Hummus
Updated February 15, 2017
- Total Time
- 15 minutes with precooked chickpeas
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
2 cups drained well-cooked or canned chickpeas, cooking liquid reserved if possible
½ cup tahini, with some of its oil
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves peeled garlic, or to taste
Juice of 1 lemon, plus more as needed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin or paprika, or to taste, plus a sprinkling for garnish
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish
Preparation
- Step 1
Put the chickpeas, tahini, cumin or paprika, oil, garlic and lemon juice in a food processor, sprinkle with salt and pepper and begin to process; add chickpea-cooking liquid or water as needed to produce a smooth purée.
- Step 2
Taste and adjust seasoning, adding more salt, pepper or lemon juice as needed. Serve, drizzled with some olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of cumin or paprika and some parsley.
Private Notes
Comments
This is my go-to recipe for hummus. I've tried a couple of other recipes from the NYT, but they can't beat this one. I use 1 tablespoon of cumin and for variety, sometimes add a little smoked paprika (1/4-1/2 tsp). In response to the suggestion to remove the outer coating of the chickpeas to make the hummus smoother, I had just two thoughts: 1. How smooth does one's hummus need to be? 2. I hope I always have better things to do than de-coating chickpeas. Life can be hard, so keep hummus easy.
For the smoothest hummus, remove the hulls of the chickpeas. Get help, it is a little fiddly, but worth it. Also, I use a tablespoon of sesame oil, then I don't need to have a jar of tahini working its way to the back of my fridge.
I've made this recipe several times now, and I've settled on using the juice of two lemons and two teaspoons of cumin. I grew four different types of garlic last year, and I've made this recipe with each kind. The Chesnock Red Purple Stripe garlic is best of the bunch. This recipe is a keeper because it is so easy, and tastes so fresh. It's much better than anything I've ever bought.
I have a family member who can't eat garlic, so this is great- I make a big batch without garlic, scoop hers out, and then add my chopped garlic to what's leftt in the food processor. Soom Tahini from a woman owned business in Philadelphia (available on Amazon too) is great.Regular or organic. So good!
I’ve been baking hummus for decades and I have never seen a recipe include olive oil to be processed with the hummus itself. Tahini already has plenty of oil in it so I don’t know why you’d want to add more. A light drizzle of good quality fruity olive oil is perfect for enhancing the spices I drizzle on top of the hummus, whether it be paprika, cumin, or sumac.
Hummus where the heart is...

