My Homemade Hummus Recipe

TL;DR? jump to recipe

Growing up in Israel, I learned to appreciate great Hummus. No, not that Hummus as a side or as a dip, Hummus as the main dish, the hero of your lunch or dinner!

I’m talking about the Hummus that people stand in line for, like Abu Hassan (aka Ali Karavan) in the old city of Jaffa, and many others in other parts of the country like Acre and Haifa.

Since 2005, when I moved to the US, I kept looking for the perfect Hummus dish, and with the exception of a few rare places that are not in my area or even state, I found nothing.

So, after a couple of years I started the journey of searching for a recipe, and mastering the art of making the perfect plate of Hummus.

I have tried so many recipes, so many ideas, and so many ingredients, and only after about 7 years, I found my “hero” recipe.

Here is what I learned:

• The most important ingredient for the taste is the Tahini.
• The 2nd most important ingredient is using fresh lemon juice, and a lot of it! 🍋🍋🍋🍋
• The beans should be good and thick, but I found that beans from a can are the fastest and most consistent way to get from craving Hummus to eating it. Yet if you want to cook your own, I give some tips on how to do it, later on, just remember that this requires about 24-48 hours of prep time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in love with the Abu-Hassan hummus and especially Messabacha dish. I don’t claim to be close to putting his throne at risk, but what I achieved here allows me to have a hummus lunch or dinner a few times a week at home without feeling sad! (Let’s face it, I eat hummus every day, just like the stereotypical Israeli guy!)

So here it is, I give you my Israeli-style Hummus Recipe, the one that is as close as I could get to my beloved Hummus back in Israel.

Raz’s Hummus Recipe

Prep time: ~60 minutes

Serving Size: ~2.5 Lbs

Ingredients

• ~2lb (~950g / 3-4 cups) of cooked beans (see my recipe) or for a “lazy”/ fast prep, use 2 x Cans of SAHADI Chickpeas (buy)
  

• 1 x Cup Al Wadi Tahina Paste (buy)
  

• ½ x Cup Extra light Olive Oil (buy)
  

• ~1 x Cup ice cubes (or 3/4 cup of extra cold water)
• Salt (~1 teaspoon)
• Cumin (pinch)
• 3-4 x Garlic Cloves
• 3-4 x Lemons
• Baking Soda

Garlic-infused Lemon Juice

Question: how much lemon juice should you use? This is a great question and one that depends on personal taste. I like my Hummus on the sour side, so I use about ~3/4 cup of lemon juice, but you may tone it down if this is too much for you. You can play with the ratio of lemon to water as well. For a start, maybe start with 1 lemon and add more lemons in future batches until you rich the flavor you like, or add it as you go and taste after you mix some more.

While the beans are cooking and/or cooling, prepare the lemon juice with garlic as follows:

• Squeeze the juice of 1-4 fresh lemons (about 1/2 – 3/4 of a cup if you want to get it to my liking)
• 4-5 peeled garlic cloves
• Place the fresh lemon juice and the garlic cloves into a mini food processor with a splash of freshwater (~ 1/8th of a cup or more if you prefer a less sour result)
• Smash it all together in the mini food processor
• Through a fine-mesh strainer, push the mix into a container, and use a spoon to smash the garlic through the fine strainer into a smooth lemon liquid.

This method will keep the rich flavor of the garlic but avoid any chunks of it in the hummus.

Making the Hummus

Once the beans and lemon juice are ready, we can move on to the final step.

• Rinse the beans one last time, getting rid of any leftover floating shells. Drain the beans to get rid of as much of the water. It is ok to have some shells left. We got rid of most of them by now.
• For the mixing phase, use a food processor with a lower metal blade, like this one

• Fill the food processor’s container with:
  • The beans (you may keep a small amount for decoration if you want)
    • 💡Tip: when using store-bought beans from a can, I suggest giving a rinse in fresh water, then do a quick cook for 15 minutes, and rinsing them again, to bring them back to life, and avoid the canned beans aftertaste.
  • 1 cup raw tahini (stir well first)
    • 💡Tip: Do not remove or discard the inner film covering your tahini jar; Instead, punch a cross-shaped hole with the tip of a sharp knife, in the center of the film, and squeeze the Tahini through it. Cover with plastic wrap, and close the lid tightly. Store in your pantry upside-down to ensure the tahini is not drying up at the bottom of your jar.
  • ½ – 1 tbsp salt (to taste)
  • pinch of cumin
  • The Garlic+lemon juice
• Start the food processor. Watch the texture of the hummus as it is being processed. Once the mixture is combined, slowly add the ice cubes (1 cup worth, or ice-cold water) to achieve the desired consistency. A good Israeli-style hummus is silky smooth yet firm enough so that when the blade is taken out, the hummus stands still in the container (see photo below). Stop and taste. You can add more of the spices as you see fit.
• Once the mixture and ice are integrated, slowly pure in ½ cup of (extra light) olive oil, if you don’t have a slow-drip in your food processor, just slowing pure it in manually.
• Let it run for at least 10 minutes for an extra smooth result.
• Once you are happy with the taste, keep running for 2-3 minutes just for extra measure… 🤓
• Stop the food processor and check the consistency of the Hummus. If you have brought it to the right level, once the blade is removed, the Hummus should stand still, as shown in this photo.

Move the Hummus to a container and refrigerate.

💡Tip: to avoid “crust” building up on top, cover the Hummus with plastic wrap, pushing it close to the surface, and then close the lid, then place in the fridge. You can discard it on first use once the Hummus is already chilled.

💡Serving Tips

Serve the Hummus with paprika, roasted pine nuts, good (not light) EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), and some parsley.

Typically served together with Tahini on top (recipe here). Usually, you eat with your hands using a fresh pita (these are my wife’s pita), or simply with a fork, yes a fork.

Brave people will eat it with a strong and spicy Yemeni dip called S’CHUG (here is a recipe I found online)

A lite option can be eating it with Moon Pops.

Should I use beans from a can?

Many people will only use dry garbanzo beans and go through the process of soaking and cooking for hours. Personally, after years of trying I have finally locked in on a winning cooking recipe that gave me the expected consistency, so these days I rarely use canned beans, but I will use canned beans when I need to make large amounts, host a big group of friends for dinner, or need a quick way to make Hummus in less than 1 hr, start to finish. Canned beans give me great results and save me 1-2 hours of cooking and 24-48 hours of prep (soaking, swapping freshwater, etc.), so I use canned beans once in a while! Go ahead and kill me, if you think I’m crazy.

But no doubt, the self-cooked beans do elevate the taste and remove some of the bitterness and aftertaste that you get from canned beans.

The cooking method I suggested above, was inspired by many recipes I read and tried over the years, including one by my good friend and Hebrew/Israeli food blogger, Yuval Shchory, . is the best method I found to get the consistent results I was looking for, so if nothing else, at least follow these steps until you feel comfortable to make it your own.