Hummus - The best basic recipe
Hummus has taken the world by storm and has arrived everywhere to stay. This delicious chickpea cream is the perfect vegan dip for bread and vegetables and is a staple in Middle Eastern cuisine, especially Levantine cuisine. I personally grew up with hummus and give you here tips and tricks as well as a recipe with which you too can prepare super creamy hummus very quickly and easily.
What is hummus and what does the name mean?
When my mother says "hummus," it's not necessarily clear in the first few seconds whether she means the dip or the chickpeas themselves. In the Arabic language, the name is synonymous. Chickpeas are called hummus. And since the cream consists mainly of chickpeas, it has also been directly given this name.
So hummus is a cream made from chickpeas. The other ingredients are:
- Tahini
- Lemon juice
- Garlic
- Cumin
- Salt
All this finely tuned with each other, becomes one of the most delicious dips in the world. For this, not only the chickpeas must be cooked nice and soft. We also need really good and quite a lot of tahini.
Tahini is a kind of sesame butter or sesame puree, which gives the hummus both its creaminess and its fine nutty flavor. Without good tahini, it won't make good hummus. It's that simple. How you can make tahini even quite simple, I have described to you in this recipe.
You may know cumin by another name. Often you get the intense spice also under the name cumin. You can buy it in stores either as whole seeds or ground. For hummus, you need the ground version.
With garlic, you can do it to your own taste. If you are a fan of garlic, then add a little more to your hummus. If not, then go rather more discreetly with it. You can of course leave out the garlic altogether, but then your hummus will really lose a very distinctive part of the flavor.
Cook chickpeas yourself or prefer canned cooked?
Whether you cook the chickpeas yourself or use already cooked ones from a jar or can, it almost doesn't matter.
If you cook them yourself, you will definitely need much more time. The chickpeas must be soaked in fresh water for about 12 hours before cooking. This way they absorb the water and become bigger. After that, they should still be cooked really soft.
To speed up the cooking process, you can add some baking soda or baking powder to the water. This changes the PH value and the outer structure of the chickpeas becomes more porous - this means that they cook faster and become soft.
By the way, this also applies to already pre-cooked canned chickpeas. Personally, I use them often, because I save myself a lot of time and energy. You could actually process the canned chickpeas directly with the rest of the ingredients. However, I recommend you still cook the chickpeas for a few minutes with some baking soda. This will soften them even more and make your hummus creamier.
Also, to get the most creaminess possible, you could remove the skin from the chickpeas. This is actually super much work if you don't have this super trick at hand:
After you have cooked the chickpeas, you can strain them and cover them with cold water in a pot and then stir them gently by hand. The shell will come off by itself and you can simply scoop it off with a ladle.
But honestly, you don't really need to do that anymore. If you cook the chickpeas well and then prepare them according to my recipe, you're sure to get a great, creamy hummus.
Prepare, serve and store
For your hummus, simply put the peas in a measuring cup, add tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt and cumin and blend everything with a hand blender until it reaches a fine creamy consistency.
It's very likely that you'll need to add some fresh, cold water to get the consistency right. You can make the chickpea cream firmer or creamier as you like.
Finally, you taste the cream again with salt and lemon if necessary and your hummus is ready. This usually takes less than 10 minutes.
I like to serve hummus with a little olive oil and maybe a pinch of sumac. But there you can give free rein to your creativity. On the blog I have in any case a whole series of hummus variations for you to try out. You can find a list below.
Fresh hummus will keep in a jar or fresh box covered with a little olive oil for about 4 days in the refrigerator.
Hummus and your diet
Hummus is a vegan cream that is also rich in protein and fiber due to the chickpeas. In addition, hummus is also full of important vitamins and minerals, such as B vitamins, iron and phosphorus. Even though hummus has many properties that benefit your health, the cream is not exactly low in calories just because of the content of tahini.
But the chickpea cream is delicious in any case and should not be missing on any mezze or just for dipping in between. Try the recipe so happy times. Bon appetite!
More variations
Are you in the mood for more hummus variations? Then try your way through my hummus collection:
- Hummus with okra in tomato sauce
- Hummus with minced meat and pine nuts
- Hummus with roasted cauliflower
- Hummus Guacamole Style
- Hummus with mushrooms
- Hummus with roasted Brussels sprouts
- Spinach roll with hummus
Recipe for hummus
Cooking utensils
Ingredients
Preparation
- Place chickpeas in a small saucepan and bring to a boil with the baking soda. Tip: The longer you cook the chickpeas, the softer they become. You can influence the creaminess of your hummus with the cooking time.
- Put the chickpeas, garlic, cumin, salt, lemon juice, tahini and water in a blender and blend well. Of course, you can also use a hand blender.
- Add a little more liquid and/or lemon juice as needed and desired.
- Serve hummus and drizzle with a little olive oil.
- One serving makes about 500 g and is enough for 4 people to dip.
Notes
Nutritional values
By the way, the Lebanese pita bread is perfect for dipping!
Hello,
I already put the chickpeas in their bath water last night, and right now they're in the sauna in the pot. I'll continue later, but I'd rather be careful about adding tahini (that bitter stuff!). I love cumin.
Tasty greetings
El-Fee
Really? I love tahini and don't find it bitter at all. But different people have different tastes 🙂
Me again:
I had forgotten that you had written (in another recipe) that the soaked chickpeas could be skinned so easily. I was a fool and cooked them first. Then when I rolled the bottom of the pot over my tea towel, the peas were already pretty squashed. So afterwards I picked each pea out of its wrapping like an almond. That was work. But the result tastes great!
Tasty greetings
El-Fee
Thanks for the great recipe 🙂
How long can you keep the hommus in the fridge?
Kind regards
Hello Mirjam,
you're welcome 🙂
You can store Hommus for 3 days in the fridge. If it survives that long and isn't eaten before then 😉
Kind regards
Rafik
So we just love hummus! We're still looking for the perfect recipe...this one comes close....but the hummus is still not asoo creamy as our favourite Israeli 😉 do you have any ideas what I could improve? I must have cooked the chickpeas for over half an hour. Should I still skin them??? Or is the tahini(s) crucial for the creaminess?
Maybe you have another tip?
Thanks in any case for the delicious recipes!!! 🙃
Hello Anna,
Thank you very much for your great feedback. Sometimes it helps a lot to add a few ice cubes or crushed ice to the blender. This makes the chickpeas even more "squashed". But make sure you use less of the cooking liquid 🙂 .
Kind regards
Rafik
Hi Rafik, when you say 250g, are you referring to the net drained weight or the complete can?
Thanks for the info and best regards
Andrea
*Please delete net 🙂 ... (meant is drained weight vs. net weight)
Hello Andrea,
Good to have you here. The weight refers to the drained weight. The canned chickpeas mostly have a total weight of 450g. 🙂
Kind regards
Rafik
*Please delete net 🙂 ... (meant is drained weight vs. net weight)
Well, I think it's delicious!
Top with crispy roasted chickpeas.
Served with pita bread - simply heavenly. 💖
Hello Anna-Lena,
Thank you very much! I am very happy that you like it 🙂
Kind regards
Rafik
sooooo a delicious recipe, totally fluffy and foamy, very fine.
Simply great as a basic recipe.
There are so many different offerings in tahini and I haven't found anything really good yet.
Is there a tip?
Kind regards
Ursula
Hello Ursula,
Thank you so much for your fantastic feedback. I'm very pleased that you enjoyed it. With hummus and the like, it really depends on the quality of the tahini. I like to use the one from Durra. I have also linked the tahini in the recipe.
Kind regards
Rafik
@Ursula Rosemann Why don't you try Yuval's tahina from Königsteinmühle?
Hello dear Rafik,
I tried your great recipe tonight. It was brilliant! I had your super delicious cucumber salad with mint and made a simple pan bread (without yeast). Really good together! Thanks for the brilliant recipes. Oh, I have a super recommendation for tahini: Juval's tahina! It tastes unbelievably good and is also lighter overall than the tahini you usually find in the shops (also less bitter actually). Best regards, Cathrin
Hello Cathrin,
Thank you very much for your great feedback! I'm really happy that you liked it 🙂 Thank you for your tahini tip.
Thank you also for your tahini tip. I actually linked a very similar tahini in the recipe.
Kind regards
Rafik
Hi Rafik, I would like to try your hummus recipe tomorrow. The ingredients list says 250g cooked chickpeas. I have the dried ones. Do I have to soak them for 12 hours and then cook them? If so, how many grams of dried chickpeas do I use to get 250g cooked? Cooked?
Many thanks, greetings Melanie
Hello Melanie 🙂
The chickpeas should definitely be soaked for at least 12 hours. Then cook them well until you can mash them with your fingers. I would use half of the dried chickpeas. You might end up with a little more, but that should be about right 🙂
Kind regards
Rafik
Hello Rafik. I finally have to comment now: Wow!!! This hummus is really the hammer. I took your tip with the ice cubes to heart and it's super fluffy, fluffy creamy and seeeeeeery tasty! But since I just used my last lemon for your stunning Baba Ganoush, I used a lime instead. Fits very well.
So and now about your blog: I love it and I have already cooked many recipes. It's also easy to just read it, you write so entertainingly. I love your stories and anecdotes and your passion for food can be felt in every sentence. Thank you so much for sharing your family and your own recipes!!! And that you recommend or try vegan alternatives in between I like extremely well, I'm like you - I'm not vegan but like to fall back on alternatives. Have now just also Labneh with Sojaghurt set, am curious how it works. And if you ever think about publishing a cookbook: I would buy it immediately! LG and thank you for all the wonderful delights
Hello Sonja,
thank you so much for your fantastic feedback! I'm really happy to hear how much you enjoy my blog. It's also really nice to hear how the texts are received - thank you so much again 🙂
A cookbook is actually in the works at the moment and will be out in the course of next year 😉
Kind regards
Rafik
The secret....the tahini is crucial! The tahini from the Turkish is sooo much better for this and it becomes mega creamy.