This is my go to hummus recipe – it’s the perfect amount creamy, flavourful, and just simply delicious. It tastes great served as a dip with fresh chopped veg and crackers, used as a spread on your sourdough toast (pictured down below), scooped onto a bowl of roasted veggies, or topped on your salad as a dressing alternative/ accompany.
Digesting Legumes & Beans
If you are thinking to yourself, “that hummus looks reallll good but I would never be able to digest it!” Don’t be alarmed – there are many people who have trouble digesting beans and legumes but I am going to go over some things to help! I find in a lot of cases it is often the quality of the bean and how it was prepared that is actually causing the issues (not the bean itself).
- Firstly, to make this hummus or any other dish with beans/legumes more digestible I recommend buying organic dried beans in bulk and soaking and cooking them yourselves. To do so, soak beans in a bowl of room temperature water for 8-12 hours (overnight works well) with 2 Tbsp of Apple Cider Vinegar per cup of dried beans. Drain and rinse the beans a few times after soaking. This helps to remove much of the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors (these are usually what causes the difficulties with digesting). When you are cooking the beans, be sure to bring the pot of water to boil and then allow to simmer for a long time at a low temperature (sorry no insta-pots recommended). I often like to place a piece of Kombu seaweed in with the beans while they are cooking. This also helps improve their digestibility.
- If you aren’t able to soak and cook your beans – be sure to buy the HIGHEST quality of canned you can get. Look for a brand that is organic and a can that is BPA free. “Eden Organic” is a great option as they are both organic, BPA free, and cook their chickpeas with Kombu! Always be sure to rinse your canned beans very well and never store them back in the fridge in their aluminum can (put them in a glass Tupperware or jar instead)
- Have 1 cup of warm water with the juice of 1/2 a fresh lemon or 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar before your meal that contains beans
- Start slow – maybe a whole plate of hummus isn’t in the cards while your body is still getting used to digesting grains again. I think that 1 to 2 Tbsp. of hummus/other bean dips or a 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of a dish with beans is a great place to start
- Add healing spices to your meal that contains beans/ legumes such as cumin, turmeric, ginger, and fennel
- Eat slowly and chew your food really well – this goes for any meal! It can be the easiest thing to do in order to improve our digestion without even changing a thing about what we eat
Ingredients
– 1 cup soaked and cooked chickpeas or 1 BPA free can
– Juice of 1/2 a lemon
– 2 Tbsp. tahini
– 2 Tbsp. olive oil
– 1 large clove of garlic
– 1 tsp sea salt
– 1/2 tsp cumin
– 1/4 tsp curry powder (or more if you like some extra flavour – you can also omit if you’re not huge into curry powder like I am 🙂
– A few Tbsp. water for easier mixing
Instructions
Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor and mix until you reach a smooth consistency. Depending on how thick you want it to be, you can add a few Tbsp. of water for easier mixing and a thinner consistency.
If serving as a dip, I like to mix up the toppings with whatever is in season. In the photo above I used sesame seeds, watermelon radish, and dried local rose petals.
