This easy white bean hummus recipe can be made with either butterbeans or cannellini beans and you can used canned beans or dried pulses.
For ultimate speed you could used canned beans and jarred pesto but lately I’ve taken to batch cooking half kilo bags of beans and eating them over the course of a week. I am also keen on making my own homemade pesto which I bash out in the Vitamix* although actually I prefer using my Magimix* for hummus.
My husband is not a wild fan of beans and pulses but I could chomp my way through them daily and indeed miss them if they’re absent from my diet for more than a few days.
Making your own white bean hummus
Although you can buy ready made hummus very cheaply, I find the supermarket ones go very “sparky” quickly and homemade versions are much more complex flavour keeping for a week in the fridge. I often cook my big batch of pulses and use around a third of them to make a tub of homemade hummus. The results I spread on toast, tortilla wraps or use as a dip with vegetable sticks. These purple carrots were an unexpected purchase from the oddly luxurious local branch of Spar in Walthamstow Village which not wishing to be outdone by the new farmer’s market has recently started stocking things like yellow courgettes and thistle artichokes. No idea who is buying them all but I am making the most of it whilst they’re there.
I was amused to note that this Friday is International Hummus Day. Whilst I’ve been scathing about these themed food days and weeks in the past, the bigger my blog archive gets I’ve come to appreciate them as a prompt to share old recipes again – you’ll find a couple of my other previous hummus recipes below.
I also served this white bean hummus on toasted focaccia – the recipe for which I will be publishing separately in the next day or two (well it is almost “Real Bread Week” so why not). You could also do use this suggestion as a vegetarian crostini or bruschetta topping.
White bean hummus with homemade pesto
Ingredients
- 400 g cooked butterbeans
- 3 heaped tbsp tahini
- 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 50 ml water
- 4 cloves crushed garlic
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp pesto*
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Chilli flakes optional
- Dukkah optional
- Fresh oregano optional
Instructions
- Blitz the beans, tahini, crushed garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and water in the food processor. Add more oil or water if you want it smoother.
- When you are more or less happy with the texture, add the pesto last and pulse quickly.
- Season to taste and drizzle some olive oil over before serving with toasted pitta bread or focaccia scattered with chilli flakes, dukkah spices and oregano.
Notes
I am sending this white bean hummus with homemade pesto to these events:
- Cook Once Eat Twice hosted by Searching for Spice – (we ate them as whole beans before recycling as hummus)
- Simple and in Season hosted by Katie at Feeding Boys
- Meat Free Mondays hosted by Jac at Tinned Tomatoes
- Food Year Link Up hosted by Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen (for international hummus day)
- Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Michelle but organised by Helen and Camilla.
More hummus recipes at Maison Cupcake:
And a broader collection of dips at this collection of easy dip recipes.
*Affiliate links used.
I do love a good homemade hummus and altering and adapting the flavours. I am guilty of having dried beans in the cupboard that I don’t use because of the faff of cooking them first so really need to be more organised and make something like this with them. Thanks so much for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice.
I was like that for a long time and then I discovered the tip of pouring boiling water on them with tablespoon of bicarb and leave for 2 hours. Then they cook in around twenty minutes!
I love hummus. It’s so versatile. We had some today. Plain old chickpea version with a lime and butter bass fillet on top. Sprinkle of dukkah. Yum yum.
Oooh that sounds nice, not had bass for ages.
I’ve only ever made hummus using chickpeas so I’ll really have to give some different beans a try. I tend not to make mine in the Vitamix too simply because I only make small batches and it all seems to get stuck at the bottom, I use my 20 year old (and still going strong) hand blender instead. I tend to agree with you about these slightly random food days (do we really need an day of celebrating hummus?) but I’ve come to realise how involved everyone gets in them and it’s lovely to feel like a part of everything.
I’m with you the Vitamix isn’t best for hummus unless you like it the consistency of baby food. I always use Magimix which is right size for a can’s worth at once.
Oh and I’m all in favour of International Hummus Day but draw the line at America’s “Ants on a Log Day” – you might need to google that if you’ve not come across it!!