Pesto Hummus (Or the Dip/Dressing I’ve Been Putting on EVERYTHING)

Hello hello, beautiful people!!

I know it’s been a minute since I shared a recipe on here – truth be told, I’ve been cooking up a store but 1) it’s mostly been in the dark after work and 2) it was nothing super interesting. I have to say though, I did a huge haul from Thrive Market (not sponsored – oh how I wish?) and just having some new-to-me ingredients has been fun! Stay tuned for some of those coming in a favorites roundup next week…

Another thing I found myself eating almost on the daily was a version of this homemade pesto hummus. I’ll let you in a on a little secret – when I’m running low on groceries I tend to throw random things together on top of quinoa to bring to work for lunch. Occasionally it’s gross, but usually it’s fine. This time? It was GOLD. Last week I saw that we had a container of hummus and one with pesto and was like DING DING DING LET’S DO THIS. I swirled them together, thinned it out with a little warm water, and boom. Mucho flavor, fiber and protein.

While I proceeded to put this dressing/dip situation on every lunch I ate for the following four days, it did occur to me that I could probably make it myself, and with cleaner ingredients to boot. Store-bought pesto can be extremely convenient, but I also know it has a ton of unnecessary sodium and usually some other added business. No bueno. This week I made my own pesto hummus and UGH. It was delicious. I added walnuts instead of pine nuts because that ish is expensive and put a bunch of lemon since warmer weather makes me crave citrus. I think if you wanted to, you could add greek yogurt to this for a thicker, creamier dip, or thin it out for a salad dressing kind of thing. V versatile, v easy, v tasty.

Pesto Hummus

juice of 1 lemon

1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup olive oil

1/8 – 1/4 cup water (just add a little at a time!)

1/4 cup walnuts

1 tsp sea salt

1 clove garlic

1. In a food processor or blender, add all ingredients and pulse until as liquified as possible.

2. Store in an airtight container (like a mason jar!) in the fridge for up to one week. Enjoy on salads or with veggies as a dip!

Well there ya have it, friends. I’m not much of a condiments person (I can’t tell ya why, honestly) but this sauce I can get behind! What’s your favorite thing to top a salad with?!

xo Jordan