🥙 LUNCH
Hummus
Silky-smooth chickpea and tahini puree pooled with olive oil, scooped up with warm pita, a Levantine lunch of devotion.
Israeli · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 60 min
~843 cal · 29g protein · 75g carbs · 52g fat · 18g fiber · 12g sugars · 7g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Hummus is a cornerstone of the food of Israel and the whole Levant, eaten as a full lunch as much as a dip, at dedicated hummusiya joints where a bowl of it, warm and freshly made, is a meal in itself. Few dishes inspire more passionate debate over who makes it best.
The finest versions are extraordinarily smooth, achieved by cooking the chickpeas until very soft and blending them with a generous amount of , lemon, and garlic. Served warm in a wide bowl with a well of good olive oil, a dusting of paprika and cumin, and toppings like whole chickpeas, ful, or a boiled egg, it is scooped up with pillowy pita and raw onion.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
- 2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 lemons, juiced
- 1 tbsp ground cumin and paprika
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 4 pita bread, to serve
Instructions
- 1Cook the soaked chickpeas with the baking soda until very soft, almost falling apart.✎ Chef’s noteCook the chickpeas until they are mushy-soft, well past al dente. Firm chickpeas make grainy hummus; the smoothness depends on this.
- 2Blend the hot chickpeas with the tahini, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, and a little cooking water until silky.
- 3Spread in a wide bowl, making a well in the centre.
- 4Pool olive oil in the well, dust with paprika, and serve warm with pita.
Levantine hummusiya tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv turned street food into an art, with hummus eaten warm as a meal, sabich stuffed with fried eggplant and egg, and shakshuka served in the pan. Its kitchens draw on Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Palestinian, and North African traditions at once.
🗺️
Israel. Several dishes here have documented arrival dates rather than ancient roots. Shakshuka is North African, brought by Libyan and Tunisian Jewish immigrants and only widely popular from the 1990s; sabich was assembled in Ramat Gan in the early 1960s from an Iraqi-Jewish Shabbat breakfast of egg, fried aubergine and amba. Hummus and falafel are Levantine and genuinely contested, with Palestinian claims actively made.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Israel
SabichPita stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, hummus, salad, and a drizzle of tangy amba and tahini.
Jerusalem Mixed GrillMeorav Yerushalmi: chicken and offal seared fast with onion, cumin, and turmeric, stuffed into laffa.
MalawachA flaky, buttery Yemenite-Israeli pan-fried flatbread served with grated tomato and zhug.
Browse all Israel recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender.
Storing it: Thickens as it sits. Reheat with extra water or milk to loosen, and keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated.
Make it an Israel meal
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RugelachDessert
Jerusalem Mixed GrillDinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Hummus?
Silky-smooth chickpea and tahini puree pooled with olive oil, scooped up with warm pita, a Levantine lunch of devotion.
Where does Hummus come from?
Hummus is an Israeli dish from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Can Hummus be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Hummus recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Hummus safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Hummus take to make?
About 75 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 60 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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