Homemade Hummus

And now, a quick break from my Finding Culture in Phoenix posts to finally offer up a recipe some of you have been waiting so patiently to see. I have had a few frustrating weeks of no camera and the pixels on my current cell are just too low to get a good blog pic.

This is the of homemade hummus I took to my visit on ABC15’s Smart Families, I got a lot of requests for the recipes for the hummus and the homemade almond butter. I’ll do another post about the almond butter, another super easy recipe, by the end of the week.

Now, being a frugal and organic mama, I try to cook the beans I use for recipes like this from scratch. I do this for a few reasons, including….

1. It’s cheaper. While I can buy a can of organic beans for about $1.09 (or less on sale), I can make about 5 times that amount of organic beans by buying them in bulk.

2. Avoiding canned food because of safety issues associated with BPA in can liners. A few companies are now using non-BPA liners and you can see a list here.

3. I can cook a lot at a time and freeze it for later use or just have an unending supply of hummus!

If you’re thinking that making beans from scratch sounds like a lot of work, I can reassure you that it’s not. It just takes a little planning. You can see how to make them right here.

Now, I do give an ingredients list but feel free to add a little more (or less) fresh garlic if you like and adjust the salt to your taste. It’s always better to add a small amount of something so you don’t have to go back and find more garbanzo beans to even out too much lemon or salt.

Also, I use a food processor for this. A food processor is an invaluable tool for a cook who has a lot to do and doesn’t want to mess around with a bunch of different tools. I can shred, chop and otherwise pulverize things that would take me forever to chop in this thing. If you don’t have one, you can get a smaller one here or a larger one here.

2 1/2-3 cups garbanzo beans or one can organic beans, reserve the liquid

2 tablespoons Tahini, sesame seed butter – you can skip this in a pinch but it is going to change the texture & flavor a bit

4-6 peeled cloves of garlic

2 T lemon juice (more to taste)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

black pepper to taste

*Optional – ingredients like red bell peppers, spinach, etc or add a little spice like red pepper flakes

Place all the ingredients, minus the bean liquid, into the food processor and blend till creamy.

If it’s too thick, add a little bean liquid – just a few tablespoons at a time – till it reaches the consistency you like.

 

If you like you can drizzle a little olive oil over the top before serving with your favorite chopped veggies. Ours are red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, carrots, celery, jicama, cucumber, zucchini etc. Just take your pick.