Hummus is a dip/spread that is made from chickpeas. In fact, hummus is the Arabic word for chickpea. You may notice that many hummus recipes call for garbanzo beans, not chickpeas. Don’t worry, garbanzo is the Spanish translation of chickpea. They are called garbanzo beans in Italy.

Hummus is one of the oldest foods dating back to ancient Egypt. We know that chickpeas were used quite frequently over 7,000 years ago.

Hummus (a translation of the Arabic: حمّص‎; also spelled hamos, houmous, hommos, hommus, hummos, hummous or humus; see romanization of Arabic) is a Levantine Arab[1] dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. It is a popular food throughout the Middle East.

Everyone in the Middle East make their hummus different. Some like their hummus recipe to have a strong lemon flavor, some have an overwhelming garlic flavor, and some hummus has a spicy tone.  When making your own hummus, you have to keep your own taste buds in mind. If a recipe calls for a lot of tahini and you don’t like tahini, scale down the amount. The fun about Middle Eastern cooking is that the ingredient amounts aren’t set in stone. Add a little of this and take away of that and you still have a culinary masterpiece!

Since there is a million different hummus recipes out there.  Here my recipe that’s been used by my family and handed down for generation.