Easy roasted red pepper hummus recipe with sweet red bell peppers, chickpeas, garlic, and tahini. This recipe is simple to make and makes hummus that’s so much better than store-bought. Jump to the Red Pepper Hummus Recipe
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Homemade Roasted Red Pepper Hummus Recipe — It’s So Much Better Than Store-Bought
After falling in love with how easy it is to make hummus at home, we decided to play around with some of our favorite store-bought hummus flavors. This hummus with spiced beef, feta, and mint is another. This time we’re sharing our roasted red pepper hummus recipe — it’s creamy, smooth and so delicious. Roasted bell peppers add a smoky sweetness to the hummus. We roast the peppers at home (it’s really easy), but you could just as easily use jarred roasted peppers.
You asked for more hummus recipes. So here we go. Adding roasted bell peppers to hummus is one of our favorite ways to spice hummus up.
If you’ve seen our original hummus recipe then you know that making the best hummus at home is easy. This red pepper hummus recipe is simple, too. In fact, all we’ve done is add two roasted red peppers to our original hummus recipe.
If you haven’t seen our original recipe, here’s our best hummus tip: To make the smoothest hummus rivaling the tubs you buy at the store, it isn’t about what you add to your food processor, it’s the order in which you add ingredients to your food processor.
Seriously, it’s that easy. Tahini and lemon juice go in first. Then, before you add anything else, turn on the food processor and let it run for a minute or so. This step helps to cream or whip the tahini and lemon juice ensuring the creamiest homemade hummus. You can find tahini at the store, but for the best red pepper hummus, make your own tahini using our easy tahini recipe.
By the way, this recipe uses canned chickpeas, but you can just as easily use your own home cooked chickpeas. Click over to our tutorial showing you how to cook dried chickpeas to see how we do it.
Now that you know the secret to the best hummus, let’s talk about how to roast red peppers.
How to Roast Peppers
Most stores nowadays sell jars of roasted bell peppers, so if you don’t feel like roasting your own, feel free to use the jarred peppers. If you do wish to roast your own peppers, to make things simple, we like to remove the core then cut the peppers into a few flat pieces.
This way, we can place them, skin-side up, onto a baking sheet, slide them under the broiler and broil until the pepper skin has charred.
See the photo below — See how charred the skin is?
It only takes 10 minutes to roast the peppers. After that, we add the peppers to a resealable plastic bag or a bowl covered with plastic wrap and set the peppers aside. They steam a little, which helps the skin pull away from the pepper — making it extra easy to peel.
Serve this with your very own homemade flatbread! With a few simple ingredients and about 1 hour of hands-off proofing time, you can make soft and fluffy flatbread from scratch.
What do you think? Are you ready to skip the store-bought tub and make your own roasted red pepper hummus recipe at home?
You May Also Like
- Since you’ve got tahini on hand, give our Dreamy Tahini Sauce a try. It’s really tasty and goes on just about anything!
- If you are like us and love chickpeas, try this Fresh Chickpea Salad with Lemon and Dill or our Herby Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad — they are both so good.
- For another recipe that called for bell peppers, try our Easy Stuffed Peppers with Sausage and Spinach.
Recipe updated, originally posted April 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear and added a quick recipe video. – Adam and Joanne
Irresistible Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
When we first figured out how to make our own hummus, we were shocked at how easy (and fast) it is. With just a few simple tricks, you really can make creamy smooth hummus at home. Plus, since it really is so easy, we love adding extra flavor like sweet roasted red peppers. Two things here. First, we use canned chickpeas, which is much, much quicker than using dried. Some swear by soaking and cooking their own dried chickpeas, but we’re just not that organized and love that canned chickpeas means we can enjoy our hummus in 10 minutes. Second, our recipe calls for tahini, a creamy paste made from sesame seeds. You can usually find tahini in larger grocery stores or specialty markets, or you can actually make it at home.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 whole red bell peppers (substitute about 3/4 cup chopped jarred roasted red peppers)
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas or 1 1/2 cups (250 grams) cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice, about 1 large lemon
1/4 cup (60 ml) tahini, see our homemade tahini recipe
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
2 to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 ml) water or aquafaba, see notes
Salt to taste
Directions
- Roast Peppers
1Move an oven rack so that it is about 5 inches from the broiler. Turn oven broiler on.
2Remove core of peppers then cut into large flat pieces. Arrange pepper pieces, skin-side up, on a baking sheet. Broil 5 to 10 minutes until the peppers skin has charred.
3Add peppers to a resealable plastic bag, seal then wait 10 to 15 minutes until cool enough to handle. Or, add peppers to a bowl then cover with plastic wrap and wait 10 to 15 minutes. Gently peel away the charred pepper skin and discard. Reserve 1 to 2 pieces of the peeled roasted pepper pieces to use as a garnish when serving then roughly chop the rest.
- Make Hummus
1In the bowl of a food processor, combine the tahini and lemon juice and process for 1 minute, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl then process for 30 seconds more. This extra time helps “whip” or “cream” the tahini, making the hummus smooth and creamy.
2Add the olive oil, minced garlic, cumin, and a 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the whipped tahini and lemon juice. Process for 30 seconds, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl then process another 30 seconds or until well blended.
3Open, drain, and rinse the chickpeas. Add half of the chickpeas to the food processor and process for 1 minute. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl, then add remaining chickpeas and process until thick and quite smooth; 1 to 2 minutes.
4Add the roasted peppers and continue to process for 1 to 2 minutes or until smooth. If the hummus is too thick or still has tiny bits of chickpea, with the food processor turned on, slowly add 1 to 3 tablespoons of water or aquafaba until you are happy with the consistency.
5Taste for salt and adjust as needed. Finely chop the reserved peppers. Spoon hummus into a bowl, make a small well in the middle and add the chopped peppers. Store homemade hummus in an airtight container and refrigerate up to one week.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- How to Cook Chickpeas: You can use canned or home-cooked chickpeas for this recipe. To see how we cook dried chickpeas, see our simple tutorial here. We have included three methods including how to do it in a slow cooker.
- Aquafaba is the starchy liquid in a can of beans (or the bean cooking liquid). You can use this instead of water in the last step of the recipe. Before using, taste the liquid to see how salty it is. If it is salty, consider holding some of the salt called for in the ingredient list back, and then season to taste after adding the aquafaba.
- Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values. We omitted salt from the calculations since you will need to add to your tastes.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
This is the best Red Pepper Hummus I’ve ever had! It’s the perfect combination of tart lemon juice, tahini, earthy chickpeas, and smoky roasted peppers. I’ll be making it often.
I’m trying to eat healthier and this hummus is great served with fresh veggies. I made your traditional hummus yesterday and since I had some roasted red bell peppers on hand, I decided to make your red bell pepper hummus as well. I did add a little extra tahini to the red bell pepper hummus as I enjoy the taste of the tahini coming through. I also added a tiny bit more cumin as well. These are both great recipes and they will now take their place right beside your black bean burgers which I make every other week (and double the recipe). Doubling the recipe gives me 8 burgers — I freeze some and refrigerate the others. You have wonderful recipes and I really enjoy trying them.
I absolutely love this recipe! I made a couple tweeks for my taste. Since I use dried chickpeas I add 2 TSP of salt and I heat it up with a half a jar of red jalapenos 😄 Beautiful!
It’s a really good sign when you can’t stop yourself from using a rubber spatula to get every last bit of hummus out of the blender. This is a fantastic recipe and true to its title. This will be a regular at our house for sure. Thank you so much for sharing it.
I just made this. I think I got happy with the aquafaba, because it’s less thick than before. It is so delicious! Do you have a recipe for making hummus with sun dried tomatoes? I may try your flat bread next. BTW, I cooked my chickpeas, and made my own tahini from your recipes. Thanks – Big Fan
Hi Grace, So happy you enjoyed it. We do not have a recipe for sun dried tomato hummus, but you can blend them in (just like you do with the roasted peppers in this recipe).
Just made. The consistency is so smooth and creamy. Only thing I didn’t like was that I found the lemon juice a bit overpowering.