Making hummus at home is a good moveâit’s likely going to be cheaperbetter-tasting
The secret? Chickpea guru Michael Solmonov, who makes some of the best hummus on the planet at the Philadelphia and NYC outposts of Dizengoff
I’ve tried making hummus Solomonov’s waymy life a few hours and a lot of garbanzos to finding a faster way to get similar results.
The Experiment
My hypothesis was that you could mimic the smoothness of hummus made with dried, soaked, and cooked chickpeas by taking canned chickpeas and simmering them until the beans were falling apart. To test my theory, I decided to make three versions of the same hummus recipe, side-by-side:
- one batch made with dried, soaked, and simmered chickpeas
- one batch made with chickpeas straight out of the can
- one batch made with canned chickpeas that were then simmered
I stuck with Solmonov’s recipe for all three versions for the sake of consistency, though he’s got lots of other tricks in there (adding baking soda, straining the garlic purée and lemon juice, adding ice water to the food processor)âthe effects of which I’ll investigate with dedicated experiments someday (should I start a regular hummus column?). I will tell you, anecdotally, that the hot technique I’m about to drop works for simple hummus recipes, too.
The Results
I rinsed the canned chickpeas, added them to a pot along with some water, brought it to a boil, and then lowered it to a simmer. After 20 minutes the beans had reached the just-falling-apart texture that the recipe called for. I drained the chickpeas and added them to the food processor along with the garlicky lemon mixture and the water-and-tahini blend that the recipe calls for. I did the same with the other two versionsâdried and cooked chickpeas, and straight-out-of-the-can chickpeasâand scooped them all into unmarked bowls for the Epi team to try.
The textural difference was unbelievableâthe chickpeas added straight from the can made for a chunkier hummus, despite being whipped for the same amount of time as the other two. The other two hummus batches were nearly indistinguishable: both incredibly velvety and smooth.
The Takeaway
For restaurant-style, smooth hummus without advanced planning, canned chickpeas are your friend. Before using them in the hummus recipe of your choice, rinse them, put them in a saucepan covered with a couple inches of water, and bring that mixture to a boil. Once it’s boiling, lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, or until the chickpeas are super-soft and beginning to fall apart. Then drain the chickpeas with a mesh strainer and make the dreamiest hummus you’ve ever had. If you’re working from a recipe that calls for canned chickpeas
I did it, guys. I hacked the hummus system. For my fellow home cooks with no foresightâthis one is dedicated to you.
