This is a hummus recipe. It’s taken from a million other recipes and adjusted to the way I like it, and honestly it just tastes best.
Start from dried chickpeas, cook lots, and store them in the freezer for delicious fresh hummus on demand. (And always keep tahini and lemons on hand!)
🥱 TL;DR
(read on for the long version)
- Soak a bunch of chickpeas in water overnight, then cook them till tender with some crushed garlic, a halved onion, and bay leaves.
- Drain and cool the chickpeas, and freeze whatever you don’t want to use right away
- Prepare the hummus: Mince a clove of garlic in the food processor, then add chickpeas (however much you want to make), some spoonfuls of tahini, juice of 1 lemon, salt, cumin, pinch of cayenne, and glug of olive oil. Pulse, then run the food processor continuously.
- Add ice cubes while running to achieve a silky smooth consistency.
- Taste for salt and spice levels.
- Top with zataar and drizzle of olive oil, then serve.
Full recipe
Cooking time
- Cooking dried chickpeas (can be done ahead)
- overnight soak
- 1 - 2 hours to cook
- Preparing the hummus:
- 10 min
Ingredients
For the chickpeas
| Amount | Ingredients |
|---|---|
| 1 kg | dried chickpeas |
| water | |
| 1 medium | onion |
| 2 - 3 cloves | garlic |
| 6 | bay leaves |
| (optional) | baking soda |
| (optional) | salt |
For the hummus
| Amount | Ingredients |
|---|---|
| cooked chickpeas | |
| garlic | |
| tahini | |
| lemon | |
| olive oil | |
| salt | |
| cumin | |
| cayenne (optional) | |
| zataar |
Steps
Cooking the chickpeas
This can be done ahead of time, or you can cook a bunch of chickpeas and freeze them so they are ready whenever you want them. (You can also skip this step and just use canned.)
1kg of dried chickpeas should be plenty for a few batches of hummus. They will more than double in size once they are soaked and cooked.
Rinse your dried chickpeas well in cold water, then put them in a large pot and cover them with plenty of water. Leave them to soak overnight.
The next day, drain the soaking water and give the chickpeas a rinse if they seem like they need it (if the water looks cloudy or dirty). Cover the chickpeas with fresh cold water. Peel an onion, cut it in half and throw it in. Peel and crush a couple garlic cloves and throw the pieces in the water. Add a few bay leaves.
🧑🔬 At this point you can also add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda or salt. This is optional, but can aid in softening the skins of chickpeas to make them cook faster and make the resulting consistency more smooth. In particular this can be a good step if the chickpeas still seem very hard after soaking. This usually indicates they are somewhat old (but still fine to use) and could use a little extra help. I haven’t personally tried the salt trick but there seems to be some science behind it (link needed…)
Cook the chickpeas until they are tender but not yet falling apart. Depending on the age of the beans it could be as fast as 20 min or as long at 2 hours.
🚨 If you used baking soda pay attention, as they may soften fast and turn to mush of you don’t take them off in time.
Drain the water and discard the bay leaves and onion. Cool and store the chickpeas, or move on to making hummus. (If you make hummus right away, make sure the chickpeas are fully cooled.)
Making the hummus
Everything goes in a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, an immersion blender is fine, or even a potato masher will work in a pinch.
🧮 If you cooked 1kg of dried beans, you can make roughly four batches of hummus. As with most of these recipes, amounts are estimated, so make as much or as little as you like. The following steps assume about 1/4 of your total cooked chickpeas
- Crush and peel 1 large or 2 medium cloves of garlic and pulse them in the food processor until they are finely minced.
- Add the chickpeas and pulse them a few times to break them up.
- Add a few spoonfuls of tahini. No real measure here, but say anywhere up to 1/4 cup (0.5 dl).
- Add around 1/2 teaspoon (3g) of salt
- Add around 1 tsp of cumin and a pinch of cayenne. Be careful with the cayenne, the point is not to make spicy hummus but just a little will activate your tastebuds so the other flavours really pop.
- Squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon.
- Add a healthy glug of olive oil
- Start pulsing the food processor, then leave it on as it starts to mix through all of the ingredients. It will still be chunky and dry but that’s fine.
- Drop in 1 - 2 ice cubes while the food processor is running and let them get crushed and mixed in.
Leave the food processor running for at least a minute or two. Watch the consistency of the hummus, it should smooth out very nicely. If it’s not getting smooth add another ice cube or two, and/or some olive oil.
Stop the food processor and scrape down the sides if needed.
Keep mixing it, stopping occasionally to check taste and consistency.
- Taste:
- Check there is enough salt and add if needed.
- Note the cumin, you should taste a little but not have it overpower. Add more if needed
- Add more lemon juice if it feels a little dull.
- Consistency:
- If it seems thick and cement-like, continue to add some ice (or olive oil) and keep mixing.
When it all seems nice and velvety smooth, and tastes delicious, you are done.
To serve
Put the hummus into a nice serving dish. Sprinkle liberally with zataar and drizzle some olive oil over the top.
Serve with baguette, crackers, pita, pickles, olives, etc. Make it into sandwiches, use it in place of mayonnaise, have it on your toast in the morning, add it to your skin care routine, etc.
If you made lots of extra cooked chickpeas, you can just pull them out of your freezer and have fresh hummus in minutes that tastes better and is way cheaper than store-bought. Ultimate healthy life hack. ✅