Hummus is very quick and easy to make. It can be used as a healthy snack or as part of a light meal, and the spices can be adjusted to your preferences.
Hummus is pretty much the perfect snack. Not only does it taste great, but it's healthy and super easy to make! Plus, if you serve it with whole wheat pita and vegetables, it can do double duty as a light meal.
If you've never made hummus before, now's the time to try. The ingredients used to make it include chickpeas (canned for convenience), olive oil, tahini (a Middle Eastern Sesame paste, which can be found in the International aisle of your grocery store or in a Middle Eastern grocery store), lemon juice, garlic, spices and some water to thin it out. The spices can even be adjusted to your taste. If you like spicy, make it spicy. If you eat it at work and don't want garlic breath for the rest of the day, use less garlic.
The ingredients get pureed in a food processor or with an immersion blender, which is what I use (great tool by the way, I use mine almost daily). At this point, you can either eat it right away if you're short on time, or stick it in the fridge for half an hour for the flavors to meld, which makes it taste better.
Even though it's extremely easy to make hummus, it is possible to mess it up. In the past, I have added too much salt on more than one occasion (I use a salt grinder, so it's hard to measure). If this happens, the only thing you can really do to save it is to add extra of all the other ingredients to "dilute" the excess salt you added, and you might as well just make it a double recipe.
This is one of those recipes that's great to use when you find out that you have people coming over tonight. You can whip it up right before they come, and by the time everyone's ready for a snack, it's done melding.
What you serve with it with is totally up to you. Fresh pita is a great choice, but I prefer raw vegetables. Crackers or pita chips is another option.
As I mentioned before, hummus is a great healthy snack option. It's high in protein and fiber, so it will keep you feeling full longer. However, it's not exactly a low calorie food, so you do still have to watch your portion sizes, especially if you're eating it with pita or crackers.
Traditional Hummus Nutrition Notes:
While I would consider hummus to be a healthy snack, it is not low in calories. This is mainly due to the addition of olive oil and tahini, which are both high in fat, although the good, heart healthy kind of fat. If you're watching calories, keep your portions small, and if you really need to, reduce olive oil by no more than half and add extra water.
Hummus
Ingredients
- 1 15 ounce can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup tahini
- 3 Tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 medium clove garlic, crushed
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne
- ⅛ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)
- ¼ cup water *See note*
Instructions
- Puree all ingredients together using a food processor or immersion blended. The hummus can be eaten right away, but it is best to cover it and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition Disclaimer: I try my best to make sure the nutrition information I provide is accurate to provide you with the best information possible. However, due to ingredient discrepancies and other factors, the above nutrition information should be considered an estimation only.
Try serving this hummus with your own homemade pita bread.
Lois
How long will it keep in the fridge?
Carissa
I wouldn't think any of the ingredients are highly perishable, but I would say 5 days max to be on the safe side.
Nat
Do you know if it's more cost effective to make hummus vs. buy? I always end up buying it out of convenience.
Carissa
This crossed my mind while I was writing the post. I didn't actually do a cost analysis, but I would definitely say it's cheaper to make - a can of chickpeas generally costs well under a dollar and it makes up the bulk of the recipe. The only expensive ingredient is the tahini (I think I paid $6-7 for mine) but it lasts for many recipes. I'm not sure exactly how much it costs to buy hummus, I'm thinking $4-5.