This roasted garlic hummus has all the creamy deliciousness of classic hummus, but with the mellow, buttery flavor or roasted garlic.
There are a small handful of foods that I can vividly recall tasting for the first time. Most of these tastings occurred during childhood. My first bagel with cream cheese. Oh my god…ahhhmazing. My first Taco Bell bean burrito. What could possibly sound more unappetizing to a ten year old? Surprise, surprise…what could be more scrumptious! I’ve found that lots of vegetarians, such as myself, have the unique experience of these tastings stretching past childhood, and including more adventurous, and often more healthy, vegetarian items. The hummus experience seems to be one I share with quite a few folks. My own personal experience took place around the age of eighteen or so, in the form of a doggie bag containing three varieties of hummus shared with me by an epicurean friend of my mother. It was like a flashback to that magical bagel experience back in, oh, say 1985.
I haven’t met a whole lot of people who ate hummus through childhood, as it seems to have rapidly gained popularity in the late 90s/early 2000s. We now have the good fortune of hummus being available in practically every supermarket around. What’s surprising to me, however, is how few people attempt at making their own hummus. It’s ridiculously easy, yet friends and family members never cease to be impressed when I whip up a batch of home crafted hummus in all of five minutes.
This particular recipe for roasted garlic hummus is a bit more involved, and does in fact take more than five minutes (although you can make your roasted garlic ahead of time and store it in the fridge or freezer until ready to use). I still find it to be weeknight dinner friendly, but if you want to go the traditional, five minute hummus route, simply substitute three or four cloves of fresh garlic for the entire bulb of roasted garlic in this recipe. I’ve posted this version because I just love the mellow, caramely flavor of the roasted garlic.
Roasted Garlic Hummus
Ingredients
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil divided
- 1 14 oz. can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- Juice of one juicy lemon about 3 tbsp.
- 1/4 cup olive oil plus a little extra
- 1/4 cup tahini
- sea salt
- paprika
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350.
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Using a sharp knife, cut the top off of your garlic. You want to cut at a location so as to expose the as many of the cloves as possible.
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Place your garlic bulb (just the bottom part) on a sheet of tin foil, and drizzle generously with olive oil (2-4 tbsp.). You want the olive oil to get into all of the gaps between cloves, so as to get every clove nice and coated with the good stuff.
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Loosely close up the foil around the garlic bulb.
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Place in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes. Garlic cloves should have taken on a rich, goldeny color at this point. Oh, and your kitchen should be smelling like heaven right about now.
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Remove from oven, open up your foil, and allow to cool before proceeding (yes, I've burned by hands by being impatient).
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Throw your chickpeas, juice, 1/4 cup of olive oil and tahini into a food processor.
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Add your roasted garlic. Remember how we cut it so that the tops of the garlic cloves were exposed? Well this should allow you to just give the bulb a good squeeze so that the soft, roasted garlic comes right out of the top. If, like me, you didn't manage to cut into all of your cloves, you can use a knife to poke little holes in them so that the garlic can escape. Squeeze it good, in order to get all of that garlicky goodness into your mixture.
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Process until a nice smooth paste is formed. Mmmmm. Taste test.
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Add some salt, and maybe taste test again to see if more is needed.
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Once you're satisfied, spoon everything into a bowl.
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Drizzle with a little extra olive oil, and sprinkle with paprika. Serve with toasty pita bread.
Love your recipes, thanks for posting! Great instructions :)
Thanks so much! I love cooking and blogging about it – so glad to hear that you enjoy my recipes :)