A Chef's Top Tips For Making Hummus With Dried Chickpeas

If you've made homemade hummus before, then you probably used canned chickpeas to make it happen. But, did you know that you can ditch the can and simply use dried chickpeas instead? To find out everything we know about making hummus with dried chickpeas instead of canned chickpeas, Daily Meal spoke with an expert: Jilbert El-Zmetr, Chef and Founder of Laziza in Brooklyn, New York.

To use dried chickpeas for hummus, you are going to need to soak and boil them before they can be blended. Soak them for about eight to 10 hours — overnight will work perfectly — in plenty of water. Keep in mind that they will double in size when soaked, so take that into consideration when adding the water. Further, El-Zmetr recommends adding a little bit of baking soda into the water because it will help soften the chickpea skins ahead of the boiling process. After soaking, El-Zmetr says, "You should boil them until they totally fall apart. Skim off any of the skins that rise to the surface, which will help your hummus be even more smooth and silky."

After the soaking and boiling steps, all that's left to do is to combine all of the ingredients to make a delicious, homemade hummus. El-Zmetr recommends using a food processor rather than an immersion blender. He explains that immersion blenders don't work too well with viscous liquids like hummus. He adds, "I would recommend using a food processor with an extremely sharp blade to get the best results and [the] ability for everything to come together nicely."

Next, there are two steps involved in blending everything together. El-Zmetr says, "Make sure you process your garlic, tahini, salt, and lemon juice with a little ice water before putting in the cooked chickpeas — this helps with consistency and smoothness." Once that step is done, add the prepared chickpeas, and blend again until the hummus has a smooth consistency. If you need a recipe to get started, you can use our creamy homemade hummus or our easy homemade hummus — just make sure to follow El-Zmetr's instructions on how to work with dried chickpeas, as these recipes call for canned chickpeas.