch of sumac.⁸ See hummus spices. The same red sprinkle works on labneh, yogurt, feta and grilled halloumi; those are kitchen suggestions, not traditions we could source.

Za’atar and other blends

Ground sumac is often part of za’atar, Katzer notes, and the zahtar he describes is mostly used to season fried and barbecued meat.² America’s Test Kitchen’s za’atar uses 1 1/2 tablespoons of sumac with 2 tablespoons of dried thyme.⁹ For ways to use the blend, see za’atar uses.

A sour cooking liquid

In Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, Katzer writes, the fruits are cooked with water to a thick, very sour essence that goes into meat and vegetable dishes.² It is a way to use sumac inside a cooked dish rather than only on top.

Popcorn, sweets and other ideas

Sumac with butter or oil on popcorn, or over fruit and in baking, are modern ideas rather than traditional uses. They follow from its tart flavor; no source we found tests or describes them, so treat them as suggestions to try.

How much, by dish

Amounts from named recipes (Attributed):

Dish	Sumac	Source
Musakhan, serves 4	3 tbsp total (2 tbsp in the onions, 1 1/2 tsp to finish)	Sami Tamimi⁴
Roast chicken, serves 4	1 tbsp, with 2 tbsp za’atar	Ottolenghi and Tamimi⁵
Fattoush dressing, serves 6	2 tsp	Angela Nahas⁷
Za’atar blend	1 1/2 tbsp, with 2 tbsp thyme	America’s Test Kitchen⁹
Hummus	A pinch to finish	Eden Grinshpan⁸

Before you buy or forage

Sumac belongs to the cashew family, and its fruits are red drupes.¹⁰ Katzer notes that ground sumac is often mixed with salt, so check the label before salting the dish.² Poison sumac is a different plant with pale fruit; see cooking with sumac for allergy and foraging cautions.

Sumac and cooking with sumac
Sumac substitutes
Za’atar, cooking with za’atar and za’atar uses
Spices for lamb

Rhus coriaria L., Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. powo.science.kew.org · Reference work ↩
Gernot Katzer, “Sumac”, Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages. gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com · Reference work ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³
Alsamri et al., “Pharmacological and Antioxidant Activities of Rhus coriaria L. (Sumac)”, Antioxidants, 2021. mdpi.com · Peer-reviewed ↩ ↩² ↩³
Sami Tamimi, “Palestinian chicken musakhan”, Gulf News, 2021. gulfnews.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, “Roast Chicken with Sumac, Za’atar and Lemon”, from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, via The Splendid Table. splendidtable.org · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
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
Angela Nahas, “Fattoush”, SBS Food. sbs.com.au · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Eden Grinshpan, “Hummus with Chopped Salad, Tahini, Lemon and Sumac”, House & Home, 2025. houseandhome.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Bryan Roof, “Za’atar”, America’s Test Kitchen, 2017. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
“Sumac”, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩

Sumac Uses: Onions, Musakhan, Rice, Kebabs, Salads and Hummus