Roasted Beet Hummus

I want to preface this roasted beet hummus recipe by saying it is tahini free. Mostly because I don’t love the taste of it and secondly because I don’t use it enough in my every day cooking to have it as part of my pantry staples. If you have it and want to use it- I won’t stop you. With my lack of tahini out on the table, I automatically feel like hummus aficionados will scoff and say, but then it isn’t really hummus. With that I offer the rebuttal thoroughly researched on Wikipedia that “Hummus” comes from the Arabic word ḥummuṣ meaning “chickpeas”. And my recipe does indeed have chickpeas. Now that that is settled let’s move on.

I have eaten a lot of hummus in my 28 years. I find it to be a way to help me eat more vegetables and feel fuller then if I would’ve just dipped it in ranch. It is a great snack or addition to lunch, especially when outside at a winery with a glass of pinot gris…(can you tell I’m counting down the seconds until we can safely do this again!) My intake increased dramatically when we traveled to Australia. It became our go to snack-transportable, healthy and dairy free. I’m pretty sure I ate my weight in hummus on that trip. So when we returned we had a bit of a hummus hiatus. Now that enough time has passed we are back on the h-train.

Whenever I buy hummus I always think to myself, I need to just make this at home. And for some reason I never do. I like to convince myself my laziness can really be attributed to my lack of a food processor. But I have a blender, although getting up there in years, it works just fine. So with the need to limit our trips to the store, I thought now was the perfect time to whip up my own delicious dip. And honestly it makes total sense since 99% of the ingredients have long shelf/fridge lives.

The recipe starts by roasting the beets with garlic. I prefer roasting as it helps give extra flavour to the beets besides just earthiness. If you are short on time you could always boil, but it wouldn’t be my first choice. This is also a great way to use leftover beets that you made the night before for dinner! The same goes for the garlic, roasting it brings out a sweetness and takes away the sharpness of raw garlic. So if you are looking for a bigger kick in your hummus throw in a clove of raw garlic to your blender.

Lastly, when it comes to the lemon juice, if you have a fresh lemon use that! You could also add in some zest to really freshen it up. But me, I find that whenever I have a fresh lemon I forget to use it and then it becomes all shriveled and sad. Although not as exciting, I buy the big container of lemon juice. It sits in my fridge and allows me to add a few drops to whatever I’m cooking or baking. It is my go to for adding acid to a dish without needing fresh ingredients. Perfect in the time of quarantine or when you feel lazy and don’t want to go to the store.

5 from 2 reviews

Roasted Beet Hummus

May 31, 2020

Servings: About 2 Cups

Prep: 5 min

Cook: 1 hr

Difficulty: easy

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By: ME

Ingredients

• Roasted Beets:
• 3 small beets (or about 3/4 cup once pureed)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Hummus:
• 1 can (540mL) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 mint leaves
• S+P
• everything spice, cayenne (optional)

Directions

• Step 1 Preheat oven to 400F. Place beets and garlic on tinfoil and pour over the olive oil. Fold up the tinfoil to create a ball and bake in the oven for about an hour. Or until beets are tender.
• Step 2 Peel and quarter beets and let cool.
• Step 3 In a food processor or blender add beets, garlic, chickpeas, water, and lemon juice. Pulse for a few seconds to bring everything together. Pour in olive oil to the mixture and continue to blend. Add in the mint and S+P to your liking. Blend until creamy and combined.
• Step 4 Serve topped with a little extra olive oil, cayenne or paprika for a little kick!