Hummus is a traditional middle eastern dip or spread made with dried chickpeas. It is the most popular recipes made with chickpeas. This hummus recipe is a really good one and you are going to love it. Its creamy, smooth and so good. Follow my step by step photos and video to make a delicious batch of homemade hummus from scratch.

What is Hummus

Hummus is a popular middle eastern dip or spread made with chickpeas. A basic hummus recipe is made with cooked chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. All the ingredients that go in the making of hummus are healthy. Making hummus from scratch is easy and you can just whip it up easily in a food processor or blender.

From the time I first had hummus (with falafel and pita bread ) as a ten year old and till today, its one of my most favorite recipes made with chickpeas along with chana masala. I have been making hummus for many years now. Sometimes I use leftover cooked chickpeas after cooking chickpeas for chana masala and make a small batch of hummus, which I serve as a dip with vegetables.

While preparing hummus tahini is required. Tahini is a famous middle eastern spread made from sesame seeds. Now you may or may not have tahini in your kitchen.

In this hummus tahini is not at all required. Instead of tahini, sesame seeds are added and powdered. In the Indian household, generally, one may not find tahini, but one will find sesame seeds, especially in the winter season.

Also do note that hummus can be made without tahini or sesame seeds. So you can skip sesame seeds in this recipe. But when you do so, do reduce the proportion of olive oil, garlic and lemon juice.

Homemade hummus can be refrigerated and stays good for 4 to 5 days.

Step-by-Step Guide

How to make Hummus

1. Rinse ½ heaped cup dried chickpeas (120 grams) in water first and then soak in enough water overnight or for 8 to 9 hours. After soaking the chickpeas will double in size and volume.

2. Next day, rinse the chickpeas in water first a couple of times. Drain all the water and add the chickpeas to a 2 litre stovetop pressure cooker.

3. Add ½ teaspoon salt.

4. Add 1 pinch of baking soda. Adding baking soda softens the chickpeas really well and gives them a melt in the mouth texture.

5. Add 1.5 cups of water.

6. Pressure cook on a medium heat for 11 to 12 minutes.

7. When the pressure settles down on its own in the cooker, then only remove the lid and check the chickpeas.

8. Mash them with a spoon or with your fingers. You should be able to mash them completely. They should have no rawness in them. You can even taste them and there should be no bite in them. They should melt in the mouth.

If they are not cooked properly, then add some more water and pressure cook for some more time. Drain all the water. Cover and keep aside.

Roasting sesame seeds

9. Heat a small pan. Keep heat to a low. Add 3 tablespoons of white sesame seeds.

10. On a low heat stirring often roast sesame seeds.

11. Roast till they become crisp and start crackling. No need to brown them. Let them cool down.

Making Hummus

12. In a food processor, mixer-grinder-blender or food chopper take the roasted sesame seeds. For a food chopper use a really good and sturdy food chopper.

13. Powder it to a fine or semi-fine texture.

14. Add 1 teaspoon chopped garlic.

15. Add 1 to 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. 1 tablespoon lemon juice works fine for us. To increase the tang more, you can add overall 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. So add as per your taste.

16. Add 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or about ¼ cup.

17. Sprinkle salt as per taste. Do note that the chickpeas will also have some salty taste in them as salt was used when cooking chickpeas. So add less salt first. Later you can add more salt if required.

18. Add 1 teaspoon cumin powder.

19. Grind or blend to a fine or semi-fine consistency.

20. Next add the cooked chickpeas. You can reserve a few chickpeas for garnishing.

21. Grind or blend till smooth and light. If you are unable to grind, then add 2 to 3 tablespoons of water. Hummus is ready now and all you need is to scrape the jar and place hummus in a serving bowl or bowls.

22. While serving make a round pattern with a spoon on the hummus. Drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle paprika or red chilli powder or black pepper powder or any of your favorite spice powder. You can also sprinkle zaatar. Garnish with a few chopped coriander leaves or parsley leaves and the reserved chickpeas.

Serve hummus with pita bread or with steamed or roasted veggies. The remaining hummus can be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

Serving hummus

Hummus is great as a spread on sandwiches or burgers or wraps (rolls). It is also served in a lebanese meze. You could also have it as a dip with fried, roasted or steamed veggies.

Best is to have hummus with pita bread. Even it tastes good with garlic naan or butter naan. We even have hummus with chapatis and parathas. Sometimes I make wraps with falafel and add hummus as a topping in the wrap.

Variations you can make in hummus recipe

Some herbs or greens or roasted vegetables can be added while blending. So depending on the flavors you want you can add the herbs or greens. so you can make various variations in a basic hummus recipe.

• Example herbs like coriander leaves (cilantro) will give you a nice green colored, lemony and aromatic hummus.
• Adding some blanched spinach, will give you a super healthy and nutritious spinach hummus.
• Roasted beets or carrots or red bell peppers can also be pureed when making hummus.
• I also make a variation of hummus with avocado which tastes great.

Tips to make best hummus recipe

1. Use dried chickpeas – The best hummus comes from using dried chickpeas and not canned chickpeas. So yes do take some time to soak chickpeas and then cook them. A pressure cooker is great resource for cooking chickpeas thereby saving time. i always cook soaked chickpeas in a pressure cooker as its quick and does not take a long time. Soaking dried chickpeas in water takes 8 to 9 hours. So you can easily soak chickpeas overnight.
2. Cooking chickpeas really well – to get a nice creamy smooth hummus, the chickpeas have to be really cooked well and become mushy. They should be easily mashed when you press them between your fingers. Any raw bits in the chickpeas, can ruin the hummus.
3. Peeling chickpeas or not – Some hummus recipes call for peeling chickpeas. Now peeling chickpeas takes a lot of time. I don’t peel chickpeas when making hummus. Even without peeling them you can get a smooth hummus. But if you want a really super smooth hummus, then take some time out and peel the chickpeas.
4. Tahini vs sesame seeds – both tahini and sesame seeds work very well while making hummus. I have used both tahini as well as sesame seeds at different times – and both of them give a good taste. So in this recipe you can add either tahini or sesame seeds.
5. Olive oil – one of the ingredient that I always recommend while making hummus is olive oil. So do use a good quality extra virgin olive oil. It does make a remarkable difference in hummus in terms of flavor and taste.

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This Hummus Recipe post from the blog archives first published in January 2012 has been republished and updated on 5 September 2021.