Healthy hummus recipe

Summer salad just waiting for a dollop of hummus.

Healthy hummus recipe makes such a wonderful dish on the side, or scooped into the avocado, on a summer salad like this.

This page was last updated on 10th May, 2019.

  1. Bernard Preston
  2. Easy Lunch Recipes
  3. Healthy hummus recipe

By Bernard Preston

I think we all know a plain salad can be rather dry. Adding a vinaigrette of lemon juice, olive oil and some herbs is one way to make it more palatable. An even better is this wonderful garbanzo bean dish. It adds the protein that's needed.

Easy hummus recipe

I want to share a little truth with you. I make this healthy hummus recipe at least twice a week, in only four minutes. Really, it can be done.

There's always a but; yes, some aforethought and preparation is needed.

  • I'm trying to get away from canned food, now that the evidence is coming out that they are lined with cancer causing chemicals. That means soaking a couple pounds of garbanzo beans over night and, preferably pressure cooking and freezing them.
  • You need to find a source of tahini; it's a sesame seed paste that you'll get at your Greek or Italian shop.
  • You can use cumin from the spice people, but freshly made is so much nicer, and it takes no time at all.

So, where do we start?

Find a large packet of garbanzo beans; at least two pounds. That Greek shop will probably have them, or tell you where to find them. They're cheap; the world's primary protein. They are also called chickpeas, and are my favourite legume after fresh green beans from the garden.

Tip your kilogram of chickpeas into a large pot and cover generously with water over night; they absorbe a huge amount of moisture. In the morning rinse them several times and do not pour that liquid on your potted plants. It contains a natural growth inhibitor.

If you haven't already got, go out and buy a stainless steel pressure cooker; they are the most labour saving devices, reducing your cooking time by two thirds.

Add a couple cups of boiling water, and bring them up to the maximum pressure for thirty minutes. Don't forget the safety device so you can't open the pot, and spread the peas over the ceiling!

Once the pressure has dropped, rinse them thoroughly a couple times in cold water, and freeze in packets of say one and two cups. They are excellent too in any stew you're cooking up.

Healthy hummus recipe

Healthy hummus recipe without all the preservatives is so delicious, but it goes off after three days so don't make too much. I throw any excess into our low GI bread where it helps reduce the digestion of the starch in the wheat to instant blood sugar; and improves the flavour too.

Right, the difficult part is over. You have half a dozen packets of garbanzo beans in the freezer; keep one out if you plan to make your first batch of healthy hummus recipe straight away.

At your spice store, purchase a fairly small packet of whole cumin seeds unless you're planning to get into this seriously.

I buy a pound at a time; the whole seeds keep, but once your roast and grind them they lose their flavour within a couple of weeks; it's called oxidation.

Tip the seeds onto a large heavy skillet and turn the temperature up high; watch them because they will burn. Within two or three minutes, they will start to smoke, giving off the most divine scent that will waft through your whole kitchen and living room. Turn off the heat and stir a few times. Once your cumin is nearly cool, pour it into your spice blender and give it a whir. Store the fresh powder in in a tightly sealed bottle.

Healthy choice foods

Hummus blender

Right, you are ready to whirl. From here it takes only four minutes; all that donkey work above will have to be repeated in a few months, depending on how often you make this delicious, healthy hummus recipe.

This is one of the most divine, healthy choice foods you can make. We all know it's time to reduce our red meat consumption, and hummus is what we now have with our salads instead of ham, or cold beef.

Traditionally, it's covered in olive oil and sprinkled with paprika powder. It looks pretty, but to be honest that spice is usually months or years old and has lost all its flavour and nutrient value. Just drop a squib of jalapeno in the mix instead.


  • One cup of cooked garbanzo beans.
  • 1/3 cup of olive oil.
  • 1/2 a lemon or lime, peeled and sliced, and the pips removed. Don't just use the juice.
  • 1 clove of garlic.
  • 1/4 cup of water.
  • A squib of jalapeno or fresh chili.
  • Some green salads; traditionally a handful of parsley, but it could be lettuce or spinach.
  • 1-2 tablespoons of tahini paste.

Let's make healthy hummus recipe

Healthy hummus recipe ingredients

Set your stopwatch; in just four minutes you'll be done!

  1. Pour the olive oil and fresh slices of lemon into a small container and whizz it up with your stick blender.
  2. Add a tablespoon, or more, of tahini and beat again, adding the water if it gets too thick. Get it really smooth.
  3. Toss in your garlic, chili and parsley and any other herbs you love; like a leaf of sweet basil. Blend.
  4. Now add your garbanzo beans and the cumin and blend until it's very nice and smooth again.

Hummus ingredients include garlic, chili and parsley

You may need to add more olive oil, or water, or both, depending on how mushy and oily you like it. 

We add generous amounts of olive oil, tahini and water too. You do it the way you like it. Often I'll add a radish; it's gives it a bit of a bite. Play with the ingredients until you get it the way you like it. Some like it hot, others with more cumin, some quite dry and even a piece of sweet fruit like a few grapes, or half a mango.

Roasted butternut too.

Check the stopwatch; just four minutes, right?

Hummus ingredients include chickpeas and cumin

Store it in the fridge, and keep no longer than three days. If you haven't finished it, tip it into a stew, or your low GI bread recipe. Never throw hummus away!

But it does go off quite quickly which is why commercially they have to add so much preservative; utterly ruins your dish and certainly can't be described as healthy hummus recipe.

Vegan seed bread

No lunch is complete without a slice or two of wholesome bread; that unfortunately is not the stuff you purchase at the supermarket. Just read the label.

Although we are not vegetarians we do take advantage of eating plenty of salads and vegetables; this vegan seed bread is a wonder that you can throw together in less than ten minutes, if you have a little coffee grinder dedicated to herbs and spices.

To lower the GI even further I toss in the left over healthy hummus recipe; to reduce the glycemic index of a starch add fibre, protein and fat; oddly, then it won't make you obese because the sugars are only absorbed slowly into the blood stream. This vegan seed bread is the perfect example.

Banting diet

All legumes are banned from the strict banting diet because of the small amount of carbohydrate in them, despite them having a very low glycemic index. So I can't go along with banting, it means eating too much red meat; here's my modified Banting diet. In this form I think it's a wellness and relatively easy way to lose weight.

I can promise you that if you enjoy a salad like that above every day, with a good tablespoon of our healthy hummus recipe, and only half a slice of low GI bread and butter, you'll lose weight.

What's in that salad? Avocado, lettuce, spring onion, radish, cilantro, sweet peppers, baby beets and I think I spy a snow pea or two; all from our summer garden. You could grow them too, if you want to live long in the land with all your marbles intact. Use the search function below to find out about pickled beets, for example.

Amino acids

Proteins are made up of long chains of organic substances called amino acids. Some are "essential" and you can't live without them, but others can be converted from one to another.

Vegans have to be very careful to make sure they are getting all the amino acids they need.

Our healthy hummus recipe is particularly good because the combination of tahini and garbanzo beans contains all the amino acids your body needs.


You are probably thinking, "I couldn't possibly spend all this time preparing and growing choice foods!"

All I can tell you is the benefits are like the stars in the night sky. A couple of months ago I went to the optician for a new set of reading spectacles. Said he, after examining my eyes, "You eat a lot of greens don't you." I was incredulous. "How on earth do you know?" Replied he, "there's not a sign of cataracts or macular degeneration which is quite remarkable at your age."

I won't belabour the point; you either get it or you don't! Neither the boss, nor I have been to the doc in the last year; well, once for some sunspots from too much time in the midday sun with other mad dogs and Englishmen at the glider port! Do you remember Noel Coward?

You either spend time, perhaps quite a lot, preparing choice foods, or you end up visiting doctors and pharmacists which takes far more hours, not to mention, pain, suffering and dollars. Pay your money and take your choice; we live by our decisions.

Creating a divine green salad is really not as difficult as you imagine; we do it every day, literally, with a liberal scoop of this healthy hummus recipe.

These links might help in your understanding of the benefits of olive oil, parsley, cumin and so on.

  • What is cumin? Use the site search function in the navigation bar.
  • Solar pressure cooking, but of course it works just as well using mains power.
  • How to grow chilli - jalapenos are so pretty in any garden, healthy too for their anti inflammatory effect.
Parsley benefits from your hummus.

Olive oil benefits include anti-inflammatory properties for degenerative joint disease.

Jalapenos in your easy hummus give it a bit of spice.

Bernard Preston

In between the time spent making choice healthy food and working in our garden, and treating a few patients, Bernard Preston, that's me, spends his hours on writing novels. Six are under the belt, and the seventh is on the way. It's a difficult novel, called Priests Denied, in similar vein to the Pulitzer prize winning film Spotlight.

Nothing about healthy hummus recipe in it, but plenty on healthy relationships.

If you read just one book a month, you'll probably fall short of a thousand in your whole life, and most likely nearer 500. Enjoying a good book is like having a private conversation with the author.

If you are enjoying, then perhaps I can invite you to a journey through the polders of Holland. That's how you can support this site, and enrich your own life with some easy bedside reading and stepping up to better health.

My books are available from Amazon on Kindle.



56 Groenekloof Rd,

Hilton, KZN

South Africa


What's this site about?

Bernard Preston books

Femoral nerve AP Xray from one of Bernard Preston's books.

Bernie's choice foods

Cooking green beans Bernard Preston passion

Bernie's bread

Bread machine loaf by Bernard Preston

Bernie's garden

green beans and granadillas Bernard Preston

Bernie's bees

Bees workforce in Bernard Preston's garden

Bernie's chickens

Chickens for free range eggs.

Bernie's solar

Residential solar panels at Bernard Preston's home

Bernie's rainwater harvest


Mojo verde

Mojo sauces are at the heart of much Spanish cooking, used to supplement dishes. This one is green, but you get reds and yellows, mild and hot.

You'll find that the ingredients are identical to your healthy hummus recipe, less the chickpeas and tahini. You could use a white wine vinegar, lime or lemon juice; because so much of the nutrient value is lost if you squeeze them, we use the pulp too. 

  1. One whole garlic bulb.
  2. 200 ml olive oil.
  3. Half one whole lemon or lime, peeled and depipped.
  4. Handful of parsley including the stalks if young. 
  5. Half a teaspoon of freshly roasted and ground cumin.
  6. Half a teaspoon of salt. 

Toss the lot into a tall narrow bowl. Use a stick blender to liquidise. Enjoy it on the side with virtually any dish. 

How's your Latin? Verde? A verdant meadow?