Savory Intense Hummus, With A Steamed Cuisine Twist
Here is the Thick, Smooth, Savory and easy to digest hummus you and your kids dreamt of to take with you to the pool this summer ! Learn not only an easy recipe, but also how to properly prepare legumes and cook them with a steam cooker: It goes faster than the Instant Pot! Kids approved, of course! Bon Appétit
It’s POOL season, and if you have kids like me, you will need to bring snacks with you to the pool on late swim lessons evenings! One of our family’s favorites is hummus !
Do I ALSO make my own hummus? YES I DO ! And no, I don’t mean to make your feel guilty about buying your own – it’s so cheap and convenient right? But here’s the thing 1) It’s SUPER EASY to make, 2) Home made hummus is much easier on your digestive system, 3) it doubles really well as baby food…
My hummus is a bit thicker ( but that’s easy to make thinner on the spot with a bit of water), and more savory than most, AND it has wonderful flavors. So what’s my secret? The ingredients – It has only four ingredients- AND the way they were prepared.
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Prepare your Garbanzo Beans Properly
If you listen to health podcasts like me you probably heard before that not everyone digests beans really well. They do have a reputation after all. The key is to prepare them well ! So I’m here to tell you how, with a twist!
Buy them dry
The key to ANY legume is to NOT buy them in a can. Why? Because the industry is always in to shorter preparation times out of efficiency concerns, so they don’t prepare them well. Buy them dry, and you can do just that.
Budget wise, you’ll be happy. A can of organic beans will cost you about a dollar at Aldi. Cheap? NO ! If you buy them like me in bulk at Azure standard , it will costs you $2/ lb ! One cup of garbanzo beans more than double volumes: just this saves you money in the long run. And also saves you valuable nutrients because you do not overcook the beans!
Soak them
Soaking wakes up the plant
Soaking your dried beans remove an anti nutrient from your food: phytic acid. What this acid does is hinder your body’s capacity to take up certain nutrients you need, such as zinc – important for your immune system! If you throw your beans in the pressure cooker without waking the plant by soaking it, you deprive yourself of nutrients that were easy access in the first place!
I recommend soaking overnight, or even 24 hours, so you start the sprouting process ! Sprouting not only wakes the plant but multiplies many times the nutrients contained in the dormant food ! Check the Sprout Book by Doug Evans and you will learn many fascinating things about the nutritional power of spouted beans and seeds!
Go wild and sprout garbanzo beans!
My garbanzo beans are often sprouting 48 hours before I steam them, so they are packed with nutrients ! This is why I don’t recommend blinding trusting the nutrition facts at the end of recipe: much depends on the way food is grown and prepared.
Now what is left is only to cook the beans properly. And that is where I advocate steaming your food, as usual.
Is steam cooking healthy?
My answer is of course: YES ! I’ll say even more: with a GOOD steam cooker, it is the arguably the BEST cooking method, the “Ideal” cooking method my cowriter Christine Bouguet-Joyeux and I argue in our new book released in France “La Cuisson idéale pour votre santé”. Sadly our book is not translated yet, hopefully we’ll get there some day!
The short answer to this question is: yes because:
Steaming cleanses your food by giving it a steam bath
By steaming your food at 202°F /95°C, you heat it just hot enough and gentle enough to penetrate your foods’ flesh and help it to sweat toxines, as you would when you go to your sauna.
Note that I don’t include pressure cooking in my definition of steam cooking! Pressure cooking cooks well over boiling point and kills many nutrients and plant hormones. Besides, it destroys fibers and raises glycemic index.
Steaming preserves your nutrients by cooking it under boiling point (212°F or 100°C).
Your foods cooks at 202°F /95°C.
Steaming keeps your glycemic index low
Gentle steam cooking It is very quick to cook !
By steaming your food you cook gently and fast. It preserves your fibers, makes them easier to digest. By making your fibers softer but keeping them alive, the gentle steam cooker is also keeping your foods’ glycemic index lower.
Steam your beans!
Steamed vs. Boiled beans
Most websites will tell you: after soaking, boil your beans about 30 minutes. I’m here to tell you 1) don’t boil them and 2) 30 minutes is WAY too long! 3) steam them 6 minutes at most!
Don’t boil your beans
Boiling is a a cooking method that heats up your food above boiling temperature. As such, it kills many vitamins, and makes the body’s uptake of your trace minerals harder. This is the reason why I personally recommend steaming them. BONUS: it’s much faster in the Vitaliseur Steam cooker I so much advocate for. ( To learn about it and use my discount code, be sure to go to my “tools and ingredients” page.
The Instant Pot is actually not at all instant!
Why even try pressure cooking? It takes 30 minutes to get an Instant Pot ( or equivalent) ready to cook your food, and then it will be fast. How much would you enjoy getting a cooker ready in less than 10 minutes and cooking your foods as fast for a healthier, tastier result? I am not kidding: The Vitaliseur will make your life much easier !
Boiling Beans 30 minutes is Way too long !
In 30 minutes, not only did you kill many nutrients and negatively affect your body’s capacity to take up nutrients, but also you will have broken a lot of your beans fibers. If you overcook fibers, their glycemic index rises and they will start fermenting in your gut… which is why we end up with gas.
Conversely, in the Vitaliseur, soaked or sprouted garbanzo beans ( and soaked lentils ) only need 5 to 6 minutes to cook! How much time did you actually end up saving just by soaking dried beans ahead of time ? A LOT! And the nutrients.
I find that very fact marvelous when I remind myself that our body’s innate intelligence pushes us to snack for foods that *naturally* – i.e. not in their ultra processed form – would contain nutrients we need. The more nutrient dense our food is, the easier it will be for our bodies to resists ultra palatable foods, and the more forgiving eating some of these foods will hopefully be on us!
Of course, if your body has a hard time digesting raw fibers or beans in general, I recommend you go very slow at first and see how you digest it. If you see no problem, slowly increase the intake, and enjoy!
Other ingredients of this wonderful hummus
Organic Tahini
To people who like me don’t consume much dairy, did you know that sesame is packed with calcium ? Plant calcium is also absorbed much better than cow’s milk calcium !
Fact is, calcium in dairy milk which is absorbed at a rate of 30% ( where does the rest go??) There is also a lot, and more, of highly absorbable calcium in produce: at a rate of 50 percent for green leafy vegetables, in the 20-30% for beans %.
Note: Unhulled sesame contains more calcium than hulled sesame, so I assume tahini is healthier a sesame butter made with hulled sesame you buy in store!
Fresh Garlic
Of course, garlic is an essential ingredient of any hummus ! So I add plenty of it in my recipe. Garlic also is known for its many nutritional advantages, including boosting the immune system and anticarcinogenic properties. This is why I use it most often fresh! I also try – although I can’t always – to let it sit some time after crushing so the enzymes are released which activates its nutrients.
Lemon
Fresh lemon is of course essential to the recipe ! You can’t beat the taste with bottled lemon juice alike !
Oil is not, although I use it to cover my hummus after I finish making it.
Onion
I am a big fan of all vegetables in the onion and garlic family and consume a lot of it. I have not problem digesting it not only because I eat a lot of it but also because steaming it that makes it easier to digest.
In this recipe, onion gives it a bit more of a savory side – rather than sweet – which goes really well with the garlic and sesame. This is my own personal twist, and I like it too much to give it up! give it a try and you’ll see!
My kids have some hummus every day at the pool these days, they dip their carrots in it just before they start the entree salad I bring to the pool!
Bon appétit!
Best Savory, Intense Hummus
Try this savory hummus with a steamed twist ! The onion provides the savory twist, the lemon underlines the wonderful taste of tahini, the garlic gives you the kick ! And extra virgin olive oil is only for deco! My kids love it for snacks at home and at the pool! Meanwhile I teach you how to prepare your legumes fast AND properly so they are easy on your digestive system!
Ingredients
- 1 cup of dry garbanzo beans
- 4 cloves of garlic,
- 2 tbsp organic tahini
- Juice of 3/4 lemon
- 2 tsp of salt - or more to taste
Instructions
- The day before: soak your garbanzo beans in water
- The day of cooking: fill up the steam cooker tank with 1 inch of water and turn on the stove on high heat. Empty the beans water into your plants (they will love it!) Rinse the beans.
- Within 5-7 minutes, the steamer will be hot and steam abundantly, then throw the beans into the steam basket. Cook for 6 minutes, then remove the beans form the steam basket and transfer into your food processor.
- While the beans are cooking, slice the onion (white or yellow, it does not matter much). Once the beans are out, throw the onion in and cook 5 minutes.
- In the food processor, add the garbanzo beans and onion, cover with one cup of water and add the tahini, garlic and salt, and blend until smooth. Then add another cup of water slowly and blend until as smooth as can be ( it may take a few whole minutes!)
- Squeeze the lemon add one cup of water slowly. 1 Then add the lemon and taste!
- Transfer into a bowl and pour some olive oil on top, for deco, and dip your veggies into it!
- It keeps in the fridge up to 10 days, covered with olive oil. Eat with crackers, dip raw carrots or sliced bell peppers into it!
Notes
Tools you'll need :
- Food processor I use: Cuisinart . Food processor I will buy next : Vitamix food processor attachment, that goes with Vitamix Ascent or Venturist series! Better yet, i may get the SmartPrep System !
- Steam cooker I use, and the only one I recommend: Vitaliseur de Marion, Made In France! Check out my blog post "Tools and Ingredients I use" to learn why I love it so much. Make sure to use my discount code, you won't find another one in the US/ Canada ! I recommend the Pack Grand Chef ( Best value, if you want to use the bowl for soups and the mold for cakes) , but the Grand Chef alone is a great value too! Either way, you purchase one you'll get 10% off and sales taxes will be taken out at check out.
More Recipes
My kids love a dip to start eating at the pool after their swim lesson !
Here are two other dips I pack for them:
Try the Parsley Apple Olive oil Veggie dip with your favorite raw veggies! it’s packed with vitamins, sweet and full of flavors! Bonus; it’s packed with high absorbable calcium!
If you and your family like eggplant, you can also spread A French Classic: Aubergine Caviar or Eggplant Dip on some sliced baguettes and sprinkle with your favorite seeds!
More summer kids favorite:
Try our Summer Salad : Shrimp, Crunch and Noodles, or the Kale & Quinoa Lemony Goodness salad. To be sure, my kid’s favorite is the Mediterranean Rice and Tuna Salad! I packed them all to the pool this week, and got many compliments for how yummy it looked, but also how happy my kids were to eat such healthy foods!
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