Hello! It’s Megan Hutson from @mamaofwholelittles, back with another easy and family-friendly recipe – as always! This time of year we all need more ‘easy’ in our lives, but easy doesn’t have to mean more processed junk from the grocery store. I promise all this recipe will give you is a few extra dishes but washing them will take less time than getting your toddlers into the car to go to the grocery store – I call that a win!
I have always loved hummus, even before I began eating a healthy, well-balanced diet. Hummus with veggies, on wraps, with crackers – you name it and I love it if it involves hummus. However, I know for some, the regular flavor of hummus can become quite boring after a while. My favorite flavor of hummus is roasted red pepper, but I wanted to create a new flavor that would be just as irresistible. I present to you this deliciously refreshing Organic Tomato Basil Hummus!
I honestly think this hummus would be great all year round, but it is perfect now as it’s just in time for the big game ahead. I personally can’t wait to serve this as a super easy game day appetizer so that everyone can have an indulgent tasting, but healthy, snack.
To make this recipe, you start with organic garbanzo beans. I prefer to soak and cook the beans for easier digestibility, but to make this the easiest recipe ever you can skip that part and just use a can of organic garbanzo beans instead. You’ll also need organic tahini, which is a paste made from sesame seeds. Organic tahini can be hard to find, at least where I live, but I promise it is worth hunting down. I have tried several hummus recipes with no tahini and they always turn out bland. Tahini gives hummus that amazing thick texture and it amps up any flavor you choose to go with! I have been able to find tahini at Trader Joe’s and our local grocery store, H-E-B, usually in with the ethnic foods or possibly in the baking aisle.
The star of the show in this recipe is Pure Flavor®’s Organic Luna® Sweets Cocktail Tomatoes. With Pure Flavor®’s greenhouse growing capabilities, these medium size, juicy red tomatoes are filled with lycopene, iron and Vitamin C, while also delivering a healthy punch of calcium and potassium! I bet you didn’t know tomatoes were capable of so much, did you? Something to keep in mind when adding tomatoes to hummus is the moisture they contain. I love a thick hummus, so this was something I was extra cautious about. Since Pure Flavor®’s Organic Luna® Sweets are a great medium size, they are crisp like a grape tomato and add just enough moisture to move this hummus through the blender with ease – instead of starting and stopping to scrape down the sides like I do when making a traditional hummus.
I’m not sure who thought to make the tomato and basil combination a thing many years ago, but I think we can all agree that they weren’t wrong and adding it to this hummus is no exception. Why are these so good together?! Not only is the flavor out of this world, but basil adds another layer of nutrition and flavor to this amazingly easy hummus. Basil offers many antioxidants, has anti-inflammatory benefits, aids with digestion, and many other things that your body needs, giving you just another reason to make this now!
You will toss all the ingredients into a food processor, blend for a minute or two, depending on your blender, and then serve it however you’d like. Bam, easy!
Now that you know how to make this easy hummus, let me give you one more reason why you should make it. Have a family of semi-picky eaters at home? I sure do, and the experts on this will tell you that one of the best ways to get kiddos to try a new food is by using a delicious dip to make that new or non-preferred food less intimidating. With a recipe as easy as this one, your kids could make it with you, which is another way to get them eating new foods!
Now that you’ve heard all the reasons to make this recipe, there’s really no excuse not to try it and I truly hope that it becomes a family favorite for you. I look forward to connecting with you again soon!
For Megan’s full Organic Tomato Basil Hummus recipe, click here.
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