Pesto Hummus

This idea for Pesto Hummus came to me while I was in the process of making hummus. In addition to chickpeas and fresh lemon I also had tons of garlic to roast and a large handful of fresh basil.

First I cut the tops off the heads of garlic and drizzled with olive oil and generously seasoned with sea salt. I wrapped them in tinfoil and put them in a preheated 375F oven for about 45 minutes.

Once they were fork-tender I knew they were done and I was able to squeeze the cloves easily out with tongs.

Woah, looks like a lot of garlic but the flavour is so mellow after roasting it I decided just to add it all; why not?!

Separately I rinsed a can of chickpeas and added them to a container big enough to hold all of the ingredients.

Side note: I have bought a bag of dried chickpeas before. This is a great money saver, the massive bags are very cheap. All you do is boil them, drain them and then divide them into bags and freeze them. If you have the time it is great to have portioned on hand and it allows you to control how cooked they are. But for years I had no clue chickpeas came dried ...canned chickpeas are just fine, they are a great time saver!

I washed the basil and added that to the container along with the roasted cloves of garlic, juice of two lemons, sea salt, freshly cracked pepper and enough water just to allow the mixture to purée.  I used my hand held immersion blender but you could definitly use a food processor or a conventional blender. 

Once the mixture was pretty smooth I drizzled in a bit of olive oil, checked for seasoning and blitzed it one last time. 

Wow! What a delicious combination of fresh basil, lemon and the understated flavour of roasted garlic! I will definitly make this again; this was a perfect, easy to make guilt-free snack. Traditionally pesto has huge calories with the addition of large amounts of olive oil, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. This high fibre hummus allows the flavour profile of pesto without all the fat!

I was pleasantly surprised that the hummus kept it's vibrant green colour from the basil; that was probably due to the amount of citrus in it. I stored this in the refrigerator but I don't see it lasting long since this is tasty enough to share...I love when that works out!