As always, if you just want the recipe without the story behind it, click here.
Nothing says healthy, delicious, protein packed, quick and easy summer snack or lunch quite like a tub of savoury hummus and some pita (or pita chips - Yum!) and fresh, crisp, raw veggies!
But along with hotter days seemingly everywhere, these days, we've also seen food prices rising faster than the temperatures, and that especially includes "luxury" foods like hummus.
But, what if I told you that this delicious staple of Mediterranean eats is yet another example of some of the cheapest possible ingredients available turned into something good and healthy to feed lots of people, commandeered by the grocery industry to be sold as, "ethnic" (AKA expensive) food for hipsters and people with more dollars than sense? Yup! That's right, my friends. This trendy, expensive food enjoyed by rich people all over the world started centuries ago in the Mediterranean/Middle East as a simple, cheap dish for poor people. And, unlike the humble haggis, the core ingredients haven't even changed much in all that time! The recipe is still almost the same as it was back when poor families used cheap local crops like chickpeas, garlic, lemon, and sesame seeds to mash ingredients together by hand in stone bowls, for a dip that gave workers cheap fuel for the hard, physical labour that they did every day just to survive.
The exact origin of the dish is a matter of FIERCE dispute, with several regions claiming responsibility, and is an interesting read, if you are a nerd, like me. And if you really want to nerd out, it gets even more interesting!
Fast forward a few thousand years, and as immigrants travelled to new countries in the West, they brought many of their food traditions with them. Before you know it, fancy chefs in big cities were adding it to their menus, also adding (of course) expensive toppings like pine nuts, lamb, and olive oil to make it "better" for diners willing to pay top dollar for such exotic fare.
Next, doctors and food writers got on the bandwagon, dubbing chickpeas (rightfully, to be fair) a healthy superfood. So, now that those who could afford to pay more to eat healthy were properly primed, specialty groceries could sell small plastic tubs of this super healthy, heavenly hummus at crazy markups. Now, you can find it at pretty much any supermarket or convenience store, still marked up, but not quite as much, and warehouse and big box stores will sell it to you at significant savings, compared to what we've all gotten used to paying.
Fun fact: The word "hummus" simply means "chickpea" in Arabic. In the Middle East, ordering just "hummus" may just get you a bowl of whole chickpeas; the creamy dip is actually called hummus bi tahini. Either way, it will still be a cheap accompaniment to your bread and veggies, cause it's still just a staple there, and the only extra ingredients you'll find are likely to be whatever happens to be in season or local spices and such, and the olive oil, cause that is much more available now, both in the Mediterranean and Middle East, and globally, to the point that it figures heavily as part of the Mediterranean diet. So do chickpeas and hummus, incidentally.
Simple ingredients.
I discovered how cheap, fast, and easy it really is to make this delightfully delish dish years ago, but somehow have neglected to post it until now.
Back when I originally learned to make it, you still had to go to a higher end supermarket or order from Amazon to get tahini, but now it is available even at the local Walmart, or other big box store, right along with all the other ingredients. Even better, enough tahini, the most expensive ingredient, to make around 8 batches of this recipe, can be had for a few cents more than two 10 oz tubs of ready-made hummus at the same Walmart. And the rest of the ingredients for a 32 oz batch, all together, might buy you one more of those 10 oz tubs. Matter of fact, I'll put the full, Walmart (cause we're poor people here, dammit!) price breakdown under the recipe, cause why not?
So, anyway, this consists of minimal, cheap ingredients, and literally takes around 5 minutes to make if you have a food processor, or even a blender, in a pinch. That includes grabbing stuff from cupboards, plugging in the food processor, and opening cans and jars! (It will take longer if you mash it by hand in a stone bowl.) Dump all but oil in, process a few seconds, pulse a few more times whilst adding oil a bit at a time. Done. That's it.
So, without further ado, here is the recipe.
Khaos' Basic Hummus
Prep Time: 3 minutes
"Cook" Time: 2 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: Approximately 4 Cups
Method: Food Processor or Blender
Equipment
- Food processor - standard blade
- Rubber spatula to scrape every bit of goodness out
- Serving/storage container
Ingredients
- 3 cups home cooked or 2 cans (15.5-16 oz, depending on brand) chickpeas (AKA garbanzo beans), liquid reserved
- 1/2 cup bean liquid
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (or pre-ground, but meh)
- 2-4 Tbs lemon juice
- 1+ tsp cumin
- 1 tsp paprika
Directions
- Put everything except oil in food processor & hit it until smooth.
- Add olive oil a little at a time and process until desired consistency.
- Put in a serving/storage container and enjoy with pita, chips, veggies, or whatever else strikes your fancy!
Notes
- Add in any kind of extras for different flavours you desire.
- Roasted peppers
- Sun dried tomatoes
- Roasted garlic
- Artichokes
- Roasted eggplant
- any kinds of peppers/chillies
- Check out the different varieties in the stores and let your imagination run wild!
- To cook beans in Instant Pot:
- Put beans + water to 3 inches above bean level in pot. Don't fill more than 2/3 full.
- Pressure cook on high (default for most pots) 35 minutes and allow natural release.
- Extra beans and liquid can be portioned and frozen for future use.
What Does a Batch Actually Cost?
Prices checked August 29, 2026. These are regular prices, not sale prices, using the least expensive practical options I found at my local Walmart unless otherwise noted.
This recipe makes approximately 4 Cups, or 32 oz, of hummus.
Chickpeas - Pick One
Canned:
2 cans Great Value Garbanzo Chickpeas, 15.5 oz each - $0.92 each
Cost per batch: $1.84
Dried:
Great Value Dried Chickpeas, 1 lb - $1.46
Approximately 1 Cup dried chickpeas, or about 7 oz, yields the roughly 3 Cups cooked needed for one batch.
Cost per batch: about $0.64
I particularly love how neatly that works out - one Cup dry beans becomes almost exactly the amount this recipe needs.
Tahini
Krinos Tahini, 16 oz - $6.47
1/4 Cup per batch
Cost per batch: about $0.86
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Pompeian Robust Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 101 fl oz - $27.12
1/4 Cup, or 2 fl oz, per batch
Cost per batch: about $0.54
Lemon Juice
Great Value 100% Lemon Juice, 32 fl oz - $2.24
2-4 Tbs, or 1-2 fl oz, per batch
Cost per batch: about $0.07-$0.14
Garlic - Pick One
Fresh garlic:
Fresh garlic bulb - $0.64 each
Assuming an average of around 10 cloves per bulb, 2 cloves costs approximately:
$0.13 per batch
Dried minced garlic - in store:
McCormick Minced Garlic, 9 oz - $9.72
The generally accepted substitution, and McCormick's own recommendation, is 1/4 tsp dried minced garlic per fresh clove. Therefore, 2 cloves = 1/2 tsp dried minced garlic.
Cost per batch: about $0.04
Dried minced garlic - bulk/shipped:
Food to Live Minced Garlic, 2 lb - $14.65
Using the same 1/2 tsp, approximately 1 gram, per batch:
Cost per batch: about $0.02
Cumin
Great Value Ground Cumin, 2.5 oz - $1.48
1 tsp per batch
Cost per batch: about $0.04
Paprika
Great Value Paprika, 2.5 oz - $1.08
1 tsp per batch
Cost per batch: about $0.04
Salt and Pepper
Both are used to taste and the amount is tiny, so I am allowing approximately:
$0.03 per batch
Total Cost for Approximately 4 Cups / 32 oz
Depending on which chickpeas and garlic you use:
Canned chickpeas + fresh garlic: about $3.54-$3.61
Canned chickpeas + in-store dried minced garlic: about $3.45-$3.52
Canned chickpeas + bulk dried minced garlic: about $3.43-$3.50
Dried chickpeas + fresh garlic: about $2.34-$2.41
Dried chickpeas + in-store dried minced garlic: about $2.25-$2.32
Dried chickpeas + bulk dried minced garlic: about $2.23-$2.30
The range is mostly because the recipe calls for 2-4 Tbs lemon juice.
So, depending on how you make it, a full 32 oz batch of hummus costs somewhere around $2.25-$3.60.
And this is exactly why looking at the checkout price of pantry staples can be misleading. Yes, buying a jar of tahini and a giant bottle of extra virgin olive oil costs more up front. You are not using the entire jar and bottle to make one batch of hummus, and, presumably, not JUST using them for hummus either!
The actual amount of that $27.12 bottle of EVOO used here costs about 54 cents.
The actual amount of that $6.47 jar of tahini costs about 86 cents.
And that is the difference between the price of stocking a kitchen and the price of making a meal.
