The Effortless Secret To The Fluffiest Homemade Hummus Ever

Good hummus is creamy and silky with a light, fluffy texture and toppings like roasted pine nuts and shredded red peppers. It's garlicky and savory with hints of roasted sesame, and sometimes garden herbs like thyme or basil. Good hummus is one of the tastiest appetizers, but it's hard to find the perfect hummus at the grocery store, and making your own hummus can be daunting. Texture isn't the only thing to account for in buying hummus; at the store you'll find quite a few brands that just don't hit the mark. They can often be bland or have a heavy, thick texture. You may want to avoid pickle-centric hummus and gravitate toward something more classic, like Fresh Cravings Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, which Chowhound chose as a top store-bought hummus option for its flavor and whipped texture.

Even the best store-bought hummus isn't quite the same as homemade or what you can find at restaurants. There's something about fresh-made, expertly blended hummus that's just different, and it's not as difficult as you might think to achieve. There are a few ways to improve the texture of your hummus, like soaking and peeling your chickpeas. Some say you should use rehydrated, dried chickpeas and others swear by the canned version. But there is one trick for fluffy homemade hummus that transcends the others; it works no matter what kind of chickpeas you use, the type of oil, or the amount of garlic. For the fluffiest homemade hummus, use a blender and blend for longer than usual.

It's common to whip up a batch of homemade hummus in just five minutes, but that time often includes gathering ingredients, chopping, and mixing. Instead, you want to dedicate a full five minutes just to blending your hummus so you can achieve the fluffiest and silkiest result. You could use a food processor to make a pretty good batch, but a better trick is to use a blender like this Ninja Professional Plus Blender for the job. 

Blenders work differently than food processors, incorporating vortex action with smaller, high-power and low-torque blades. The blender's vortex action will mix your hummus as it processes the ingredients. Blending your hummus for longer than you think you need to (again, for about five minutes), breaks down the chickpeas into finer pieces — ultimately into a paste. Blending for longer also aerates your hummus, infusing air into the mixture as it whips around the inside of the blender and creates a fluffy texture. One more trick to using a blender for hummus is to blend all the ingredients hot, minimizing the chance of creating a paste that sticks to the sides of the blender and never touches the blade. When you add your chickpeas hot — along with some of the liquid they've been cooked or canned in — they will remain pliable instead of becoming sticky.

You can use any kind of chickpeas. You don't really have to peel them, and you don't have to use special oil or garlic cooking techniques to achieve the fluffiest and most flavor-infused hummus. The standard recipe of chickpeas, olive oil, lemon, tahini, and garlic is very straightforward: Toss all of the ingredients into a blender and hit the button. But there are a few extra steps you can take to craft your hummus into a silky, fluffy, and flavorful appetizer dip.

Dried chickpeas create a better flavor than canned for homemade hummus because they don't carry with them the tinny flavor of the can. You can soak your chickpeas overnight for rehydration and boil them with some baking soda to make them softer and loosen their peels. Alternatively, you can cook your chickpeas in a pressure cooker to break them down. You can also dump your hot chickpeas into a strainer and run cold water over them to help loosen the skins, but don't cool them down too much if you're planning on blending ingredients hot. As you're blending, slowly add one or two ice cubes to help create a smoother texture.