Healthy, Quick, & Inexpensive Recipe: Homemade Hummus

One of my new favorite food items is hummus. I have been loving it with carrots sticks or warm, whole wheat pita bread. For those of you who don’t know much about hummus, or haven’t tried it yet, hummus is a spread made from chickpeas (garbanzo beans), olive oil, and a bunch of other spices. It’s great on top of pita bread, crackers, tortillas, and fresh veggies like carrot sticks, celery, and red pepper.  I like to think of hummus as a lower-calorie and lower-fat alternative to peanut butter.  Another benefit is that I find myself eating a lot more fresh vegetables when I have hummus around! So last week I decided that I should make homemade hummus, because it can be a little pricey to regularly buy hummus from the store, typically Athenos (my favorite) or Sabra.  I used a modified version of the hummus recipe I found in the recipe booklet that came with the food processor.

Homemade Hummus

(makes about 2 cups)

• 1/3 cup loosely packed Italian parsley leaves
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1 can (19 oz) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• ¼ cup water
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Sprinkle of black pepper
• ¼ cup roasted red peppers (optional)

Chop the parsley for 5 seconds; remove and reserve. Process garlic until finely chopped, about 5 seconds. Add chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, water, cumin, black pepper, and reserved parsley to work bowl;  process until smooth, 1 ½ to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape bowl as needed one or two times. With the machine running, add the olive oil in a steady stream and process until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add any remaining optional ingredients (black olives, roasted red peppers, artichokes, etc) at the end.

The ingredients you’ll need.  Tahini is a sesame seed paste that can be found in most grocery stores. Check the international foods aisle, or in an aisle next to the pickles and olives. When you open the tahini it should have a layer of oil on the top, so be sure to mix it before measuring out the 2 tablespoons for this recipe.

I finally get to use my home-grown parsley! Make sure to wash the parsley with water & dry it on paper towels before use.

Mixing the final product…it’s looking good!  When adding your olive oil, this is where you can experiment a bit. The original recipe called for 1/4 cup olive oil, but I wanted to cut some of the fat out of the recipe, plus I like my hummus to be a little thicker, so I used just 2 tablespoons of olive oil. If you like creamy hummus, you might want to add in an extra tablespoon of olive oil or more.

If you want to make different flavors of hummus, this is where you can add in any optional ingredients. I decided I wanted 1 cup to be basic (parsley, garlic flavor) and 1 cup to be flavored with roasted red pepper. So I scooped out half, and added 1 pepper in to the remaining half. Feel free to add artichokes, green olives, black olives, jalapenos, spinach, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, or other spices.

Final product! About 1 cup basic hummus and 1 cup roasted red pepper hummus. Ready to be eaten with carrots & celery! And just a note: If you decide to make or buy hummus, it should be stored in your refrigerator in an air-tight container.

Nutrition Facts

(serving size = 2 tablespoons)

• Calories: 59
• Total Fat: 3g
• Saturated Fat: 0.4g
• Cholesterol: 0mg
• Sodium: 100mg
• Potassium: 64mg
• Carbohydrate: 6.8g
• Dietary Fiber: 1.4g
• Protein: 1.7g
• Vitamin A: 2.2%
• Vitamin C: 6.0%
• Calcium: 1.9%
• Iron: 3.4%

Cost Breakdown:

• 1/3 cup parsley leaves: 0.00
• 1 garlic clove: 0.05
• 19 oz chickpeas: 1.32
• 2 tablespoons tahini: 1.05
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice: 0.13
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin: 0.08
• 2 tablespoons olive oil: 0.29
• 1/8 tsp salt: 0.00

Total: $2.92 for about 16 servings, which makes out to $0.18 per serving!

As a comparison, store-bought hummus is typically $3.49 for 7 servings, or $0.50 per serving.  The cheapest I’ve seen hummus on sale for was $2.00 for 7 servings, or $0.29 per serving. So by making homemade hummus you’re basically cutting the cost in half!

Healthy, Quick, and Inexpensive Recipe: Cucumber Blackbean Tuna Salad

I don’t know why tuna has such a bad rep…packed with protein and omega-3s, cheap, and easy prep (hello, can opener!), this fish should definitely be a staple in everyone’s kitchen.  I thought I’d share one of my favorite tuna recipes today. It’s a recipe I use when I’m looking for something that’s fresh, high in protein and fiber, low in calories, and high in volume.  I probably make this at least once a week.  This is especially great for anyone trying to lose weight because the protein and fiber will make you feel full for hours, not to mention it’s a pretty generous portion size, so you don’t feel like you’re starving yourself.  Plus, the whole salad is only 357 calories! If you’d like, you could eat half of it, add a side of fruit and a cup of skim milk, and you’ve got a complete meal that way, too.

Homemade Cucumber Blackbean Tuna Salad

• 1 cup diced cucumber
• 1/2 cup black beans
• 1/4 cup chopped onions
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise (a little goes a long way!)
• 1 can tuna, drained
• dash of black pepper

All my ingredients, ready to go

Dicing up the cucumber. You’re going to need 1 cup, which is about 1/2 of a cucumber.

Drain and rinse the black beans (if you used canned beans), and drain the water from the tuna.

Throw all your ingredients together in a bowl or tupperware (don’t forget to add the black pepper)

When it’s all mixed together, feel free to eat it by itself, or what I like to do is put it in a whole wheat pita or whole wheat tortilla.

I cannot tell you how delicious this, especially for the summer when its 100*F outside and you just want something cold, light, and fresh to eat.

Nutrition Facts (for entire recipe):

• Calories: 357
• Total fat: 13.2 g
• Saturated fat: 1.7 g
• Cholesterol: 66.3 g
• Sodium: 524.1 mg
• Potassium: 769.2 mg
• Carbohydrates: 28.0 g
• Fiber: 10.3 g
• Protein: 33.9 g

Not to mention a multitude of vitamins and minerals (% daily values):

• 5.2% Vitamin A
• 38% Vitamin B-12
• 22.6% Vitamin B-6
• 13.5% Vitamin C
• 15% Vitamin D
• 3.6% Vitamin E
• 4.8% Calcium
• 12.0% Copper
• 37.5% Folate
• 22.2% Iron
• 19.0% Magnesium
• 25.8% Manganese
• 91.1% Niacin
• 4.8% Pantothenic Acid
• 15.8% Phosphorus
• 5.0% Riboflavin
• 152.1% Selenium
• 16.9% Thiamin
• 8.5% Zinc

Cost breakdown:

• 1 can tuna: $0.70
• 1/2 cup canned black beans: $0.23
• 1/4 cup onion: $0.09
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise: $0.06
• 1/2 cucumber: $0.25

Total Cost: $1.33….and who says healthy food is “too expensive”?? This is way cheaper than anything of similar volume at a fast food restaurant (Big Mac, Whopper, etc.).  Let me know if you give it a try!