Creamy Hummus, Restaurant Style
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
water, as needed, optional
4 or 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 (24 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt, to taste
olive oil, for drizzle
parsley, to taste, for garnish
ground cumin, to taste, for garnish
1. Put the tahini and lemon juice into a blender (I use an immersion blender) and blend away until it's frothy, white, and creamy. You can substitute a little water for lemon juice; experiment. This is your sesame cream! (If you added a lot more water and blended well enough, you'd get sesame milk.)
2. Blend garlic into the cream, and add some salt, to taste. This is a basic tahini cream sauce that's actually really good on its own! Take a handful of chickpeas and blend it into the sesame cream until smooth.
3. Continue to blend in chickpeas a little at a time until the cream has thickened, but isn't too thick and is still pale (not the deep yellow of the usual chickpea mash). Add salt, to taste.
4. You won't use all the chickpeas, much less than in many hummus recipes. For the above, I usually use about 1/2 (24 ounce) can's worth. Scoop the hummus onto a plate, put a few whole chickpeas on top, drizzle good olive oil over it, and sprinkle some parsley and/or cumin on top if you like.
That's it! It's best if served at room temperature or slightly warmer.
The secret to good hummus, and the difference between hummus and chickpea mash, is to understand what is really going on with the tahini.What is milk? Milk is generally an emulsion of protein and fat in a water-based liquid. An emulsion is when you mix one liquid into another that don't generally mix, like oil and water when you make salad dressing. They're not dissolving into each other, but the little molecules of one are suspended in the other.
For dairy milk, it's an emulsion of animal protein, fats, lactose, etc. For soy milk and nut milk, it's the same thing, but now it's nut proteins and oils. But in all cases, the emulsion is where the creaminess comes from in "milk". If you have less water, you call it cream (either dairy cream or nut creams).
Tahini is sesame butter, and to make creamy hummus, the secret is to first turn that into sesame cream! To do that, you need to emulsify the tahini in a water based liquid first. This will not happen if you just put everything into a food processor all at once!'
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Oh, I'm so excited that I now know I can make my own hummus!!!
Thank you so much!
What's the fuss about? This recipe was written so authoritatively that I thought I have spent the past 10 years making hummus incorrectly. But not only was it hard to work with hummus in a blender (maybe an immersion blender's better), but in the end, this yielded a very small amount of very garlicky hummus. Disappointing. From now on, I'll stick to my food processor and my original recipe which uses roasted garlic, not raw.
This recipe was all that I hoped for, given the four pages of glowing reviews!
Lemon juice from home-grown lemons, chickpeas cooked up earlier in the day, just enough garlic... the instructions are perfect, I'm totally sold. Included this among other dips at a party for 50-ish people yesterday, and no one knew it was homemade :)
Thanks so much for this fail-proof recipe.
Excellent method for the tahini! I followed the recipe almost exactly except I used sprouted sunflower seeds instead of garbanzos and it is incredibly delicious. I am so glad I used this method of making hummus instead of my tried and true throw it all together method. Thanks!
Absolutely fabulous. The creamy hummus served as a fabulous topping for my veggie burger. I will most definitely be using this recipe again. ;)b
This was my first attempt at making hummus and I was pleasantly surprised. This is such a better way to go about hummus in comparison than buying it in a container for $4-$7. ::)
the only thing this recipe needs is a spoon.
this stuff is amazing! it's the creamiest hummus ive ever had - even including restaurants & store bought. it's delicious. i added almost a 1/4 cup of water in between batches of chickpeas to help it keep moving. i also only used about 2 1/2 cloves worth of minced garlic, no oil, and bottled lemon juice - it was perfectly light, fluffy & creamy. thanks for teaching us this!
I just made this today - my first time making hummous.. SHEZAMM! is all i can say :)>>> I am a hummuous fiend, so I am ever so delighted that this turned out perfectly. I will never buy premade hummous ever again after today.
I used 4 cloves of garlic - i just love the garlicky taste - plus it is very useful in fighting off my head cold ;) I didnt add any oil - but I think it is great without it.
also the texture is much nicer than any of the store brought variations. I cant wait to play around with this recipe :) 1000/1000!
Great recipe. :) Mine was a little dry. I added olive oil and water accordingly. I also added a 1/2 teaspoon of ground mustard for flavor.
5 cloves? unless you want some fierce heartburn! This is a great recipe, ive tried it with different things in it. My fav so far is to add a half can of great northern beans (makes it a little creamier) and some cooked kale. YUM :)>>>
Yum yum YUM! This is the absolute best way to make hummus. *drooling*
Pages