You are here

Member since December 1969

Creamy Hummus, Restaurant Style

What you need: 

1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
water, as needed, optional
4 or 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 (24 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt, to taste
olive oil, for drizzle
parsley, to taste, for garnish
ground cumin, to taste, for garnish

What you do: 

1. Put the tahini and lemon juice into a blender (I use an immersion blender) and blend away until it's frothy, white, and creamy. You can substitute a little water for lemon juice; experiment. This is your sesame cream! (If you added a lot more water and blended well enough, you'd get sesame milk.)
2. Blend garlic into the cream, and add some salt, to taste. This is a basic tahini cream sauce that's actually really good on its own! Take a handful of chickpeas and blend it into the sesame cream until smooth.
3. Continue to blend in chickpeas a little at a time until the cream has thickened, but isn't too thick and is still pale (not the deep yellow of the usual chickpea mash). Add salt, to taste.
4. You won't use all the chickpeas, much less than in many hummus recipes. For the above, I usually use about 1/2 (24 ounce) can's worth. Scoop the hummus onto a plate, put a few whole chickpeas on top, drizzle good olive oil over it, and sprinkle some parsley and/or cumin on top if you like.
That's it! It's best if served at room temperature or slightly warmer.
The secret to good hummus, and the difference between hummus and chickpea mash, is to understand what is really going on with the tahini.What is milk? Milk is generally an emulsion of protein and fat in a water-based liquid. An emulsion is when you mix one liquid into another that don't generally mix, like oil and water when you make salad dressing. They're not dissolving into each other, but the little molecules of one are suspended in the other.
For dairy milk, it's an emulsion of animal protein, fats, lactose, etc. For soy milk and nut milk, it's the same thing, but now it's nut proteins and oils. But in all cases, the emulsion is where the creaminess comes from in "milk". If you have less water, you call it cream (either dairy cream or nut creams).
Tahini is sesame butter, and to make creamy hummus, the secret is to first turn that into sesame cream! To do that, you need to emulsify the tahini in a water based liquid first. This will not happen if you just put everything into a food processor all at once!'

Preparation Time: 
Cooking Time: 
Recipe Category: 


Tried this recipe for the first time (though it's been in my recipe box for ages!) The texture is perfect! I couldn't believe how creamy it was.  I did find the tahini a tad overwhelming so I think next time I will cut back a little on that.  Otherwise perfect!!!!


Yum!  I used 2 cloves of garlic but one was kind of large.  I also put olive oil in instead of drizzling it over the top!
This hummus is nice and creamy!  Thanks!


I've never made Tahini until today.  I used this recipe and it turned out perfectly:  Peace.

Does anyone know how to make tahini? The store-bought kind is WAY too epensive in my area. :(


Oh. My. God.

I can FINALLY make delicious hummus! I have spent years only touching the store-bought stuff (and of course the Mediterranean restaurant hummus, yum) because mine just doesn't turn out right texture-wise. The cream method really makes the difference.

Now, thanks to you Trisa, I will never buy hummus again. I am worshiping you right now. It is seriously that good.

I added a roasted red pepper to mine, and it was delicious. However, it was delicious even before the red pepper. 

By the way, I roasted my garlic and used a whole head.  For those of you who who feel this is too garlicky, I recommend this method. Even partially roasting the garlic will mellow the flavor. I thought it could have used a little more garlic, but alas I had used the last head. Maybe next time I will add a small clove of raw garlic as well.


Thank you for sharing the secret to creamy hummus.  I will no longer need to buy the premade stuff again.  This produced creamy hummus that is really good.  I have been trying to make hummus for about a year and could never get the texture right.  The flavor was good but the texture was grity.  This has both great flavor and texture.

You have saved me a lot of money.  Thank you!  ;D


this was DELICIOUS!! i thought the lemon was just right. i used 7 or 8 tiny cloves of garlic and it worked out hummus i've ever had  ;)b


For me, the garlic wasn't the issue it was the lemon. Next time I would probably only use half of the lemon juice and half of the bean liquid, like another reviewer said. The texture was definitely creamy though!


Holy garlic batman! I think the issue with some people saying more garlic and some people less is that not all garlic is created equally. It's my own fault, but I added two big cloves of organic purple garlic forgetting that this stuff packs a punch.  My hummus actually burns my mouth as I eat it... but I can't stop! That dried out, irradiated, probably grown in polluted china, white garlic you get at most places is so tasteless in comparison that you probably *could* add 5 cloves.

Anyways, if I made this again, I would add very little garlic. If you ever try "real" hummus at at a high end Lebanese restaurant, you will find that you almost never pick out a strong garlic flavor in the end result. At least, it doesn't burn your mouth...

But I agree that the method of making a "cream" first is very effective at getting a nice texture. I had to add some water to get the right consistency, but otherwise it worked fine.




Hi,my hummus came out great.I use about 3\4 can of mixed beans because I didn't have chick peas,about 1 tbs of tahini,about 1 tbs of vegetable oil,a pinch of salt,a pinch of black pepper,about 4 cloves of garlic,some water,and about 2 tps of vinegar because I didn't have lemon.I didn't use any tools to measure so i'm just estimating.My hummus had a brown-yellow color and there are chick peas in mixed beans as well.Next time I'm going to use less garlic but it is still good.It is better than store bought hummus.I'm going to make a sandwich with my tofu nuggets,tomatoe,and toasted white bread.I wish that I had lettuce to eat with it. ;)b

my sandwich tasted very felt like i was eating a chiken humburger from burger king lol but it is way better.i used shake n bake extra crispy for my nuggets but i dip the tofu in flour and water mixture before adding it to the shake n bake.i got the recipe on this site.



Log in or register to post comments