This moderately spicy red pepper hummus makes a great party dish. I dress it up with a topping of roasted red peppers combined with pine nuts and seasonings and a drizzle of lemon juice.
Friday night is usually DVD night here, and we normally try to pick something that we can watch as a family. But since our 8-year-old daughter was having a sleep-over at the neighbors’, we were able to watch something a little more adult. We chose Hustle & Flow, which we really liked. Terrence Howard’s performance was excellent.
Since we were planning to eat in front of the TV, I chose something simple: Spicy Red Pepper Hummus stuffed in whole wheat pita bread with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and a few calamata olives.
Adding jarred roasted red peppers to hummus is a great way to bump up the flavor, allowing you to decrease the amount of tahini and fat while still having a rich-tasting hummus that appeals to all tastes. I love harrisa in this recipe, but if you don’t have any, try using any hot pepper paste or sauce.
More Hummus Recipes
I love hummus so much that I make it a variety of ways—some of which technically aren’t hummus because they don’t use chickpeas. Here are some favorites:
- Hummus in the Blender
- Pimento Cheese-Style Hummus
- Black-Eyed Pea Hummus
- Walnut and Kidney Bean Spread (Lobio)
- All 20 of my low-fat hummus recipes
Spicy Red Pepper Hummus
Ingredients
- 3-4 cloves garlic
- 3 cups cooked chickpeas (2 15-ounce cans)
- cooking liquid from the beans (or water)
- juice of 1/2-1 lemon
- 2 tablespoons tahini (omit if cutting fat)
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- Harrisa or other hot pepper sauce, to taste*
- chipotle chili powder (optional)
- salt (to taste)
- 10 ounces roasted red peppers
Optional Topping
- toasted pinenuts
- additional chopped roasted red peppers
- lemon juice
- 1-2 pinches powdered chipotle pepper
- 1 sprinkle sumac
Instructions
- Throw the garlic into a running food processor (see Notes for blender option). Add the chickpeas and begin processing. Add the lemon juice and tahini. (I used half of a very large yet mild homegrown lemon. For regular lemons, I’d start with half, check the flavor, and add more if needed.) If needed, add 1/4 cup bean cooking liquid or water, just enough so that the chickpeas become a smooth paste. Add the cumin, the harrisa, chipotle powder, salt, and half of the roasted red peppers. Process until smooth. Taste for spiciness and add more harrisa as needed.
- Add the remaining roasted red peppers and pulse to coarsely chop.
- If you want, make a topping for the hummus by combining a tablespoon of toasted pine nuts with 2-3 tablespoons of chopped pepper. Add lemon juice and chipotle pepper to taste. Drizzle the top of the hummus with a little lemon juice (and if you really want spicy, add a little of the juice from a jar of pickled jalapeños.) Mound the topping in the center. Sprinkle with sumac.
Notes
Nutritional info is approximate.
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Original 2006 photo
Updated June 10, 2016 with a new photo and optional toppings.
Kristen
November 14, 2009 at 3:15 pmThis was wonderful! Thank you!!
Fiona
November 24, 2010 at 10:16 amThis is officially my go-to recipe now for Red Pepper Hummus! I have tried several, but the flavors were never quite right. I absolutely love this one! Thank you for posting your delicious recipes! I might try adding a T of flax oil next time and see if that’s any good too.
Fiona
November 24, 2010 at 7:19 pmBlech, I tried adding flax oil and it was not a good addition! The flavor of flax is too powerful and contrasts too much with the other flavors in the hummus. The recipe is lovely just as it is.
Wendy Alimo
January 4, 2012 at 2:16 pmThis is the BEST!!! Before I made this, I had only eaten the commercial type found in the stores. This is SO much better. Love the spice that the garlic gives to the dip–I love garlic!-and the little bits of red pepper add great appeal. Don’t hesitate to make this–if you like roasted red pepper hummus (and garlic!) you will absolutely love this!
Adeline
February 10, 2012 at 6:34 pmI never made hummus before, and always wanted to try but there was always that commercial red pepper hummus so easy to buy, and so I never did make my own. I finished a 28 day juice fast yesterday and started Dr. Fuhrman’s 6 week plan today, so I needed something lower in fat, that brand has 6 g fat in 2 Tbs. I figure this recipe made about 5 cups, and we each ate more like 1/2 cup, so the tahini put into the recipe had 17 g fat in 2Tbs, that means it was only 1.7 g fat in a half cup serving? WAAAAY less than the Sa*** brand. And it tasted as good but maybe fresher, and this recipe was easy and turned out EXCELLENTLY!!! My kids (3.8 yr old twins) dug right in and when they ran out of pita chips, they asked me for some of my veggies ( radishes and carrots) to dip into the hummus and finish off what was in their little dishes. And then, they LICKED their fingers and then their little dishes clean. I did put one fresh little hot red pepper in there instead of sauce though, red hot is high in sodium, and the garbanzos I used had pretty high sodium already. And I cut back on the chipotle so there wasn’t too much heat for the rest of the family. But you sure know your stuff. This was fabulous! Thank you so much for this blog, it’s really encouraging me about eating again after the fast. I was pretty anxious about salad dressings but I am going to try some suggestions about ingredients for seasonings and thickening and emulsifying dressings without oils.
Christina
March 24, 2012 at 6:51 pmThis hummus has become a staple in the house…..delicious!
Annie
June 13, 2012 at 8:09 amThis is by far my favorite hummus recipe!! I omit the tahini b/c of all the fat, and it still tastes delicious. I also use 1 tsp of the chipotle chili powder, which gives it a nice kick.
Ken
May 31, 2015 at 7:43 pmCan this recipe be done in a Vitamix blender? If so, is there anything I should be concerned with before attempting? Although I am a grown adult, I am really new to cooking.
Susan Voisin
May 31, 2015 at 9:50 pmYes you can! You might need to add some extra liquid so that it’s not too thick.
Sheila
April 6, 2019 at 3:21 pmSusan, when you say roasted red pepper in your recipes, do you mean a jar of them or roasting our own red pepper? Love your recipes and going through now all the recipes you have given us the Weight Watcher’s points! WW should hire you as a consultant to make us vegans happier!!
Susan Voisin
April 6, 2019 at 10:57 pmI use the jarred roasted peppers in something like this, but you can always roast them yourself. I’m so glad you find the WW points helpful! It would certainly be nice if WW would pay me. 😉
Jackie
July 5, 2019 at 5:31 pmI love this recipe! I read another post you did about eating salads when you don’t want to. I liked your advice about putting a pile of hummus on top of your salad–that sounded like an excellent idea! I only lacked hummus! And so I made this recipe. I wasn’t sure where to begin with the hot spices, so I added harissa paste and chipotle in half-teaspoonsful until it tasted right to me. I think I used maybe 1.5 teaspoons of each. I tossed in the roasted red pepper I had on hand, which worked, but I’ll try for more accurate quantities next time. This was awesome on my salad in place of my usual half cup of chickpeas (with some raw “ranch” vegan dressing underneath). I’m trying to follow “eat to live,” and there’s a lot of salad and a lot of beans, but minimal oil and salt. Your recipes are helping me quite a bit!