Roasted Red Bell Pepper Hummus

Deb | 02/02/2014 | 1 Reply

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Created by:

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Recipe Type: Appetizers/Snacks

Cuisine: Middle Eastern

Number Servings: 6

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 12 mins

Total Time: 22 mins

Growing up in hippie era San Francisco, I learned to accept and appreciate many different lifestyles, peoples and food. I swear, somewhere within the San Francisco city limits is a restaurant from every country on the planet. During my childhood I had close friends that were first generation immigrants -- Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Polish, Filipino, Mexican, Portuguese, Hawaiian, Ethiopian, German and one girl whose family had escaped from Czechoslovakia named Ludmilla. Sharing lunches and visiting them in their homes, I acquired a taste for cuisine from all over the world and a real understanding of the liberties and opportunities we have in the U.S. that most of us take for granted. One of my favorite things to eat is hummus and tabouli; for years I ate it for lunch at least twice a week. Then I realized how much money I could save if I learned to make hummus at home. Here’s a version with the extra oomph of roasted red bell peppers.

What You Need

2 whole red bell peppers (substitute about ¾ cup chopped jarred roasted red peppers)
One 15-ounce can chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans
¼ cup fresh lemon juice, about 2 lemons
¼ cup tahini
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ to 1 teaspoon Kosher salt (to taste)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper (optional but highly recommended)

How to Do It

Rinse your red peppers and cut them up. Remove the white core and seeds and throw out. Cut the pieces into large chunks. You want to create nice flat pieces as much as possible. Put the cut pepper on a foil lined cookie sheet with the skin side up.
Turn oven to broil and place rack 5-6” away from heat. Broil red peppers until skin chars and turns a nice dark brown, usually about 11-12 minutes at 450. Remove from stove and put into a heat-resistant bowl that you cover with plastic wrap or a plate so that no heat escapes. You’re basically going to steam the skin off the red pepper.
The skin should slide off relatively easily after about 20 minutes when pepper strips have cooled. Dice 2-3 pepper strips and set aside (to be used as garnish later). Roughly chop remaining pieces and place in bowl.
In the bowl of a food processor or with your stick blender, combine tahini and lemon juice. Process for 1 minute. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl then turn on and process for 30 seconds. This extra step helps whips the tahini, making the hummus smooth and creamy at the end.
Add the olive oil, minced garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper and the salt to whipped tahini and lemon juice. Process for 30 seconds, scrape sides and bottom of bowl then process another 30 seconds.
Drain liquid from canned beans, then rinse well with water. Add half of the chickpeas to the food processor or bowl, then process/blend for 1 minute.
Scrape sides and bottom of bowl, add remaining chickpeas and process for 1 to 2 minutes or until thick and quite smooth.
Now if you use a stick blender like I do, you will probably need to add 1 tablespoons of water to make the mixture loose enough to mix thoroughly. I used the water drained from the garbanzo beans.
Add red peppers to hummus and continue to process for another minute or two until the mixture is a smooth and even light red color.
Mince the reserved roasted red pepper from earlier. Then, scrape the hummus into a bowl, make a small well in the middle and add finely chopped peppers.
Store in an airtight plastic container in the refrigerator for up to a week. Mine, however, never lasts that long!

Extras

Bell peppers are a member of the nightshade family - along with eggplants, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers and cayenne. If you have sensitivities to these food items, just make the hummus plain. It's still really good.

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