Pizza Hummus - dairy & sesame free

Do you love pizza--and hummus? Then you are sure to love this Super Creamy Pizza Hummus. It's not just the melding of two uber popular comfort foods, but it's sesame-free and dairy-free, making it great for almost anyone on a special diet too!

If you've been around my blog for awhile, you already know that I like dips.

I mean, I really like dips.

Everything tastes better with a dip--don't you agree?

I'm not a big fan of raw veggies, but give me something to dip them and suddenly the veggies start to disappear.

But dipping in the same ol' dip can get a little boring sometimes, so you have to mix it up. That's when I start thinking about what other dips I can create.

Why you should make homemade hummus

My family loves hummus.

You wouldn't know it by our grocery store receipts, however.

See, we're kind of cheapskates frugal.

Basically, we never buy hummus. Ever.

Honestly, I don't know that we have ever bought full-priced hummus (and even on sale, I will say we've likely only bought it about 2-3 times.)

I've told you before that for years we really had to watch our pennies (and dimes, and nickels. All of those things.) Money was really tight and well, I always lived by the rule that you have to have savings in the bank and prepare for the future, so I worked hard to make sure we never went in debt.

So buying things anything prepared that wasn't discounted in a major way didn't happen. This is the reason why there are recipes like DIY Coconut Milk, Chocolate Chips, Rice Milk and Coconut Butter on my blog. You know--that frugal thing!

I LOVE making things instead of buying them..and when you've got an amazing recipe for homemade hummus, and a great food processor--who needs to :-).

Truly, one of my husband's favorite recipes that I make is our Savory Hummus.

You likely won't believe how much of this I make at one time.

I literally get 10 cups (that's 3 pounds, plus) of garbanzo beans, soak them overnight, cook them (make sure you read my post on How to De-Gas Beans), and then make one gigantic batch of homemade hummus.

Really.

And it doesn't last long.

How this pizza hummus came to be

Recently, I saw Katie's recipe for Melty Pizza Hummus--Mmmmm pizza and hummus. Are you kidding me?--and thought I needed to make something like it, but we really felt we needed to change up the recipe quite a bit. Until we were saying "Yummmmmmm" when we ate it.

This recipe is "it."

The pizza part of this hummus is really fun for us. You see--my oldest has a life-threatening allergy to dairy (and he avoids gluten) so he'd never had store-bought pizza (I developed this recipe before gluten-free pizza was readily available anywhere).

And making pizza can be a little bit of a daunting task for this busy mom.

But a dairy-free pizza dip?  That is something this busy mom can pull off!

I changed the recipe quite a bit, and we LOVE the final result.

In fact, when I first made it, I made it twice in one week.

And the second batch disappeared as fast as the first.

In fact, it is sooo good that my oldest son said that I don't even need to make his requested pizza for his birthday-- I could just make this instead.  (He was sort of joking, of course :-).)

The next time your family is craving pizza, and asking for takeout, save yourself some dough, grab yourself some garbanzo beans, and try this dip out.

OK so maybe I'm being a little too optimistic that this will satisfy your pizza cravings, but...you never know!

Is it allergy-friendly?

One thing that is special about this hummus and the other hummus recipes on my blog that they are tahini and sesame-free.  You could use tahini in place of the oil in either recipe, but I think that hummus without tahini is refreshingly light and we've heard the same from others who have tried these as well.  (My son also is deathly allergic to sesame, which is why I started making hummus without it.)

And of course, as I mentioned above, despite the name "pizza", this hummus is dairy-free as well. This dip gets its cheesy flavor from nutritional yeast, something that we quickly learned about after we discovered that our oldest had a life-threatening allergy to dairy.

Nutritional Yeast is a dairy-free yeast that isn't live (i.e. you can't make bread with it) and it is chock full of B vitamins naturally.

I'd love to hear what you think about this dip!

What to serve this with

This hummus is great as a dip, on top of rice, or inside a wrap.

You could try my Buckwheat Wraps or serve with my Focaccia Flax Bread.

Or...by the spoonful!

You can even eat hummus as a side dish--I personally think that hummus alongside egg tastes amazing paired with some veggies on the side. Egg dipped in some creamy hummus with some crunchy veggies. Yum--you gotta try it.

If you like dips too, you really need to try out some of our family's favorite healthy dips.

Other healthy dip / spread recipes

Savory Hummus (a great twist on a traditional favorite)
Zesty Bean Dip (everyone asks for the recipe whenever we share this)
Avocado Dressing / Dip (another one that always gets rave reviews)
Olive Hummus
Almond Butter Fruit Dip
Vegan Ranch Dressing / Dip
Healthy Chocolate Fruit Dip

and believe it or not, there are more to come. Dips. Yum. Can't stop thinking about more fun dips to make. It really is kind of an obsession sometimes.

Recipe notes

• Nutritional Yeast Information: Nutritional yeast adds a super punch of protein and B-vitamins and iron, and if you get a supplemented version like this one, it also supplies B12, something that vegans typically lack in their diets. However, if you have MTHFR, you might wish to avoid this. As such, we purchase and use a non fortified version like this one.
  Nutritional yeast does not feed candida. And if you are up on the controversy about free glutamates and excitotoxins, I have done some research into that and I decided that I am just fine including nutritional yeast in our diet. I hope to share more about this in the near future.
• Red Pepper Spice Factor: My family thinks 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper is a little too much, but for some reason, I've taken a liking to spicy food recently and I think it's great as is. And still, my sons have literally gobbled this up--spicy or not.
• Other Bean Options: I haven't tried this yet, but I think you could make this with any bean, but white ones, like navy, would adapt the best.
• Cheese Option: I haven't tried this yet either, but if you like, you could use a regular dairy cheese (like some parmesan or mozzarella, or a mix of both) and I think it would taste great.
• De-Gassing Your Hummus: Please de gas the garbanzo beans - read How to De-Gas Beans.
• Garlic Peeling Tip: For tips on peeling garlic, see The Easiest Way to Peel Garlic.

How do you like to eat your hummus?