Quick hummus

Quick hummus is easy to make; your own chickpea dip without preservatives.

Did you know that hummus is the word for chickpeas in Lebanese?

This page was last updated by Dr Barrie Lewis on 30th August, 2019.

This is not actually how I recommend making your chickpea dip but sometimes you're faced with preparing whole foods the fast way, or not having them at all.

Once you have the ingredients on the table in front of you, preparing this garbanzo bean dish is very simple. Yes, they're the same as chickpeas; very healthy legumes. Quick hummus is the way to do it, when you really don't have much time.

This should take no more than five minutes, once you've done it a few times.

Step 1: Pour the olive oil (20ml) and water (50ml) into a plastic container with a lid. Blend until it's frothy.

Step 2: Add the tahini, cumin, parsley, salt and garlic, half a lemon (pulp and all, but remove any seeds)

Step 3: Optional, but I like to add some chili and a few chunks of sweet fruit like mango or pineapple; you use your favourites. Blend again.

Step 4: Drain and rinse the chickpeas, and tip into the container; blend until it's smooth. Put on the lid and refrigerate.

The amount of water and olive oil varies according to taste; some folk like it oily, and others very sloshy. You may prefer it dry.

And now for the way I like to do it; slow hummus. If you end up making it every week, as I do, then this way is quick too, tastes much better and is far cheaper.

Right now I can smell the better way to make this side dish that will enhance any salad; I've soaked the dried chickpeas overnight, rinsed them several times to remove most of the so called anti-nutrients and, as I type, they are steaming for thirty minutes in the pressure cooker.

A wonderful aroma is filling the house.

But if you do not have a pressure cooker, then buy your garbanzo beans already soaked and prepared in a can, and available for immediate use; at a considerably higher price, though, for your convenience.

One kilogram of dried chickpeas yields 2.3kg of the prepared legume; you check the cost difference in your neck of the woods.

They are four times more expensive in South Africa from a can.

Soaking and rinsing all legumes is important to reduce the effect of phytates which inhibit mineral absorption in the gut.

You will read on the net of folk who will try to convince you of the anti-nutrients in legumes, and why you should be avoiding them.

Research proves that soaking and rinsing removes most of them; you have to decide for yourself whether the benefits of hummus outweigh the effect of these lectins and phytates.

When I donate blood, every time they tell me my iron is very high; and I know my bones are strong so calcium absorption is not a problem. I am not concerned; but that is purely anecdotal.

This is a great way to start making this ancient, healthy food; number two in the cholesterol-lowering stakes, high in vegetable protein and all the essential amino acids if you mix it with tahini for hummus; and the perfect solution to constipation.

So what if the canned chickpeas costs rather more; it will still be a fraction of the price of the hummus in your supermarket and once you're hooked on this staple food you can look to making it more cheaply, like I do using the dried legumes. 

Once you've done it a few times, reckon on about five to ten minutes to make your quick hummus. My authentic hummus recipe I can make in under six; yes, I've checked the clock. But I'm set up with frozen chickpeas and all the ingredients on hand.

My point is that basic cooking doesn't have to be difficult and time consuming. You will need a stick blender.

In fact the word hummus means chickpeas, in Lebanese, I believe.

Quick hummus

Quick hummus starts with scratching around in your herbs and spices cupboard. Do you have any powdered cumin? You probably do, but it might be ancient; it's okay for a start. Later you can do it the proper way. You'll need about half a teaspoon.

If you don't, write it on the grocery list. I always used powdered spice until one day the supermarket ran out; the Indian cashier recommended that I buy the whole seeds. Well, that's now history and I have fresh cumin for my quick hummus; but, to start with, just use whatever you can easily lay your hands on.

The only difficult ingredient to acquire could be the sesame seeds; you must have them. They provide the extra essential amino acids not found in chickpeas; better still, if you have a local Greek or Lebanese shop, buy the sesame paste known as tahini.

There are only two more ingredients that you might not have in your kitchen; a whole lime or lemon and fresh parsley. Whatever you do, don't use the preserved juice; it tastes awful.

Are you ready to roll?

The other ingredients that I assume you'll have in your kitchen are extra virgin olive oil, garlic and perhaps a fresh or dried chili. Every health nut has those in the larder, or am I wrong?

Okay, let's face it squarely. You'll only go through the schlep of cooking these basic whole foods once you're already convinced that the food industry is out to sell you an inferior product at ten times the price.

They extract many of the essential parts and sell them to you in tablet form; then they add preservatives, flavour enhancers and other chemicals and you have the perfect junk food.

Are you still not convinced? Whilst buying all your ingredients, stop at the hummus counter and check out what they've added to preserve it. You'll be shocked.

So cut the crap, and tell me how to make quick hummus in ten minutes, I can hear you saying. That's fair enough. Here are all the ingredients.

1. A small can of cooked chickpeas. Nett mass 410g is about a pound.
   
2. A tablespoon of tahini or two of sesame seeds.
   
3. A handful of parsley.
   
4. Half a lemon or lime; peel and remove the pips but put the pulp in too; that's where half the goodness is. 
5. A teaspoon of sea salt.
   
6. Two or three tablespoons of olive oil.
   
7. A clove of garlic and perhaps a slither of chili.
   
8. A good slosh of water depending on how runny you like it. I add more rather than less.

Foods that lower cholesterol

Foods that lower cholesterol should be daily on the table; oats, apples and quick hummus are right at the top of the list.

For your quick hummus just use a can of chickpeas, but ultimately you will change over to buying dried seeds. A high quality stainless steel pressure cooker saves so many hours and much heat energy; it's a must in my book. I use it several times a week, whether it's for legumes or our basic butternut and sweet potato soup recipe.

Let's say it again; a pressure cooker is a big time saver; only thirty minutes to cook your chickpeas, or an hour and half on the stove? Shall we call them garbanzo beans for a bit?

I've just turned the heat off, and now I need to wait about ten minutes for the pressure to drop; then rinse the garbanzo beans several times and divide them up into small packets and freeze, ready for the next quick hummus day.

By the way your garbanzo beans are number two on the list of super foods that lower cholesterol; rolled oats are the top dog. Eat them both daily if you have a problem; it's much better than the nasty side effects of statins.

Aching legs are a common complaint which is what interests me as a chiropractor; do you have any idea how many patients are complaining of pain and tingling in the undercarriage? Half the time it's not a pinched nerve in the lumbar spine but the side effects of their cholesterol medication. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Drain your canned chickpeas and discard the liquid. It's loaded with preservatives and sugar. Rinse them a couple of times and pour into the mixing bowl.

Add the fresh lemon pulp, parsley, salt, olive oil and water.

Now, you have a little decision to make; do you like your garlic and chili raw or lightly parboiled? I prefer the latter, so I drop the jalapeno and clove into a drop of water and rapidly bring them to the boil; then switch off the heat.

Drop the clove of garlic into the mixing bowl and a bit of the chili, depending on how hot you like it. The heat incidentally is mainly in the white part that holds the seeds, known as the placenta for obvious reasons. There's where the capsaicin is; it's the stuff that is so strongly anti inflammatory in the body, so don't chuck it; but it will have some bite.

I like some fruit in my quick hummus. Today I'm adding a couple slithers of pear, but it could be any fruit that's in season. A few grapes, a quarter of apple or orange, pulp and all. It's all about getting those ten coloured foods into the stomach every day; that's the anti cancer stuff. You don't want a brain tumour, I presume; enjoy your colours.

To start with, simply buy come powdered cumin; here it is on the right. Later, if you get serious about hummus you'll be buying the seeds, roasting and grinding them, and storing them under olive oil, as you see in the bottle on the left. That you might be doing once in six months. It's called Kimyon in the Turkish supermarket.

Limes incidently make a wonderful alternative to lemons; lime nutrition is worth considering.

Now add a large dessert spoon of tahini; if you couldn't find any, just place a couple tablespoons of sesame seeds in a coffee blender and wizz it up. It's quite sticky with healthy essential fatty acids; you'll have to scrape it out.

If you like your hummus runny add rather more water, otherwise just a tablespoon or two.

Some folk very little oil, so then you must use more water.

Use the stick blender for thirty seconds and you're done. Put it into an airtight container and straight into the fridge. It only keeps about three days.

Now and again, if we haven't finished it, then the remainder goes straight into the dough; that's what makes low GI bread. You can see a slice of it below, smothered in the good wife's plum jam.

That bread also takes me only five minutes every day by the way.

Most of our hummus gets eaten with a salad; it's on the fork below.

Further reading

1. Cooking chickpeas.
2. What is cumin?
3. How to make tahini.
4. Parsley benefits.
5. Olive oil benefits.
6. Anti inflammatory chili.
7. Growing lemon trees.

Glycemic Index

Glycemic index is one of the food principles that simply everyone should grasp; it's not rocket science. Knowing which starches have a high GI, and those that are low is vitally important; quick hummus is particularly low.

Is quick hummus fattening? A decidedly big NO. It has one of the lowest glycemic indexes that I know; around five, it's extremely low. It turns very slowly into blood sugar and does little to activate insulin, the fat storage hormone. Calories in hummus are moderate owing to the healthy fat in olive oil and sesame seeds but overall it's certainly not a fattening food.

Vegetable protein

Vegetable protein should surely be on the shopping list every time you visit the supermarket; chickpeas for this quick hummus dish, green beans and lentils for example.

No doubt about it, we eat too much animal protein and, since reading Farmageddon, I'm becoming neurotic; animals that have never seen a blade of grass. Can you imagine what that does to our milk, beef and cheese?

Chickpeas are the protein that most of the vegetarian world lives on, along with lentils and tofu.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm certainly eating more plant protein. World Health Organisation researchers have concluded, after scanning 800 of the prime studies, that red meat is "probably" carcinogenic; and processed meat certainly is.

Quick hummus is my favourite vegetable protein.

• Vegetable high in protein
  

Lignans

Lignans, what are they? There are plenty in your quick hummus.

Both chickpeas and sesame seeds are absolutely loaded with a phytosterol called a lignan. These are prominent in the phytochemical foods list for being anti inflammatory and anti oxidant; in short anti cancer and anti arthritis. So our quick hummus is an excellent source of them.

Just as important, they are high on the list of foods that help prevent breast cancer as they have a chemical structure very similar to the circulating female hormones in the blood, and block the sites on the boob tissue.

Phytates in legumes and wheat bran inhibit the absorption of minerals.

• What are Lignans?
• Are phytates bad?

Really quick hummus?

Really quick hummus is perhaps an exaggeration but the induction stove and pressure cooker are great time savers.

Have you ever heard of an induction stove? She who must be obeyed was very skeptical when I bought a small, inexpensive counter-top model. They use less than half the electricity, and are much faster than even gas. Now I note she uses it all the time!

• Induction cooktop stoves are not expensive.
  

Better still, cook your chickpeas in a pressure cooker, and then freeze them for quick hummus.

Chiropractic Help

Chiropractic Help is a website committed you help you get your health problems under control by natural means. Sounds good but it means taking responsibility for your own health, and that's never easy; lower back exercises, a daily walk and quick hummus would make a good start. 

Why on earth a page on making quick hummus on a chiropractic site? There are several reasons. Firstly we are a wholistic profession interested in much more than your joints. You might be well adjusted with a very healthy spine and nerve supply, but what good is that if you get cancer or drop dead from a heart attack?

Secondly, the strength of your bones is utterly dependent on a healthy blood sugar level. With diabetes osteoporosis on a dramatic rise every physician, medical or otherwise, should have an interest in the foods that stabilise his or her patients' diabetic status.

Hummus is one of those foods that fits neatly into our slow food, made fast philosophy but, because of its strongly anti oxidant properties, commercial hummus has to be laced with preservatives to prevent it from going rancid. The only solution is to make quick hummus yourself. After all, it takes only 5 to 10 minutes once you've got the ingredients.

Enjoy, or eet smakelijk as we would say in Dutch.

We have a lot more pages on hummus and related foods by the way; just type "authentic hummus recipe", for example, into this Search engine

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Quick hummus

This quick hummus page is suggesting getting your chickpeas from a can; but once you're in the groove, it's even faster to soak, pressure cook and freeze your own in small packets; then they are instantly available, much cheaper and without the garbage that food companies see fit to add to their products.

• Banting diet modified.
  
• Chickpea garbanzo bean dip.
  

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