TL;DR? jump to recipe

I wasn’t always making Hummus at home. Growing up in Israel, I learned to appreciate great Hummus. No, not that HaaS/HaaD (“Hummus-as-a-side”/ Hummus-as-a-dip), but rather Hummus as the hero, the main dish, the start, middle, and end to my whole meal!

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

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

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, at home.

I’ve tried countless recipes, ideas, and ingredients, and it wasn’t until about 7 years later that I found my “hero” recipe.

Here is what I learned:

• The most important ingredient is actually the Tahini, which affects the flavor.
• The 2nd most important ingredient is using fresh lemon juice, and a lot of it! 🍋🍋🍋🍋
• The beans are only 3rd. They should be of good quality 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 beans, you can follow my recipe and start from dry beans. Just remember that this requires about 24-48 hours of prep time, between soaking, cooking, and cooling.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still in love with the Abu-Hassan hummus and especially their Messabacha dish. My recipe doesn’t claim to be even close to putting his throne at risk, but what I achieved here allows me to have a tasety 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 man I am!)

So here it is, I give you my Step-by-step guide to make an Israeli-style Hummus, a one that is as close as I could get to my beloved Hummus from 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 cooked beans (I really like the SAHADI Chickpeas (buy), but almost any can of cooked beans should work)
  

• 1 x Cup raw Tahini (I love the Al Wadi Tahina (buy), but others swear by Har Bracha, Al Arz, or HaYona.
  

• 1/4-3/4 x Cup Garlic-infused Fresh Lemon Juice (or regular fresh Lemon Juice)
• ½ x Cup Olive Oil
• ~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

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. Depending on the beans prep method, you probably 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-infused lemon juice
    • 💡Tip: 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 soury side, so I use about ~3/4 cup, but you may tone it down or up to your liking. You can play with the ratio of lemon to water as well. For a start, maybe start with 1/4 cup and add more juice in future batches until you reach the flavor you like, or add it as you go and taste after you mix some more.
    • 💡Tip: Emulsifying lemon and Tahini causes the mixture to hurden. This is why I add the lemon before I add water, to let the hummus texture begin to form, and only then, I add the ice/water to let it smooth out a bit.
• Start the food processor. Watch the texture of the hummus as it is being processed. Once the mixture is combined, and the tahini and lemon have emulsified, 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 drizzle the ½ cup of olive oil, if you don’t have a slow-drip in your food processor, just slowing drizzle 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, and flavor. 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, before placing in the fridge. You can discard the plastic 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). Also, it is usually being eaten with your hands using a fresh pita (these are my wife’s pitas that she sell on her website), or simply with a fork, yes a fork. Good Humms can stay on 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 for many years I was only using canned beans, and I was happy. Frankly, I still 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, when I don’t have any frozen beans from a previous cook. 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. My recipe shared here 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.

Do share if you learned something new, or found some inconsistencies in my instructions. This recipe is a living document since my method evolves all the time. I’m trying to make this recipe reflect my “current” way of making my Hummus.

Note: this recpie is based on a recipe by the owner of a famous Israeli Shawarma place called “Shawarma Ha-Kosem”, or in pure English: “The Magician’s Shawarma”. link.

My Shawarma recipe is the result of a long search for a good Shawarma that matches what I remember back home in Israel.

Growing up in Ramat Gan, Israel, I had access to one of the most famous Shawarma places in the country, which is still there to this day, called “Shawarma Shemesh” (“The Suns’ Shawarma”).

Shemesh (i.e. Sun) is a somewhat common last name in Hebrew, for Iraqi immigrants, which many of them ended up clustering in the city of Ramat Gan. The place is named after the last name of the owner, to the best of my knowledge.

People would stand in line to get a serving of this amazing Shawarma staffed into a fresh pita with very few simple additions: some fresh diced tomatoes and cucumbers, tahini sauce, a bit of amba sauce (a strong flavored yellow condiment made of pickled mango), some hot peppers spicing paste (SCHUG), and maybe some french fries. But the hero is the meat.

In more recent years, the very hungry people could get their serving wrapped inside a 10″ flat pita, known as an Iraqi pita, instead of inside a pita’s pocket. This is called a LAFFA (Arabic for roll), and it will typically look like this:

But no matter how you consume your Shawarma, once you had your first one you can’t go back. No offense to the greek Gyro (and I’m not even talking about the American version that is basically a huge pile of processed meat, like a rotating hotdog), a good old Shawarma taste fresh, you can feel the meat, you can see the meat, and the flavors are to die for.

Usually, it is made of layers of female turkey thighs, which are hard to find in the US, but my version is using chicken thighs, and gets the same result, if not even slightly better if I can say so myself.

In my personal opinion, the flavor is controlled by two main factors: the dry rub spices mix you use, and the quality plus amount of the lamb fat that is running throughout the meat.

If you nailed these two, any decent meat will work. You can find great Shawarma made of Turkey, Chicken, Lamb, or a mix of these. But my favorite has to be the Turkey and Chicken ones. They are the juiciest, and they observe and retain the flavors of the dry-rub and the fat, in the best way.

My Shawarma Recipe

Ingredients:

For the dry-rub (enough for more than a single serve):

• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons turmeric
• 2.5 tablespoons hawaij
• 1.5 tablespoons Baharat
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 0.5 tablespoon ground coriander
• 0.5 tablespoon ground cardamom
• 0.5 tablespoon crushed red hot chili peppers
• 1.5  tablespoon ground cumin

For the meat skewer:

• 5-6lb Chicken thighs (deboned, no skin, fat trimmed). Tip: Costco’s thighs are perfect. 2-3 of their 6 pouch pack is a perfect size.
• ~1lb ground lamb fat
• ~5oz sliced ​​lamb fat
• 6 tablespoons Amaba spread
• Optional: 1/2 cup pinenuts
• Optional: small onion
• Optional: small tomato

Directions:

• Mix all spices of the dry-rub well (this will last for more than a single making, so keep the leftovers for future use).
• Clean the meat from any large patches of fat or non-meat artifacts like ligaments etc.
• Butterfly or split the thighs into flat ½” fillets
• Rub the meat with the spices mix and let it sit for at least 10-15 minutes (overnight in the fridge is optional, but really not needed)
• Depending on the method you choose to build the skewer (see alternative options at the end), place 2-3 layers of the meat, followed by about ¼” of ground lamb fat (see picture below)
• Spread a bit of Amba on the fat (I also like to add some pinenuts at this point)
• Repeat until you are done with all the meat, or out of skewer space, whichever comes first 😅
• Make sure to leave enough space at the top for your machine to handle the skewer.

• Top with a few layers of sliced lamb fat

• Optional: wrap the whole skewer in a plastic food wrap and roll to tighten the shape.
• Optional: Leave the skewer in the fridge over-night, to let the dry-rub sink dipper into the meat, or if you simply want to prepare the skewer the night before the big day. 
• Optional: put a small onion and tomato on top, just before starting the cooking process.

Gameday: Making the Shawaram

Cooking time is different depending on the method you use, but anywhere between 40-60 minutes is the time it would take to have the outer layers ready to be eaten.

Although the outer layer is more cooked than the inner layers, after the first 45-60 minutes, most of the meat is already cooked, and the only difference is the amount of crispiness you’ll get by letting fresh layers of unshaved meat rotate a bit more against the fire/heat source.

As for temperature, I don’t have a good number for you, just start high and monitor to not burn your meat.

On an electric or propane rotisserie, it takes about 45-60 minutes, and the heat is almost fixed. If you can adjust the heat, you can lower it after the 45 minutes mark.

As soon as the meat starts to look ready, start shaving it using either a very very sharp large knife, or the better option is one of these electric carving knifes you can buy on Amazon for less than $20.

Serve the shaved meat in a pita with some hummus spreaded, diced tomatoes and cucumbers, some drizzled tahini sauce, and french fries, and you are all good to go.

Want a more gluten-free option? skip the pita, plate on a bed of rice or in a plate of Hummus, drizzle some Tahini on top, and you are set.

Getting serious: invest in a shawarma machine

Although I will list below few alternatives for making your shawarma without a dedicated machine, the best option is to use a machine. Here are a couple of options you can use on a tight budget.

You can find both electric rotisserie machines and propane-based machines on Amazon at prices ranging between $85 – $250. Do your research carefully to make sure the seller is trustworthy. These reviews are important!!!

In any case, make sure to use or buy an electric knife to carve your meat, because it has to be a very sharp knife to handle this meat and most people don’t have these special knives at home, and also you don’t want to keep sharpening your knife as you carve your meat.

The two machines that I have tried (but are not always available in stock on Amazon) are below.

Electric Shawarma machine

Note: I didn’t use this exact one, but the one I used is discontinued, so this is the closest version I found.

link to Amazon

Propane shawarma machine

Link to Amazon

Alternative methods if you don’t have a Shawarma machine

Not all of us are so serious about Shawarma that we are ready to buy a machine. Don’t worry, there are options for you as well. Here are a couple of methods that are known to give decent results.

Best alternative: in the oven in a loaf pan

Layer the meat in a baking pan.

Preheat your oven to 355ºF and cook for about 60-90 minutes.

Almost as good: on a wooden skewer

Cut a large onion in half. Place one half on your baking sheet, and push a wooden skewer into it.

Layer your meat on it and top with the 2nd half of the onion

Wrap it all in baking paper and then foil.

Preheat your oven to 355ºF and cook for about 60-90 minutes.

Pill off the foil and baking paper and put back in the oven for another 15-30 minutes for the final roast.