Get ready for one of our favorite recipes of all time–homemade sesame-free hummus. This homemade hummus is not just your ordinary hummus, mind you. It’s savory hummus, with a flavor-punch of spices that will make keep you coming back for more. And more.
I am always on the hunt for quick, easy, frugal, healthy (and tasty) meals and snack ideas.
Well, this recipe for Savory Sesame-free Hummus really fits the bill.
This recipe is our version based on one that we found in a Cooking Light magazine years ago. And I mean years.
My path to health started (though now I know that it was not in a good direction) back in my teenage days when my grandfather passed away from a sudden heart attack while driving. He had already had heart surgery (a triple bypass) in previous years and his mother had died from atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).
I thought that low fat and especially low animal protein must be the way to go and so I did. Hard core. Armed with a subscription of Cooking Light magazine I was off and running to the healthy kitchen races.
Not to say that Cooking Light is all bad, mind you, but my mindset combined with their focus, especially at that time, was a recipe (pun intended) for disaster in terms of my health.
This recipe is a winner, however. I recently brought it to a Christmas party for our small group at church and it was a hit with all — health foodies and non health foodies alike. So — now I am sharing it with you!
Why Sesame-free Hummus?
Our family loves hummus. Whenever we get to visit Whole Foods and there is a hummus sample, ours is the family that can’t keep away from it. Yours too?
Now you have no reason to spend $5.99 for some small environment spoiling plastic container of hummus that you need to ration for your family.
Anyhow, my oldest has multiple life threatening food allergies. At first we knew that he was allergic to dairy, egg, and peanuts, but later in life we found that he had allergies to most nuts and sesame.
Since we have such an uncontrollable love for hummus, not only was I not paying those super-exorbitant prices for store bought hummus, but I wanted a way for my son to be able share in our hummus love.
So sesame-free hummus it just had to be.
You can make this recipe either with tahini or olive oil. I call this a Sesame-Free Hummus since that is the original recipe. But if you can eat sesame, you can use tahini. So for those allergic to sesame seeds, or if you just don’t have tahini in your pantry, you have a sesame-free option!
You can save money by employing this recipe in your kitchen. And even if you are not buying organic beans and aren’t de-gassing beans yet, you are making a great step in the right direction.
We are all on the path towards whole foods together and getting there at different times and at different speeds. It is all good.
More On this Sesame-Free Hummus
- Make extra batches! Hummus may be frozen for a future quick and easy meal. The smooth texture can be restored by adding and stirring in some extra olive oil before serving. We always at least double this recipe and eat it over several days, especially when there is a potluck or other gathering where we will be sharing a dish to pass. One cup of dried beans equals approximately 3 cups of cooked, so you can judge how many cups of beans to start with.
- Keep extra soaked and cooked beans stored in your freezer so that you can whip this up at a moment’s notice without needing to depend upon canned beans.
Recipe Notes
- For those on the Trim Healthy Mama Plan, this can be an E food. Just reduce the oil to 1 tsp and add in extra water or liquid from the garbanzos to desired consistency.
- It is preferable for the garbanzo beans to be organic and cooked with organic ajwain (you can read my post on it here) to aid w/ digestibility. Add 3/4 tsp ajwain per 2 cups dried beans – see my post on How to De-Gas Beans.
- For tips on peeling garlic, see The Easiest Way to Peel Garlic.
- You may substitute tahini for the olive oil. My eldest has a life-threatening allergy to sesame seeds, so we don’t use tahini in our hummus and personally I like the lighter flavor of this hummus. But if you really are partial to the sesame flavor, be my guest :).
- If you would prefer to buy your lemon juice, here is a great brand of organic lemon juice.
- Aleppo pepper is wonderful, but hard to find. Any red pepper will work.
Savory Sesame-Free Hummus
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups garbanzo beans (soaked, cooked, and drained)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 10 Tbsp water
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- 4 Tbsp lemon juice (fresh squeezed, if possible)
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp coriander
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Put all ingredients in a heavy duty blender (aka Vitamix) and/ or food processor.
- Blend until of desired consistency. A typical food processor will need approximately 4 minutes to get it really smooth. My Viking Processor takes about 1-2 minutes. Oh, do I love my food processor.
- Serve with chips, vegetables, Focaccia Flax Bread, or even "Gotta Have the Recipe" Seasoned Popcorn. Use your imagination!
ENJOY!
Looking for other time saving tips for the kitchen? Check out my posts on
– Baking in Bulk
– 8 Time Saving Kitchen Tips
– Reducing Pressure with a Pressure Cooker
And for more great bean dishes, try:
– Fast and Yummy Bean Dip (everyone always wants the recipe for this one)
– Indian Lentils (ready in as little as 9 minutes!)
– Silky Smooth Bean Fudge (it’s great!)
Do you love hummus?
Any substitutions for the garlic, cumin and red pepper flakes? I have a “nice” (yes…sarcasm.LOL) list of food sensitivities to deal with.
I stumbled across your blog thru a recipe and I am glad I am here! I read your info on the essential oils…THANK YOU! I was about to sink some $$$ into one that is not the best one. I am looking forward to exploring all your great info! We are slowly going organic and getting rid of the chemicals as well.
I’m sorry about your food sensitivities. I would try onion instead of the garlic. You could leave out the red pepper. And do either coriander or caraway for the cumin. I would do the coriander, personally. Hope that helps!
There is an awesome spice called Asafoetida that sort of imitates onions/garlic when cooked (and used sparingly). Also, chives are a different plant and are usually safe even when someone can’t have garlic/onions. I buy chives in bulk myself lol. Ground coriander has a nice earthy flavor as well, could use that in place of cumin. Cayenne or paprika in place of the red pepper flakes. I like nutritional yeast as well, gives stuff sort of a nutty/cheesy flavor and is not the same as yeast. Hope any of that helped!
Just had a huge brain fart on the coriander! I think I just meant to recommend nutritional yeast lol
Sorry what did you mean by that? You had both in there. Thanks!
I have heard about and used asfoetida. It’s very interesting!
This was tasty
Glad you liked it – it’s one of our faves!
I’ve been making a simple hummus recipe for years, but tried this one as we were tired of our recipe. It’s full of flavor and delicious! Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it! We love this.
We made this last weekend and it was delicious! However, we found that each of the flavors were a little overbearing (and we usually need to add more spices to our recipes!). It was super garlicy, really salty and had a really strong cumin flavor. We used 2 cans of chickpeas to start, ended up adding 2 more after taste-testing while making it and the flavors were still overpowering. Wondering if we converted the amount of chickpeas incorrectly?? Love all of the flavors (sorry about my garlic breath!) and the texture was perfect, will definitely make again but will play with the spice measurements next time.
Hmmmm…. I don’t know – each can would be about 1 3/4 cups. Have you tried the pizza hummus? I’d love to hear what you think!
Haven’t tried the pizza hummus yet, but made this recipe again and halved the garlic, cumin and red pepper (didn’t have any coriander so had to leave that out). Also decreased the salt to 1/2 tsp–it turned out great! Thanks for a great recipe!!
Yea!!!! I hope you like the pizza one too – did you see there’s an olive hummus here too. It’s hummus mania :). https://wholenewmom.com/recipes/spicy-olive-hummus-recipe/
God this is so good!!!
did you make it?
Hello Adrienne, I thought you may be interested in this hummus also: Spinach Artichoke Hummus from Queen of Quinoa.
Some added nutrition to the hummus.. (plus I always enjoyed Spinach Artichoke dip) going to add my home grown sprouts to it also.
The crackers look good to.
It was neat to see Kim Wilson from Simply Natural Health had a link to your site about your Healthy Hair Rinse. Two sites I visit often is hers and yours so that was cool.
Blessings!
Denise
Unbelievably easy and yummy…….I always make chickpea curry from dry beans, and had allthe ingredients at hand. It is creamy without Tahini and just perfect. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!
GREAT!
My family and I are on a hummus kick lately, so I tried this. It was great for something just slightly different than traditional hummus! I used one can of beans and cut the recipe accordingly. Since one can of beans is approximately 1 3/4 to 2 cups of beans, it works perfectly to halve the the savory hummus recipe. Delicious!
Blending the tahini with warm water makes the hummus creamy, like they serve in restaurants.
Definitely good to have a tahini-free hummus recipe for those with allergies. However, for those who don’t, please do consider including the tahini in your hummus because the combination forms a complete protein and tahini has a nice dose of zinc. My autistic son is a very picky eater with a zinc deficiency, but he likes hummus and it is sometimes the only source of protein we can get into his meals; I even use it as a substitute for cheese sauce on pasta now that he is dairy-free. 🙂