Hummus with Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Red Pepper

I make a lot of variations of hummus and I prefer to make it with little or no added fat to keep it as anti-inflammatory as possible. Some months ago I realized that I could add a baked and peeled sweet potato to the hummus and it would bump up the nutrition and result in a nice creamy texture without adding fat. Since then I have been adding sweet potato to our hummus.

Yesterday I decided to add roasted red peppers to increase the nutrition further. The resulting hummus was still creamy and flavorful and had even more nutrition and still no added fat. This is definitely another experiment that worked out well. I like to use hummus with raw veggies dippers or on a green salad. When I use hummus in place of salad dressing I also like to add a little sriracha on top of the hummus. Here is the hummus I made for our salads this week.

Hummus with Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Red Pepper
Makes 5 cups – or 10 ½ cup servings

Ingredients:

4 cups very tender cooked garbanzo beans (2/3 of a pound), warm would be best
1 medium sweet potato (approximately 8 - 10 ounces), baked and peeled
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
3 roasted red peppers, stems and seeds removed
½ lemon, zested and juiced
2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
1 tablespoon hot crushed peppers (wet hots)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
cooking liquid from beans (I used 1 ½ cups)

Directions:

Place everything but the bean cooking liquid in your food processor and process until combined. Now add the bean cooking liquid a ladle at a time until the hummus is the texture you desire. Remember that the hummus will get considerably firmer as it chills.

The hubby and I have very different ideas regarding the perfect texture of hummus. I like mine thinner, and he likes his very thick. The hummus pictured on our salad above is the middle ground between what the two of us like. You may need more or less liquid than I used depending on your preference.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 152.86
Calories From Fat (7%) - 11.03

Total Fat - 1.31g
Saturated Fat - 0.14g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 479.24mg
Potassium - 358.06mg
Total Carbohydrates - 30.19g
Fiber - 6.05g
Sugar - 3.02g
Protein - 5.7g

Comments:

This hummus has a mild but interesting flavor. You can taste the red pepper, cumin and lemon but none of them are dominant. Interestingly the sweet potato is more a texture than a flavor. Even knowing the sweet potato was in the hummus I couldn’t taste it.

Each ½ cup serving of this hummus contains approximately 5,050IU of vitamin A, 60mg of vitamin C, 45mg of calcium, 90mcg of folate, 110mg of phosphorus, and 40mg of magnesium. Not bad for something that I using on my salad in place of salad dressing.

I specifically use warm chickpeas because I think the hummus gets creamier when the chickpeas are warm, or even hot. If you are using canned garbanzo beans you can rinse and drain them and then add water and put them in the microwave to warm them up before processing.

Unrelated note:

I got really behind posting recipes this weekend with the snow. It may take me a few days to get caught up since the hubby and I are going shopping tomorrow.

My schedule is fairly packed today. I have to exercise, clean a little, check on my parents, finish researching juicers so we can get that ordered today, and then I will be back with another recipe or two.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and stay warm.