Today I take you to the Middle East to present one of the most well-known recipes: chickpea hummus.
I discovered the recipe at a dinner at my cousin Andrea’s house, his wife Cinzia, whom you already know as the source of many sweet recipes, served chickpea hummus as an appetizer for the meat fondue dinner. I fell in love with it, the taste and flavor of this dish encompass many holiday memories in Egypt. It is one of the oldest and most widespread preparations, thanks to the simplicity of its ingredients. The main ingredient is chickpeas, which are boiled and mashed until a homogeneous cream is obtained. For convenience, I use pre-cooked chickpeas found in aluminum cans at the store.
To puree the chickpeas, you can use an immersion blender. Chickpea hummus is a delicious, truly tasty cream, to be enjoyed accompanied by Arabic bread or flatbreads and croutons, of course, other vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, and cucumbers should not be missing. You can also serve with thickly cut carrot and celery sticks to use as breadsticks.
Let yourself be conquered by this very versatile dish, used to accompany falafel, or as a spreadable cream. Our chickpea hummus will be a hit during appetizers or if you want as a starter for an oriental dinner! You can also serve the Sweet and Sour Baked Fennel as an additional dish!
A soft cream that will conquer your family or guests!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 3 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
- Energy 372.20 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 27.63 (g) of which sugars 1.82 (g)
- Proteins 13.27 (g)
- Fat 23.76 (g) of which saturated 2.73 (g)of which unsaturated 5.06 (g)
- Fibers 10.53 (g)
- Sodium 687.65 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 150 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for chickpea hummus for 4 people:
- 21 oz canned chickpeas
- 2 tablespoons cumin seeds (available in organic stores)
- 2/3 cup water (or chickpea water if you have canned ones)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 oz tahini (available at the market)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch curry
- 1 pinch pepper
- to taste chives (or parsley)
- 1 clove garlic
- to taste lemon juice
Tools to prepare chickpea hummus
- 1 Blender / Mixer
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Spatula
- 1 Spoon
Chickpea Hummus Preparation:
First thing, what type of chickpeas have you chosen? Pre-cooked or fresh? If you chose fresh, start the recipe in advance, you will need to soak them for at least a couple of hours before boiling them in salted water (see the 2/3 cup of water in the ingredient list).
Once you have boiled and drained them, keeping aside some of the cooking water, remove all the skins with your hands.
If instead, you chose pre-cooked, as I did, we can move directly to the preparation of the chickpea hummus by toasting the two tablespoons of cumin seeds in a non-stick pan.
Pour the 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into another pan and saute the garlic clove after peeling it, once the oil is flavored, remove the garlic. Try to remove as many skins as possible from the chickpeas with your hands, if you used fresh ones.
In a bowl, squeeze the lemon juice, add the two tablespoons of toasted cumin, the 1 oz of tahini, the oil where you fried the garlic, a sprinkle of curry, also add the salt and pepper and mix everything together.
Finally, add the chickpeas after draining them well and with the help of a food processor reduce everything to cream, it should be nice and thick.
Once ready, the chickpea hummus can be flavored with fresh parsley, smoked paprika, or chives, adding a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Serve it as an appetizer with fragrant bread bruschetta or crackers or for a Middle Eastern-themed dinner with unleavened or Arabic bread slightly toasted in the oven!
Enjoy your meal!!!
Storage:
You can store the chickpea hummus in the refrigerator, making sure to cover the surface well with extra virgin olive oil, for up to 2 days.
Variations:
As I mentioned in the recipe explanation, you can use either fresh chickpeas to cook and clean well or pre-cooked ones found at the store. Tahini is now easily available as we have become more open to international cuisines, for seeds you can turn to organic stores.
Other recipes:
I suggest serving the chickpea hummus along with a nice chicken curry what do you think?
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