Kicked Up Chipotle Hummus

One of my favorite things to eat when I’m eating healthy, is hummus.

Hummus with it’s peanut butter consistency is a spread primarily made of garbanzo beans (also known as chickpeas) and tahini, a sesame paste, made of, you guessed it, ground sesame seeds. Add in some lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper, and you can whiz some of this Middle Eastern favorite up in your food processor with little difficulty. Drizzle in some heart healthy olive oil to make the desired consistency, and you have a healthy snack in a minute!

The health benefits of hummus as a snack are right-on. Garbanzo beans are high in protein and contain no cholesterol or fat, and are being said to help level blood sugar, and even help fight against bad build up in our blood vessels. Tahini, is also rich in protein and B vitamins, howerver it contains an amount of unsaturated fat, but is used sparingly in a recipe of hummus. Olive oil, is full of Omega 3′s and helps build up our good cholesterol. There is little debate that garlic and lemon juice are incredibly good for you and help with things like antioxidants, vitamin C and digestive aids.

Although I love traditional hummus, I love to play around with new flavors, like my Sun Dried Tomato Hummus. Last night, I had some leftover chipotle peppers in my refrigerator that needed to be used up, Mr. Wonderful was working late, and in my “home alone” characteristic fashion, I whizzed up a new recipe of hummus, cut up some whole wheat pita bread into wedges, and snacked on the couch for dinner while watching Fried Green Tomatoes on television.
It was truly a girl’s night experience.

Can you imagine if I told Mr. Wonderful that we were eating hummus for dinner? The things us girls dine on alone! However, he did eat a plate when he came home, so he liked it as well.

Try this recipe sometime. You can add or subtract the amount of peppers you use, depending on how hot you like it. Let me share the recipe with you. (There is also a printable recipe at the bottom of this post).

The ingredients are –
1 (29 oz.) can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 c. of tahini (many grocery stores are carrying this now in their middle east section of the store)
the juice of one lime (or about 1/4 c.)
2 chipotle in adobo peppers and 1 tablespoon of the liquid from the can
1/2 cup of cilantro
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/4-1/2 c. olive oil

Put all this in your food processor and pulse it just until all the garbanzo beans start to process up and the cilantro is mixing in nicely. Then, turn your processor on and drizzle about 1/4 cup of olive oil through the top feeder spout into the bean mixture. When the consistency is correct, it should be, like I mentioned before, like natural peanut butter.

I eat this on whole wheat or whole grain pita bread (just toast or warm them up briefly), cut into triangular wedges, but dipping fresh crudités (veggies) in it are also divine. Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over the hummus and dot it with some Sambal Oleek (a ground chili paste found on the Asian aisle at your market).

However, this is purely optional.

The hummus all by itself is divine.

Katies Printable Recipe – Kicked Up Hummus

Katie’s Printable Recipe – Kicked Up Hummus

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