An Easy Kale and Garlic Hummus Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What can I mix with hummus to make it taste better? ›

Add salt, lemon juice, cumin, paprika, and cayenne to taste. Maybe that grocery store hummus is not quite seasoned to your liking. It might just need a touch more of the flavor-boosters you'd normally use to season hummus (salt, lemon, spice)—start slowly and taste as you go.

Hummus pairs perfectly with fresh veggies and crispy salads. This crunchy cucumber and tomato salad is a refreshing side dish with a bowl of hummus, but it also works beautifully as a topping for a loaded and colorful hummus.

Another cause might be that your lemon is a bit old, causing it to taste more bitter than sour. Lastly, if you've added too much garlic or just happened to used a particularly strong clove, it'll leave the hummus with a very pungent, raw taste.

Next, enhance the blank slate of flavor with a few squeezes of lemon juice, a sprinkling of garlic salt, a turn of freshly cracked pepper, a heavy-handed sprinkle of paprika, and a generous drizzle of your nicest olive oil. Bonus points if you have an herby olive oil on hand with a little color to it.

If you feel adventurous, try replacing the tahini with an equal amount of peanut butter, sunflower seed butter, Greek yogurt, chopped roasted peppers, pitted olives, roasted beets, steamed sweet potato, avocado, or thawed frozen peas, to name just a few possibilities.

Other studies have also linked a higher intake of legumes like chickpeas to a lower body weight and improved satiety ( 29 , 30 ). Hummus is also rich in fiber, which could help promote weight loss.

So, what is the No. 1 snack for weight loss? The answer is hummus. In a 2020 study in The Journal of Nutrition, people who ate an afternoon snack of hummus and pretzels reported less hunger than when they munched on a granola bar (both were 240 calories).

While hummus is a very healthy snack option, it should not be consumed in large quantities.

Moore claimed that overdoing it with this dip could lead to gastrointestinal issues, arguing that because hummus is made from chickpeas—a legume that takes a while to break down—eating hummus could cause gastrointestinal inflammation for some individuals.

In this hummus recipe, adapted from "How to Cook Everything," tahini is essential, as are garlic and lemon. But this dip is also flexible: cumin and pimentón are optional, as are herbs or blends like za'atar. Hummus can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one week.

How to make hummus more fancy? ›

Use a Fun Mix-In. Give your plain hummus a burst of color and flavor by adding things like mashed avocados, pesto or even canned pumpkin puree. The mashed avocado and pesto will give the hummus a vibrant green color, giving your snack spread an eye-appealing look.

This is another trick from Solomonov—if you mince the garlic in the food processor or blender with the lemon juice and let that mixture rest for a few minutes, the garlic will lose its harsh, raw bite and mellow out. I tried it before and after, and he's right!

If , for some reason, you ended up using more liquid than you should have or if you still want a thicker consistency, you can add a bit more tahini. And if you chill the hummus for an hour or so before adding any garnish, that should help as well.

Add Some Nice Spice

Spices like paprika, cayenne pepper and sumac all lend a marvelous layer of nuance to a classic hummus dip. Seasoning your hummus with spices is perfect when you want to supercharge your hummus dishes with flavor. This trick also works with making canned soup taste better.

Tahin and garbanzo beans are typically quite bland and since they make up most of the the bulk of the ingredients, without salt, your hummus will be pretty tasteless. I do a few things that elevate my hummus. I sauté my garlic in good olive oil with ground cumin before adding it.

It's already a near-perfect food. That said, we've started adding cold water to our hummus. While it sounds counterintuitive, the water makes the hummus creamy, light, and almost fluffy in texture. It's a trick we learned from Yotam Ottolenghi that has improved our hummus game considerably.