Authentic hummus recipe

Authentic hummus recipe can be made in a jiffy if you have cooked garbanzo beans on hand; increase your vegetable protein with this lovely side-dish.

Below I use a glass mixing dish so you can see what is happening, but it means one extra bowl to wash; it now all gets done in a one litre yoghurt container.

Don't make too much unless you plan to enjoy it daily as we do on a green salad; it does not keep more than about three days.

This page was last updated by Dr Bernard Preston on 9th March, 2021.

Four minutes is all it takes to make this wonderful dip if you have the chickpeas already prepared at your right hand. People do not believe me, so today I am being cheeky. I have put my bedside-clock next to the makings.

Let's see just how long it takes to make this authentic hummus recipe.

Whilst making this side dish is very quick, it is a long page. I will outline why every family should have chickpeas daily on the menu, and making hummus yourself is the way to go; after all, with practice, it takes only four-minutes, twice a week. 

Lower down you will find lots of important stuff on phytosterols and amino acids; grab a nice long tea and take your time. It is important; at least I think so. So much so that I make a large tub of hummus at least twice a week.

It's the difference between taking statins every day, and having normal cholesterol without medication; have I now got your attention?

Best of all, a tablespoon of hummus will turn a dull green salad into a feast; just add some olive oil and lemon or lime juice, and a wedge of feta-cheese, and it's a meal fit for a king.

If you only enjoy a teaspoon now and again, don't bother with this authentic hummus recipe; it does not keep. Very occasionally we do not eat it in time, and it would go off, so  I pitch it into our artisan bread dough to lower the glycemic index instead. 

Use fresh herbs and spices whenever possible; purchase small amounts and finish them quickly. Freezing in an airtight container helps.

The authentic original ingredients

Do not bother with the oft recommended shake of paprika to spice it up a bit; it is powdered chili and like the other spices in bottles in probably ancient and totally oxidised. Just toss in a bit of fresh jalapeno or peppadew. 

Do not buy canned chickpeas for your nutritious authentic hummus recipe is my best advice. Scout around the Jewish quarter, or the Indian shops; this packet, also known as garbanzo beans, I bought at a Turkish supermarket in Zuid Rotterdam. Chinatown, too, I would presume would stock them. It is the world's favourite legume; literally.

What are legumes, you may be thinking. The canned versus dried chickpeas debate should be considered.

Really, it is simple to make our easy hummus recipe. Only the tahini might give you some difficulty. Get it from a Greek or Turkish shop, or make it yourself if you can buy sesame seeds; a big packet. They too are dirt cheap and very nutritious.

So, here is my best hummus recipe.

Turn off the soaps and make a little extra time for cooking chickpeas and, since you will probably have some over, freeze the excess in small packets.

Growing chickpeas I do not recommend; I have tried it and it is hugely labour intensive; it is best left to commercial agriculture.

Authentic hummus recipe

Authentic hummus recipe can be made in only four minutes; if you are organised and have all the ingredients at hand. Dinkum, I do it twice a week. It does not keep since it has no stabilizers or preservatives; whatever is left over after three days goes into the dough to turn it into low GI bread.

• What is stabilizer in food?
  

I will confess up front. Five minutes plus 9 hours to prepare the garbanzo beans, or chickpeas, if that's what you call them. Or you can cheat if you do not mind paying four times as much and buy them in a can.

Cooking chickpeas, and then freezing them in small packets is fundamental to making hummus, if you plan to do it regularly. It is not arduous if you have a pressure-cooker.

How to make tahini

How to make tahini is only important if you cannot purchase it from the local Greek or Turkish supermarket; I have been trying for years and still have to admit that centuries of practice at toasting and grinding the seeds beats us hands down. But you absolutely do need it for your authentic hummus recipe, especially if you are a vegetarian.

Chickpeas and sesame seeds together contain all the essential amino-acids; that's something the carnivores amongst us do not have to worry about.

• Sesame oil benefits ...
• "Sesame tahini," what's that? Copy and paste into the Site Search function in the navigation bar.
  

Use your imagination when making your own authentic hummus recipe; I always add a sweet fruit now, like mango, peach or papaya.

A stick of celery, a couple of radish, half an avocado, a chunk of eggplant cooked for five minutes in the microwave and scraped out of the skin, paprika; this is the best hummus recipe, and so versatile!

What we are indulging is in your favourite salads to make a superb hummus recipe.

Step 1: Pressure-cook and freeze a couple pounds of chickpeas.

Step 2: Make HUMMUS

Note the Time: 11.48

I have slipped home from a four-hour session at the DC's coalface, and I am starving. How long will it take to throw some hummus together for my sandwich?

Rinse the cooked beans, drain, and pour into a mixing-bowl.

Authentic hummus recipe 

Time: 11.49

Wash and roughly chop your vegetables and the lemon. You're going to use the blender, so there is no need to be precise; remember the red chili. Squish in the parsley; Jack be quick.

What are "parsley benefits?" Look for it by typing in the Site Search function in the navigation bar above.

Authentic hummus recipe

Time: 11.50

Add the olive oil, tahini and yoghurt; just slosh them in, perhaps two to three tablespoons each. The amount really isn't critical. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper, and a little fresh cumin.

Authentic hummus recipe Time: 11.51

Get out your blender, and squish it all up. Oops, forgot the garlic today. "Stom" the Dutch would say. How could you possibly forget the "knoflook?"

Wow, Time: 11.52

"Klaar" we would say in Dutch. Finished.

11.48 to 11.52 = 4 minutes. Plus 9 hours to soak and cook the chickpeas.

9.04 hours and I am ready to make a hummus sandwich. Or 4 minutes if you choose to cheat with canned chickpeas. Either way, this is a great way to get your evil LDL down in your blood cholesterol profile. Better still, it raises the champion HDL that takes nasty fat back to the liver, getting it out of circulation. Don't you want to live to a happy, strong eighty without statins?

In any case, it tastes fantastic. Believe you me, I do this every week. Add a slice or two of paprika, full of anti-oxidants.

It does not keep more than a few days as it has no preservatives. So I make this amount at least twice a week.

After three days the balance goes into our low GI bread recipe.

STEP 3: Make and enjoy a hummus sandwich using your authentic hummus recipe. Enjoy it with a salad; I even add it sometimes to my oats muesli if I don't have time to prepare an egg or other protein for breakfast. 

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Top superfoods for lowering cholesterol

1. One bowl of unrefined oats per day will lower your cholesterol by about 15% but check your blood-glucose if you are diabetic.
   
2. Beans, Lentils and Chickpeas* are a fantastic way to add fibre too.
   
3. Avocado decreases total cholesterol, whilst increasing the HDL fraction.
   
4. Salmon is an excellent source of Omega 3, a type of good fat believed to improve the cholesterol profile.
5. A large green salad with hummus, lemon juice and olive oil should daily be on the table.
   
6. Walnuts are an excellent source of Omega 3 for vegetarians particularly. For seafood lovers our fish soup has even more.

* Many sites advocate soy foods but I'm reluctant since farmers started felling the Amazon rain forests to plant the beans.

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Forgot the garlic 

I do not follow recipes slavishly, with the result that I irritatingly forget an important ingredient occasionally. Today it had a positive result.

Do not get me wrong, I love garlic. It is good stuff; when making a mutton stew for example, I pitch a whole corm in.

But I will confess that I do get some wry looks from patients when I have put a couple of tablespoons of my authentic hummus recipe into my breakfast cereal. It does sustain me through the long day at the coalface but secondhand garlic is not such fun first thing in the morning.

Balance

The fun part of making your authentic hummus recipe is getting the balance right. You will get full nutrition without getting the quantities right but to get your friends and family to enjoy and even start making it, you need to spend a few more minutes tasting it.

Does it need more garlic, or perhaps lemon? Can you taste the cumin? I think I'll add a little more salt. Getting the balance right is an essential step, one I confess I have omitted for many years until challenged by my brother who spent a couple years living in Spain.

Hummus out of balance just won't cut it.

The positive is that I make up my authentic hummus recipe without the garlic. When it's mushed, I remove half for my breakfasts, pop the blanched clove into the remainder and blend it for lunches and dinners.

Next time perhaps I will try one third of a clove for breakfast, the remainder for the authentic garlic recipe. Chop and change, experiment and taste; that is what is fun about cooking. This week I added half a dozen grapes; the family loved it. The cherry guavas were not a success; I nearly broke a tooth on the pips.

Some recipes recommend three cloves of garlic; that is overkill as far as I am concerned. They have never actually made it. Then you cannot taste the parsley benefits, the sesame-tahini or the other more subtle flavours; one is enough.

Calories in hummus

All that olive oil and fatty sesame paste may have you questioning. Is it fattening? How many calories in hummus you may be asking, and what about anti-oxidants, and other foodstuffs like protein? And is it high in carbs that we now know are the main cause of obesity? Actually it is only refined starches that are a problem.

Of course you can change your authentic hummus recipe by adding less olive oil if you choose; that will immediately lower the calories in hummus.

Another consideration is the glycemic response of legumes; with the exception of fava beans, it is very low. That makes them excellent for those trying to lose weight.

Methionine and lysine

Vegetarians have to be very careful to balance their proteins, and over the centuries the typical diet has evolved which contains a grain or seed PLUS a legume for the two essential amino acids methionine and lysine.

The reason is simple. In order to live, survive, and be strong you need both

• methionine (found in seeds and grains) and
• lysine (found in legumes).
  

Both are essential amino acids, and without them you and your children cannot be strong. In fact your bodies and worse minds will be stunted, and you may even die. The disease is called Kwashiorkor; we see it all the time in rural Africa.

Sesame seeds are known for being particularly high in methionine. Chickpeas are rich in lysine. Together these two make the perfect couple, the complete protein. So, if you want to make a low fat hummus (not actually what I recommend) cut back on the olive oil and not the tahini.

Rather reduce your saturated fats like butter, dairy and red meat if you are overweight or your cholesterol is high; those are the problem children. Even more important are the refined starches; it is cookies and cakes that make us obese generally rather than too much olive oil.

Plus it is the added fat that makes our authentic hummus recipe such an ultra-low GI food. Usually it is the refined starches that are the devil when it comes to obesity. White bread, potatoes and sugar top the list.

Pyridoxine

Chickpeas top the list of foods containing pyridoxine, vitamin B6. 1 cup almost contains your recommended daily allowance^[1].

It's complex biochemistry, but the vitamin comes in 6 different forms; all may be required so eating a wide array of foods is important. At least 24% of folk are deficient.

The vitamin is required for at least 100 different processes in the body; a deficiency causes many different diseases, especially in the need to rapidly break down toxic homocysteine produced from protein metabolism.

Getting sufficient vitamin B6 is especially important for diabetics; a deficiency causes the painful neuropathies they suffer from.

Other good sources are beef liver, fatty fish and chicken. Potatoes and bananas also have  relatively large amounts.

Parsley

Vegetarians have to make sure they are getting enough of an amino acid called Methionine. It is often in short supply. Meat lovers have too much of an amino acid called Homocysteine; it is been strongly linked to heavy plaque build up in the blood vessels, heart disease and stroke. Parsley is part of the solution.

Both vegetarians and meat lovers should eat a lot of parsley but for different reasons. It has a very high content of both folate and vitamin B6. They are an important link in the conversion of undesirable homocysteine in the body, to very necessary Methionine. Parsley is not just a garnish, and for centuries the people living on the so-called Mediterranean diet have known it.

Eat that parsley on your plate, or at least get it from your hummus.

It is all in our authentic hummus recipe, except the B12 that you need from eggs.

I strongly believe in enjoying foods that are in season, and better still if I can grow them in my own garden. Chickpeas only do well in a hot and dry summers in a winter rainfall climate; that excludes us, so I've been experimenting with this broad bean hummus, and next it will be fresh green peas.

Growing chickpeas is for the birds in my opinion, unless you want them green; a huge amount of work.

You can rustle up a side dish of TAPENADE to go with your authentic hummus recipe in fifteen minutes, six if you choose (not recommended) to use de-pipped olives.

Just add olive oil, capers and lemon. What could be easier?

What is cumin?

Spices, like all other foods oxidise and lose their value once the outer shell is cracked letting the air in. I was astonished how much nicer our authentic hummus recipe was once we started roasting our own cumin; then I keep it under olive oil but no longer than a couple weeks. The same applies to any chili you might like to add to your cooking; they grow like weeds in the summer, and through mild winters.

• HOW TO GROW CHILLI - you only need one plant!
• Upgrade: Our best hummus recipe is even better since the supermarket ran out of powdered cumin. The Indian lady shared with me how to make my own cumin mix. Dead easy. What is cumin?

Frailty

Vitamin B6 food is vital if we are to avoid frailty^[1] long before our time, and chickpeas are the richest source; it is one of the many reasons why I make this authentic hummus recipe every single week, and have done for the last ten or more years.

Be sure to eat these four vitamins daily if you are to avoid premature onset of frailty syndrome; here are the criteria.

Foods that lower cholesterol

Whilst fats are not nearly as important as raised homocysteine, it is interesting that many of the foods that lower cholesterol also help with this toxic amino acid too. It is all about reducing the inflammation in your blood vessels. After unrefined oats, chickpeas are number two in the lowering of the bad lipoproteins-stakes making your authentic hummus recipe an important addition to your table.

I make it at least twice a week; it takes only four minutes after all.

choice foods

Choice foods are all about reaching a vital and vibrant eighty with all your marbles intact. Chickpeas lower the cholesterol, and the sesame seed paste has the tryptophan and tyrosine to keep your memory and mood intact. The parsley has the B vitamins and magnesium; add an egg for the B12 and you are home and dry. We have this authentic hummus recipe virtually every day on a green salad.

Choice foods means inter alia at least coloured fruits and salads every day; and some of our authentic hummus recipe. Enjoy it daily; it is part of my top 7 functional foods for your health. They prevent disease and promote well-being.

When making any red meat stew such as these bobotie recipes always substitute some of the beef for example with a cup of chickpeas.

Our green bean hummus is a marvellous variation on the theme; truth be told I find it even more delicious than the authentic recipe.

I think most of us would agree that modern food lacks substance and flavour. One thing you can do is to spice it up with hummus, or even this piquant tahini sauce.

Test of time

When you have made a particular dish at least twice a week for over ten years, then you know it has stood the test of time. Such is it with our authentic hummus recipe; it turns a dull salad into a gastronomic delight. It also has a vital place in my cholesterol credit regimen; I can have my butter and eat it. 

Whilst I love a pesto with a salad too, it just has not scored with the test of time as our hummus has; of course, it is different every week. In particular a chunk of sweet fruit like mango really makes it more interesting, and introduces another coloured food; do you aim for ten? You really should if you want to live long in the land, and escape malignant disease and other nasties.

You can make basil pesto in only five minutes too. You get the benefit from wonderful taste, another colour and the anti-inflammatory properties of the herb, and the solid nutrition from pine nuts and Parmesan or Feta cheese; it's so easy, but none of these condiments without chemical preservatives keep. Finish them within three days.

Then, if there is any left, I simply add it to the bread dough; waste not, want not.

Add a cup of Bernie's beetroot soup, also known as borscht, and you have a whole meal.

Hummus for manganese

Those who spend a lot of time out in the midday sun, like gardeners and glider pilots must make sure they get plenty of manganese for the integrity of the skin. The widow maker tells the story of my return to soaring after a long hiatus in the Netherlands.

Those enjoying a vegetable-based diet need have no qualms; oats, spinach and garbanzo beans all would give us adequate levels of this important mineral. Those still eating mainly meat and potatoes certainly need to be concerned; their skin will age faster. That is especially important for long distance athletes and smokers too. 

Hummus for manganese is just one more reason why we should regularly make and enjoy this wonderful food.

Researchers interestingly have found that adding small amounts of cumin plus lime to our diets has a very beneficial effect on weight-loss, with no other changes.

Lignans

Both chickpeas and sesame seeds are particular rich sources of lignans, the phytonutrients that give protection against many chronic degenerative diseases and in particular malignant breast tumours.

What are lignans is a question every woman should have some understanding of.

Useful links

• Foods to avoid high cholesterol ...
• Try making hummus after cooking lima beans.
  

Phytochemical foods

What are phytochemical foods and which dainties are they found in? You guessed it; your authentic hummus recipe is rich in them. Just the flavonoids make them worth the emphasis in the prevention of disease and promotion of wellness.

Sprouting and freezing chickpeas

There is little point in cooking only enough garbanzo beans for just one helping of your authentic hummus recipe. I pressure a kilo; then freezing chickpeas is a cinch and you have a ready supply of my favourite legume.

It is controversial how serious the problem is in my opinion but all grains and legumes do contain anti-nutrients that inhibit the absorption of minerals. The solution is to soak and rinse them several times before cooking; and better still sprouting chickpeas before making your hummus.

Bernard Preston

If you are enjoying this site, then I guarantee you will love my Bernard Preston books. What is more they are dirt cheap; nothing about authentic hummus recipe in them though.

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