Learn how to make instant pot hummus. No pre-soaking is required for beans. Almost everything is a basic ingredient of the pantry, so you can prepare homemade hummus and customize it to your liking at any time!
INSTANT POTAMIS!
I can’t help but make that the first thing that comes to mind every time I write the words ‘instant pot hummus’
.
But it’s much more than fun to say. It is the perfect easy appetizer to prepare if you have guests. Put a plate of vegetables, tortilla or pita chips and watch the crowd go crazy. There’s something about whipping chickpeas with thaini and garlic that people love.
The hummus made in the instant pot is smooth and creamy. I like the hummus to be slightly spicy and made from scratch, and preferably with zero pre-soaking of the beans or any of that nonsense.
Can I say that instant hummus is about to save you a lot of money? Store-bought hummus costs about $4 per container and sells out super fast around here. You can get almost four times that amount of hummus for about the same price if you make hummus in your instant pot.
Making instant hummus is not difficult. All you need are dried chickpeas (or chickpeas), tahini, tons of garlic (or as little as you want), olive oil, lemon juice, ground cumin, and salt. Most of these are pantry staples. It’s easy to see why I prefer to make my own. Plus, this makes a ton of hummus and will easily last you a week in the fridge.
Like many people, we go through tons of hummus at home. I use it as an extension on lazy girls’ lunch sandwiches, as a carrot stick sauce, serve it along with my chicken gyroscopes, instant meat shawarma and even my grilled Persian chicken. See why I needed an instant hummus recipe to reduce the amount of hummus we bought!
Homemade hummus is lighter in calories, has a bolder taste, and is easier on the wallet! It’s something I often do to have on hand on weekends so we have something healthy to eat on Saturday nights in front of the TV.
What
is hummus? Hummus is
a sauce or spreadable made from boiled or cooked chickpeas that have been mixed with olive oil, tahini, and lemon juice.
How to cook chickpeas for instant pot hummus:
The good thing, scratching that, the great news is that even though we’re using dried beans for today’s recipe, No pre-soaking is required! When you make instant hummus, all you need to do is pour the chickpeas with the water and a couple of cloves of garlic and let it cook until they are super soft. Garlic is optional. But if you’re a fan, this will infuse some of that flavor into chickpeas!
Regular chickpeas usually take about 25-27 minutes. Also, 30 minutes of natural pressure release in the instant pot if you are using them for salads, soups or stews. For hummus, I recommend cooking chickpeas for longer. This makes hummus super smooth and creamy without your food processor doing all that work.
To cook chickpeas in the pressure cooker, all you need to do is rinse the chickpeas, add them to the instant pot along with water and a couple of garlic cloves. Seal the valve and let the beans cook for 38-40 minutes at high pressure manually. If you’ve had the beans in your pantry for a while, they’ll take a little longer to cook than if you just bought beans recently.
<img src="https://littlespicejar.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Instant-Pot-Hummus-3.jpg" alt="
chickpeas boiled in
instant pot” />
How to make instant pot hummus:
When the instant pot timer turns off, wait 30 minutes for the natural release of pressure. This is important because the chickpeas will continue to cook a little here. Before draining the beans, save 1 cup of the chickpea cooking liquid. We’ll use that when we make hummus.
TIP: To make the hummus extra smooth, mix the garlic, tahini, and lemon juice first. Then add the rest of the ingredients. Something magical happens when lemon juice and tahini come together in the food processor. This gives the tahini a chance to loosen up a bit and allows the garlic to scatter its flavor everywhere.
Once the tahini is mixed and aerated , we will add the olive oil, chickpeas and chickpea liquid in batches. Even if your food processor is large enough to hold everything in one batch, I suggest adding 1/2 of the olive oil, 1/2 chickpeas, and a tablespoon of cooking liquid at a time.
You probably won’t end up using the entire cup of chickpea liquid. I used a total of 3 tablespoons of the chickpea liquid and went with 1/2 cup of lemon juice. This made the hummus acidic and loose and was perfect for our taste! We like our hummus a little finer and more acidic. If you reduce lemon juice to 1/3 cup, you’ll need a little more of that cooking liquid to compensate, so you may end up using about 1/2 cup total or so.
Serve and store leftover instant
hummus
I like to let the hummus cool a little in the refrigerator before serving. Hot hummus just isn’t my thing, but it’s good to go to once you’ve mixed it. I like to drop spoonfuls of hummus into my serving bowl. Drizzle it with olive oil. To finish, sprinkle a generous pinch of za’atar (affiliate link), smoked paprika or sumac. Hummus tastes better as it settles, so I suggest doing this a day before when you plan to serve it.
Leftover hummus can go into an airtight container and can be refrigerated for up to 7 days. I’ve tried freezing it before, and hummus can freeze. But I find that it gets a little looser once you thaw it. So if you plan to freeze a little, make it a little thicker! Put it in an airtight, freezer-safe container and leave enough room for expansion! You can freeze hummus for about 3-4 months.
And there you have it! There’s no reason to go out and buy small containers of hummus when you can easily make instant hummus at home and customize it however you want!
