The trick is in the details that can raise your hummus from simply pureed chickpeas to wow! The most important step, of course, is to pressure cook the beans yourself instead of using canned, then…
… you want them to cool them before adding the other ingredients so each addition will taste fresh. Finishing with fresh herbs, your best olive oil and a sprinkling of paprika will make you want to make a meal of it.
I served this with lightly warmed Piadine, an Italian flatbread, but warmed pitas would be the best accompaniment. Flour tortillas or bread crostini are great substitutions. The video shows this dish with veggie sticks – it’s fantastic this way, too!
| Pressure Cooker | Accessories | Pr. Cook Time | Pr. Level | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5L or larger | none | 15 -18min. | High (2) | Natural |
(per serving)
- Serves: 6-8
- Serving size: ⅛th
- Calories: 109.1
- TOTAL Fat: 3.8g
- Sugar Carbs: 0.2g
- Sodium: 332.9mg
- Fiber Carbs: 3.3g
- Protein: 4.1g
- Cholesterol: 0.0mg
- 1 cup (180g) dry chickpeas, soaked or quick-soaked
- 4 cups (1L) water
- 1 bay leaf, crumbled
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 heaping tablespoons tahini
- 1 lemon, juiced (about 3 tablespoons of juice)
- ¼ teaspoon powdered cumin
- ½ teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
- 1 sprig parsley, finely chopped
- 1 pinch paprika
- extra virgin olive oil
- Rinse the chickpeas and put them in your pressure cooker and cover with water and add the bay leaf.
- Close and lock the lid of the pressure cooker.
- For electric pressure cookers: Cook for 18 minutes at high pressure.
For stove top pressure cookers: Turn the heat up to high and when the cooker indicates it has reached high pressure, lower to the heat to maintain it and begin counting 15 minutes pressure cooking time. - When time is up, open the pressure cooker with the natural release method - move the pressure cooker to a cool burner and wait for the pressure to come down on its own (about 10 minutes).
- Drain the chickpeas, reserving all of the cooking liquid - you will need some of this to add back when pureeing the chickpeas and you can use the rest in place of stock for your next risotto. Optionally pull out some whole chickpeas to reserve for the garnish.
- Leave the chickpeas to cool (about 30 minutes), and fish out the Bay Leaf.
- Pour chickpeas into the food processor, or puree with a stick blender or potato masher.
- Adding back ½ a cup of cooking liquid along with Tahini, lemon juice, cumin and fresh garlic cloves (depending on your preference).
- Puree to mix and see if the consistency is creamy enough.
- Slowly added additional liquid to reach a creamy consistency - I usually add about a cup back to be just one step out of "pasty" going towards "creamy" but without going "runny."
- When the hummus has reached the right consistency, add salt to taste and puree again to mix well.
- Place either in individual serving dishes or communal dipping bowl.
- Make a nice deep round groove in the middle with a spatula and pour a generous helping of your best olive oil.
- Sprinkle with paprika and fresh parsley, and a few whole cooked chickpeas (if using) and serve.
This recipe has been updated June 2018 with some minor tweaks, if you’d prefer the original recipe published in June 2011 you can see it on the Web Archive.
Oh, I love the addition of cumin and paprika!
I just started making my homemade humus with pressure cooked chickpeas — there is really NO comparison to using canned beans! They are so delicate, creamy and delicious! I recently learned a trick: soak chickpeas for one hour in baking soda, then rinse extremely well. EVEN creamier!
I made some chickpeas in my pressure cooker a few months ago and was impressed by how delicious they tasted compared with canned chickpeas. I’ve been thinking about making hummus with some ever since then. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
this looks fantastic!!! wow. i love using a pressure cooker, going to try this…~ and love the idea of adding a bayleaf for flavor!!
Try adding a tablespoon or two of olive oil when you’re pureeing the chickpeas. Fat is a flavor vehicle and I find that this definitely enhances the flavor.
To me, the basic hummus recipe is just a starting point. “Obvious” changes that spring to my mind are changing the beans; try black beans instead of garbanzo beans, try balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice, a miso of your choice instead of salt (for that nice umami flavor http://goo.gl/3LKq), etc.
I made some with black beans and then added some pickled jalapenos when I was pureeing the beans, and also some cilantro. By that time it was more of a south of the border bean dip than a hummus although it still had the tahini.
The tahini and cumin are a constant. I’m not too wild about paprika though; maybe I have a bad batch; mine tastes sort of musty. I keep my spices in the freezer; maybe paprika doesn’t like that?
Thanks for the recipe, but the ingredients call for 3-4 garlic cloves and you only give instructions to put 2 in the PC with the peas. If people don’t catch that, their hummus will be lacking that essential garlic bite that comes from adding fresh garlic into the food processor when whirring it all up. I put the garlic into the processor first, to make sure it’s chopped fine and well-distributed. Also I second lumpy’s suggestion to add olive oil when blending.
The best and healthiest snack love it!
JL, I try not to use the baking soda. The texture is great but the nutritional value is decreased, somewhat. If I can get my kids to eat something brown it’s already a bit of a miracle! The fact that for them it’s a dip is a great help.
Nicole, please come back to tell me how you like it! Also read the comments for some great variations and additions!
Welcome Junia! The Bay leaf serves a double purpose. It also decreases the “gassyness” of the beans for those who don’t eat beans very often.
Lumpynose, great suggestion. I kept it out because I wanted this recipe to be low-fat and high-flavor. Plus, for me the puddle of oil on top is just a dream. It has to be the GOOD stuff!
Anonymous, thanks for the catch and tips. I have updated the recipe to include the last, crucial raw clove or two.
Ciao,
L
Ciao,
Cook’s Illustrated, always a good resource for improving recipes through a change in preparation instructions or technique, created a superb recipe for what it calls restaurant-style hummus. I’ve made it many times, always to rave reviews. It makes a hummus with a beautifully light, silky-smooth texture rather than the sometimes coarse, dense texture of some other hummus recipes. Their recipe is a nice balance of typical hummus ingredients: chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. You’ll see that Laura’s recipe calls for slightly different combination. That’s the beauty of hummus, you can add more or less of most ingredients to suit your own taste preferences.
To get that light silky texture, their technique is key rather than a particular set of ingredients (and I’ve found their technique really makes a difference). The ingredients, as you’ll see, are pretty standard and you can probably adjust them to your liking. I have made their hummus using this technique and the result is indeed, hummus with a beautifully light, silky texture.
CI Restaurant-Style Hummus – makes about 2 cups
3 T. fresh lemon juice
¼ C. water
6 T. tahini, stirred well
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil, plus some extra for drizzling
14 oz. of cooked chickpeas, preferably cooked from scratch in the pressure cooker according to Hip’s instructions (however a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed can be used). Reserve a few chickpeas to garnish finished dish.
½ t. of minced garlic or more if desired
½ t. of table salt
¼ t. of ground cumin
Pinch of cayenne
1 T. minced fresh cilantro or parsley leaves.
1. Combine lemon juice and water in a small bowl.
2. Whisk together tahini and 2 T. of olive oil in another small bowl.
3. Process chickpeas, garlic, salt, cumin and cayenne in a food processor until almost fully ground – about 15 seconds. Scrape down bowl with spatula.
4. With processor running, add lemon juice-water mixture in a steady stream though the feed tube. Scrape down bowl again and continue to process for about a minute.
5. With processor running, add oil-tahini mixture in a steady stream though the feed tube and continue to process until hummus is smooth and creamy – about 15 seconds, scraping down bowl as needed.
6. Transfer hummus to serving bowl, sprinkle reserved chickpeas and cilantro or parsley over the surface. You can eat it immediately, but if you allow the flavors to meld by allowing it to sit covered, for a half hour it will taste better.
7. If texture is too thick when you’re ready to serve the hummus, you can mix in about 1 T. of warm water. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle a bit of paprika on top and serve with pita chips, or celery and carrot sticks.
This is very similar to my hummus recipe but you use much more water when blending, which sounds like it works well.
Adding a strip of kombu (sea weed) to the bean cooking pot adds flavor (from the minerals and natural sodium) and texture to the beans,too. I like to throw in a couple of garlic cloves during the pressure cooking process so that there is the mellow garlic flavor as well as the raw.
As usual, great photos.
My hummus is very similar to yours and does not use more tahini but the same amount.
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 to 2 cups pressure cooked garbanzo beans, liquid reserved
2 tablespoons sesame tahini
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon reduced sodium tamari or Bragg liquid amino acids
2 to 4 tablespoons water
I have been teaching people how to make it for years and it’s always a hit. Anyway that you make hummus – it’s wonderful and people always appreciate it.
lumpynose, paprika needs to be lightly sweet and peppery – not musty! Definitely try to get your hands on a fresh batch. Storing your spices in the freezer might cause condensation to form when you pull them out. A cool dark place should suffice!
Sigrid, thank you for sharing this technique I really enjoy reading everyone’s “spin” on Hummus.
Cook’s Illustrated and Jill’s recipes use more tahini, a spritz of spice and cilantro while I get the heat and pep from the fresh garlic and use flat Italian parsley. Also the ratios are quite different. I tried to be true to the ingredients you would find in the Middle East to get that authentic flavor – though in the end, every recipe should be adapted to local ingredients, spices and flavors!
Ciao,
L
These recipes don’t look anything alike, ladies.
They both have garbanzo beans and tahini. Welcome to Hummus!
Gosh, it’s amazing how many little tweaks and additions or subtractions there can be to plain old hummus. We now have three similar though somewhat different recipes for hummus here – Laura’s, Jill’s and Cook’s Illustrated’s. We all have lots of ideas for tweaking our own recipe if we already have one, or ideas to try if we’ve never made hummus before. I’ve only made hummus using chickpeas/garbanzo beans cooked from scratch once and even at that I didn’t use a pressure cooker. I’m definitely going to cook the beans in my PC the next time and I’m going to use a bay leaf and garlic cloves as Laura suggests. If I had any kombu, I’d throw a strip of that in too as Jill does. I do have some Bragg Liquid Amino Acid though I’ve never used it. I’ll give that a try instead of tamari. I love the hummus I already make using the CI recipe and technique…but there’s always room for improvement! Thanks for the ideas ladies. I always have liked “playing with my food ☺.
I love hummus but have never tried to make the chickpeas. This must really take up to another level… !
When I make hummus I use a whole bag of garbanzos to make 4 servings, 3 of which go in the freezer. I throw in an 1/2 onion 1 carrot and 1 celery to flavor the cooking liquid (water) and it all ends up together in the food processor along with the other ingredients.
(I make 2 serving at a time of your pate and then freeze one for later also!)
Check out my latest blogpost on savory steel cut oats. I would love to share it with your readers.
Thanks.
I just made this recipe-and I, too, am now a convert to PC’ing the garbanzo beans. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!! I have an electric PC and I just took off 3 minutes to compensate for the longer time it takes to reach the correct temp for “pressure.” Also enjoyed everyone’s little twists to this great dish.
LUUUVEE this site for recipes!!
Kate
Thanks for the recipe! I was mostly interested in the part of the recipe where you describe cooking the chickpeas in a pressure cooker. Being both new to the craft and having forgotten to soak the beans in the morning, I followed the quick-soak method in the pressure cooker along with the rest of the instructions.
The chickpeas turned out great but I had a few questions regarding the process:
1. Why is it necessary to quick-soak the chickpeas in 4 cups of water, then pour out the water and proceed to fill the pressure cooker with clear water? Can we not cook the chickpeas from the dry state straight into cooked by cooking for 17-20 minutes total as opposed to 2 mins on high pressure, cool-down, then 15 mins on high with clear water again?
2. Why is so much water required in the cooking process? I was cooking 2 cups of chickpeas which meant 12 cups of water. Since I have a smaller pressure cooker the required amount filled it to more than half the amount which is not recommended by the manufacturer. Having boiled chickpeas many times before I don’t remember ever using that much water so I cut it down to 4 cups per cup of chickpeas, and even after 15 minutes of pressure cooking there was still a healthy 5-6 cups left that did not evaporate. I think you could safely cut the water down to 3 cups per cup of dry chickpeas.
Great questions! You can absolutely pressure cook chickpeas from dry all the way through, but they actually take about 30 minutes instead of 20.
You throw away the cooking water in the quick-soak to discard the undigestble sugars (which cause gas) from the beans as you would during a normal, overnight, soak.
I like to use abundant water to ensure that the beans will plump-up as much as they can, then I use the rest (from the “official cooking” not the quicksoak) as stock for my next risotto.
Welcome and I’m so glad to hear of your pressure cooking success!
Ciao,
L
Great recipe! I used a total of 4 large garlic cloves, a bit more cumin and a pinch of cayenne. Will make again!
Make a large batch and divide it. To one smaller batch purée in that roasted red pepper in oil in a jar that’s been sitting at the back of your fridge the last two years.
To another small batch throw in that last handful of frozen peas that are lurking on the door of your freezer.
To another small batch whiz in last nights leftover roasted root vegetables.
DavidD, I love adding roasted red pepper to my hummus. I roast some from my garden and freeze them for the sole purpose of adding them to hummus. I also add a tiny pinch of cayenne, and up the cumin a touch.
For company I make the beans and make smaller batches for folks with different tastes…. some with roasted red pepper, some with cayenne, and some, more to the basic recipe with no cayenne. It is almost like serving 3 dips.
I put corn chips around the roasted red pepper hummus, crackers and pita wedges around the one with cayenne, and veggies around the plainer hummus.
I buy sesame seeds from the Amish bulk food store, and make my own tahini. It is really fresh and so much cheaper. terry r.
THANK YOU for the tip about reserving the liquid to use for stock. I’m a little new to cooking and never would have thought to do that, as simple as it sounds for an experienced cook.
I’ve been on a Moroccan spice kick lately, so my homemade hummus nearly always has varying amounts of Ras el hanout spice blend added (tagine spices). It’s soooooo good, and a little bit different than the more common commercial hummus variations.
I don’t use the cooking liquid when I puree the hummus, and I probably add a lot more olive oil than most people. I have to restrict my carb consumption to manage my blood sugar & weight; I find some extra oil helps to dampen the blood sugar and insulin raising effect of the starchy chickpeas.
Additionally, my teenage son and I also eat gluten-free, so instead of bread, I serve the hummus with diagonally sliced carrots. Cutting the carrots diagonally increases their surface area, making a good “dip chip” size. The sliced carrots are soooo much better than the bags of peeled “baby” carrots usually served with dips (which more often than not taste extremely bland & have a woody or mushy texture). If the carrots are very fresh, their crisp sweetness is a fantastic combination with the warm Moroccan Ras el hangout spice blend, and the color contrast is attractive, too (the carrot slices can be placed in overlapping layers around a dip bowl, like a flower).
Sometimes I also serve the hummus with Trader Joe’s Sea Salt & Black Pepper Rice Crisp crackers, a good gluten free option for those who crave a grain hummus transportation platform.
Homemade hummus with ras el hanout Moroccan spice blend & diagonally sliced carrot “chips”
It doesn’t look like your picture made it through, please try again – sounds great!
Ciao,
L