Make Store-Bought Hummus Taste Homemade With One Extra Step

Whether you eat it as a dip, a spread, or a tasty addition to any meal or snack, there's a lot to love about hummus. If you look at the hummus section in most grocery stores, you're likely to find a wide variety of store-bought options. While having a range of styles and flavors at your fingertips is great, nothing is quite the same as homemade. If you're craving creamy homemade hummus but don't want to make it, don't worry — all you have to do is add a little tahini to transform your container of pre-made hummus into something that tastes like it came from your own kitchen.

Tahini is a key ingredient in hummus. Made from ground sesame seeds, it's creamy, rich, and nutty. Since these are the qualities most people look for in homemade hummus, adding extra tahini is a great way to kick the store-bought stuff up a notch. Just stir in a spoonful or two of tahini and get ready to taste the difference.

Doctoring up your hummus is all about personal preference, so there's no exact recipe to follow. Instead, start by stirring about a tablespoon of tahini into a regular-sized tub of hummus. Give it a taste, and if it's not as flavorful as you'd like, continue adding tahini until you've achieved the hummus of your dreams. Be sure to stir well to ensure your hummus is even and consistent.

Balance is key when it comes to good hummus, so if you add a decadent, fatty ingredient like tahini, it can be helpful to offset the richness with bright, acidic ingredients like lemon juice and salt. Once again, this is all about personal preference, so start with a small pinch of salt and a small squeeze of lemon and then work your way up. Remember, you can always add more acidity, but it's hard to mask it if you overdo it. If you're looking for tahini in the grocery store when you pick up your hummus, you can usually find it in the condiment aisle or the international aisle.

If you don't have a jar of tahini on hand, there are other ways you can make store-bought hummus taste (and even look) a little more special. You eat with your eyes, as they say, and the trick to making store-bought hummus look restaurant-level in a flash is to pay attention to presentation. Try taking it out of the tub and serving it in a shallow bowl, and be sure to create eye-catching swirls on top with the back of a spoon.

You can add other ingredients like olive oil (drizzle it on top for both added flavor and visual interest), herbs like cilantro or parsley, or whole chickpeas. If you want to really change the flavor of your hummus, you can add things like mashed avocado or pesto. Sometimes, simple is the way to go, and a few cracks of fresh black pepper or a sprinkle of paprika can go a long way, too. These tips and tricks work best with plain or classic hummus since it provides a blank slate for add-ins.