I was talking with my summer intern Hannah about how much I love hummus and how easy it is to make.  I think I have been making my own hummus since before she was born, but the last couple years I have felt hummus boredom so I’ve had a little fun experimenting with different flavors.   Hannah was intrigued since she thought hummus was like puff pastry, which NO ONE makes from scratch.  Well, I knew we had a cooking lesson on our hands!

Hummus is a Middle Eastern dip made from cooked chickpeas (a.k.a. garbanzo beans) pureed with tahini (a paste made from ground up sesame seeds), garlic, lemon juice, and salt.  I add a little liquid from the pot (or can) of cooked chickpeas and some people add olive oil.  Sure you can add cumin or hot sauce, but essentially that’s it.  I maintain that hummus tastes so much better when I make my beans from scratch, although really you can use canned and it will still be fabulous.  But what kind of a cooking lesson would this be if we used chickpeas from a can?  So I started soaking a ton of dried chickpeas that day, cooked them for 90 minutes the next morning and we began our hummus factory.

I had an idea to make several of my favorite flavors just for kicks, so we also roasted a couple beets, a red bell pepper and cut some cilantro from the garden.  After we made our first batch, which was the traditional kind, Hannah looked at me in disbelief.  “That’s it?! ”  Yep.  That’s it.  “If people knew how easy it was to make hummus, they would never buy it!”  I’m so glad that thought was put out there to the universe.

After that, we made hot pink hummus with a roasted beet, which I agreed would be super cute for a (girl) baby shower or a bachelorette party (Hannah’s idea.)  Cilantro hummus turned out a lovely pale green with a fresh herby flavor.  Lastly, my favorite was roasted red pepper hummus to which I added a little smoked paprika and a dash of cayenne.  We tried all the flavors with raw carrot, cucumber and sweet bell pepper slices, as well as some gluten-free chips.  But I also love the red pepper version on veggie burgers and the cilantro one on a turkey sandwich.  The beet hummus is for pure shock value since despite adding a roasted beet, it just picks up a subtle sweetness and really tastes a lot like the traditional.  You can never have enough healthful dips for summer entertaining.  With July 4th around the corner, there’s no better time to add some pizzaz to an old classic!

Traditional Hummus

Pamela

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Ingredients

  

• 3 cups cooked chickpeas if canned, drained and rinsed, liquid reserved*
• 3 garlic cloves
• ½ cup sesame tahini
• 4-5 Tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 6 Tablespoons chickpea liquid
• 1 teaspoon plus a pinch sea salt

Instructions

 

• Place all the ingredients in a food processor fitted with the steel blade and process until the hummus is smooth. Taste for seasoning and texture.
• I like it very smooth and creamy, so I let the food processor run for a few minutes. I also prefer to eat it immediately at room temperature, but if you will be refrigerating it, you can add a little extra chickpea liquid since the hummus will thicken after it has been refrigerated.

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Variations:

Beet Hummus: add 1 large roasted and peeled red beet to Traditional Hummus ingredients in food processor.  Blend until thoroughly combined.

Cilantro Hummus: add 24 sprigs of cilantro and a few dashes of cayenne pepper to Traditional Hummus ingredients in food processor.  You can use either lemon juice or lime juice.  Blend until thoroughly combined.  Feel free to use more cilantro.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus: add 1-2 teaspoons smoked paprika, a few dashes cayenne pepper and 1 large roasted, peeled and seeded sweet red bell pepper to Traditional Hummus ingredients in food processor.  Reduce lemon juice to 1 Tablespoon and sea salt to ¾ teaspoon.  Blend until thoroughly combined.  Taste to adjust seasonings.