Hommus at Home – A Simple Chickpea Dip

This tasty homemade hommus, also spelled hummus or sometimes houmous, makes for a quick and easy dinner for hot summer days, or a beloved last minute hosting snack!

Hommus is another mezze, a Mediterranean small plate category that also includes taboule, stuffed grape leaves (dawali), tzatziki or haydari, Arabic salad, and other appetizers. These are similar to Spanish tapas, and are intended to be shared with friends and family, sometimes over drinks.

The main ingredients necessary for a dip to be called hommus are chickpeas (another name for the same plant is garbanzo beans) and tahini.

What is tahini?

People commonly eat tahini, or tahina, throughout the Mediterranean and especially in the Middle East. They make it by grinding up toasted, hulled sesame seeds.

You can find this highly nutritious food near the peanut butter at many grocery stores.

Tahini provides a host of antioxidants and healthy fats. For more health benefits, you can check out this article.

People use tahini as a condiment, in hommus, baba ghanoush, and halva, or as a dip for falafel or pita.

I’ve also received an inside tip that you can blend tahini with frozen bananas to make a vegan ice cream substitute, although I haven’t tried it just yet.

If you’ve tried tahini before and thought it was too bitter, you might want to consider trying Ethiopian tahini, as it is supposed to be very mild and pleasant in flavor.

I couldn’t find any locally, but I bought the organic tahini from Trader Joe’s (product of Greece), and I didn’t think it was too bitter.

You can also just add one tablespoon of tahini at a time to your hommus to make sure you like it before adding a whole bunch.

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Why do people eat red peppers with hommus?

• First, it’s truly a delicious combo.
• More importantly, the vitamin C in the red bell peppers help your body absorb more of the iron from the chickpeas.

Variety is the spice of life, and a varied diet that includes seasonal foods usually goes a long way towards ensuring that you are getting all the nutrients you need.

For a few additional combinations of food that complement each other from a nutrient-absorption standpoint (as well as flavor), you can check out this short article from shape.com.

I made a very simple hommus and used red mini peppers for dipping, but feel free to mix fresh or roasted red bell peppers directly into the hommus.

You could also chop some fresh red peppers as a garnish.

Hommus Ingredients

Edible ingredients

• 1 15-ounce can of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
• 1/3 cup tahini (start with 1/4 cup if you’re not sure that you’ll like it)
• 1 clove fresh garlic (or more, to taste)
• 3 Tbsp lemon juice
• 1-2 Tbsp ice cold water (or a couple ice cubes if your food processor can handle it. One tablespoon will yield a very substantial hommus that won’t fall off of whatever you put it on, while 2 Tbsp gives you a more spreadable hommus, ideal for toast.)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Paprika, to garnish (optional)
• Cumin, to garnish (optional)
• Roasted red pepper, to garnish (optional)

Tools

• A food processor or blender
• Can opener
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Spatula
• Colander
• Ice tray (if your fridge doesn’t make ice)

How to Make Hommus at Home

1. To begin, rinse and drain your chickpeas, then place them in a saucepan. Sprinkle the baking soda over them. Cover them with a couple of inches of water and bring to a boil.
2. Once the chickpeas come to a boil, continue cooking them at a boil for 20 minutes.
3. While they cook, peel and trim your fresh garlic. Chop it in half and add it to your food processor, along with the lemon juice and salt. Blitz until the garlic is minced, and allow the garlic to sit and mellow in the lemon juice, preferably for 10+ minutes.
4. After that, add the tahini to the food processor with the seasonings and combine them.
5. Once the chickpeas have cooked for 20 minutes, drain and rinse them. You’ll notice that some of the chickpea skins will have come off naturally. Try to separate them out and discard, but they should be soft enough from their baking soda bath that you don’t need to peel the chickpeas to get a smooth texture of hommus.
6. Blend your ice water into the tahini until it is lighter in color, and then start blending in the chickpeas. Reserve a few chickpeas whole as a garnish, if desired.
7. After you’ve blended all the chickpeas, add the olive oil and blitz again. Then, taste your hommus and decide if you’d like any additional lemon juice, salt, garlic, tahini, etc.
8. Finally, garnish with any leftover chickpeas, paprika, cumin, fresh herbs, roasted red peppers, pine nuts, olives, or whatever you’d like, serve with fresh veggies and pita bread or chips, and enjoy!

Variations on this Hommus Recipe

I only sprinkled cumin and paprika on top as a garnish, but feel free to add 1/2 tsp of one or both before you finish blending. You could also include any seasoning or spice blend you like. People traditionally use sumac and za-a’tar to season hommus, as well as coriander.

Top with any garnish you’d like: pine nuts, olive tapenade, fresh or dried parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, chopped red bell pepper, diced tomatoes and/or cucumber, carrots, whole olives, roasted garlic, hard boiled eggs, pickles, etc.

Experiment with flavored olive oils if you think you would enjoy them. A local restaurant here makes a very strongly flavored lemon hommus that I really enjoy, so I’ll have to try to replicate it next time.

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Related Mezze Recipes

If you’d like to try a Mediterranean mezze feast, start here:

• Taboule
• Arabic salad
• Haydari (Turkish yogurt dip)
• Dawali (stuffed grape leaves)

And for a less Mediterranean but equally delicious dip, check out my guacamole recipe for tostaguacs here!

I hope you enjoyed this homemade hommus recipe!