Emily Weeks, RDN, LDDid you know puppies love watermelon? Link, my almost 10 month old schnoodle puppy, loves watermelon, zucchini, iceberg lettuce, baby carrots, green beans, apples, eggs and yogurt. Takes after his mommy I guess? :)
Sundays are usually spent grocery shopping, food prepping, and taking pictures of food for the blog. Yesterday I made this yummy basil pesto hummus for snacks during the week. Link is my little sous chef– he’s always sticking around waiting for something to fall to the floor. I was spiralizing some zucchini for another dish and I always give him the little cores and he runs to another room and munches away.
Sometimes I think I might love my puppy a little too much. I pretty much act like he’s my baby. If you ask for a picture of him, you’ll be looking at a whole photo album and watching some videos. I take him everywhere I can. Every time my parents invite me over for dinner, Linky comes along.
Anyway, onto the recipe! I had a bunch of basil to use up so I decided to make some hummus this week for snacks. We love wheat thins around here, and baby carrots (Link loves those too, but no hummus for him!) so hummus is a great protein pair with crackers or veggies.
Note: if you have a better food processor than me yours will probably look more well-blended. I have a baby 3 cup food processor and I’m hoping that some day when I get married I can ask for a high powdered one. So my hummus can be uniform in color :)
The inspiration for this recipe came to me at my brother’s high school graduation party. My parents had Zoe’s Kitchen (a Greek restaurant here in DFW) cater– they brought chicken and beef kabobs, rice pilaf, Greek salad, and most importantly– a pesto hummus! I fell in love right away and knew I had to re-create it.
Here’s the recipe!
- 1 can chickpeas, drained (reserve 1/4 cup liquid)
- 1/2 cup fresh basil, packed
- juice from 1 lemon
- 2 Tbsp tahini paste
- 3 tsp minced garlic
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- Kosher salt
- 2 Tbsp walnuts
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. If needed, add the liquid from the chickpea can to smooth it out.
- Serve with baby carrots, crackers, or any other fresh vegetable or snack food you like!
Oh man, I was just thinking about making a pesto hummus last night! Great minds think alike ;) I have a ton of basil that needs to be used up, so this is perfect!
Yay I love basil! So many ways you can use it. Pesto and hummus being my new fav :)
Really enjoy your blog Emily! I have cilantro, wonder how that would work????
Thanks Leslie! If you use cilantro, it will change the flavor profile quite a bit. You may want to play around with how much you use, adding only small amounts at a time and limiting the parmesan cheese. Basil would work best for this recipe :)
I adore pesto so much! Its what I use instead of mayo quite often. Very delicious!
That sounds like a great substitution!
oh yes please! Pesto and hummus sound like an amazing combo! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Rachel! It is a pretty tasty combo :)
your puppy is tooo adorable! we need a puppy date.
We had Zoe’s for lunch today and I could literally make a meal out of their pesto hummus and pita. SO excited to try and recreate at home!