I love hummus. Everyone loves hummus, especially vegans. It’s great on toast, with salads, as a sandwich filling and so much more.
The only thing is store bought hummus and most traditional recipes use a lot of oil in their recipes. Now extra virgin olive oil has plenty of health benefits, omegas and essential fatty acids that are important in any diet, vegan or not. But, when you have a hummus addiction like me all this oil starts to accumulate, so I decided I wanted to come up with a lighter alternative,with just as much flavour, perfect for impressing any non-vegan you may know 🙂
This recipe can be modified to add different veggies of your choice, I just went for roasted bell pepper and sun dried tomato because that’s what I like. I also used dried herbs instead of fresh because my basil plant had no leaves left on it, Saturday night cooking had used up it’s resources, but definitely go for fresh herbs if you can!
Here’s what I did
Ingredients
1 tin of chickpeas drained and washed well (Average tin from the shop weighs 240g drained)
10-12 sun dried tomatoes- I used pre-soaked ones, if yours are completely dried soak them for an hour in boiling water
Juice of half a lemon
2 tsp dried basil – I recommend using a handful of fresh basil here
1/4 tsp of smoked paprika
1 red bell pepper
1/2 cloves of garlic, or 1 heaped tsp of garlic powder if you want a more subtle flavour
Rice mylk/ any dairy free mylk- just a small drop to add near the end to loosen the hummus if needed
Salt and Pepper to taste
Method
De-seed the pepper, place in a hot oven for 10 minutes until blackened and charred on the outside
Place in a bowl and cover tightly with cling film, this will allow you to easily peel the skin off in about 15 minutes
In the mean time throw the rest of your ingredients into a food processor and blitz
Peel the pepper and add in to the mix, continue to blend until you reach your desired consistency I like mine somewhere closer to smooth than chunky
Adjust the seasoning, and enjoy, guilt free 😉
