Homemade Hummus WITHOUT Tahini

Back in February, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend came to visit. For one reason or another, we wanted hummus and thought it might be nice to just make it ourselves. So I found a recipe (this one from Inspired Taste, actually) and took a look at the ingredients. Apparently, tahini is an incredibly common ingredient for hummus…which I didn’t know. I’ve made hummus once (remember the carrot and white bean hummus I made last year?) and it didn’t have tahini, so this surprised me. In case you don’t know, tahini is a paste made from sesame seeds. It’s also costs more than I was (and am) willing to pay. Which is something the store clerk overheard me say in my exasperation. Probably because he was 2-feet away and I didn’t notice. 😛 His response was, “You know what’s worse? This is our cheapest one. The others are twice that.” HA! No freaking way, dude. Not happening. I’ll just buy some.

But over the next few weeks, I wondered what role tahini really played in hummus. Is it for texture or for taste? I had to find out!

So I made two different kinds of hummus–both without tahini in them. What I discovered? Tahini adds some taste, but not a lot. Mostly it’s for the texture. So for those of you who don’t want–or can’t eat–tahini, here is my recipe.

Homemade Hummus without Tahini

• 1/2 of a small bag of garbanzo beans (chickpeas), boiled according to packaged directions
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of peanut butter OR 2 ripe avocados***
• 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
• pepper, to taste
• paprika, for serving

Step 01: Once you’ve boiled the garbanzo beans (you should have 2 cups of cooked beans), add them to a food processor with everything except the paprika. Pulse until everything is well-blended and smooth. If it seems too thick, add a little water. Serve with paprika sprinkled on top.

***I did this twice, once with peanut butter and once with avocado. The peanut butter will give it a VERY subtle peanut butter taste. But it’s pretty nice! The avocado won’t add much to taste, but will turn your hummus a grey-ish green color. The avocado was my favorite.

This is pretty easy (assuming you can get your food processor to blend it–mine isn’t quite powerful enough)! And so delicious.

I don’t remember exactly how much hummus this made, but it was a lot. More than we were able to eat before the expiration (which is about 1-2 weeks, by the way. Go with 2 for peanut butter, 1 with avocado).

Have you ever replaced an expensive or undesirable recipe ingredient? Let me know how it was in the comments!

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