Sweet Potato Hummus
This sweet potato hummus is bursting with flavor—it’s savory, a little sweet, and spicy if you wish. Enjoy it as a snack with pita wedges and veggies, or use it as a spread! This recipe yields about 3 cups of hummus (a lot!).
Ingredients
- 1 medium-to-somewhat-large sweet potato (8 to 14 ounces)
- ⅓ cup tahini
- 2 medium cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- Zest of ½ lemon (about 1 teaspoon)
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 to 3 tablespoons cool water, as needed
- 1 can (15 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas
- Up to ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional, for spice)*
- Optional garnishes: Olive oil, cayenne pepper, or sesame seeds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake the sweet potato on the middle oven rack or in a baking dish for 45 minutes to 1 hour. It will yield to a gentle squeeze when it’s done baking.
- While the sweet potato is cooling, combine the tahini, garlic, lemon zest and juice, salt and cumin in a food processor. While processing the mixture, drizzle in 1 tablespoon of the water. Blend until the mixture is super creamy, pausing to scrape down the bottom or sides as necessary (you may need to add 1 to 2 more tablespoons of water if your tahini was thick).
- Add the drained chickpeas and process until the mixture is completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Once the sweet potato has cooled enough to handle, use a knife or your fingers to peel off the skin. Discard the skin and add the sweet potato flesh to the food processor.
- Blend until the mixture is completely smooth, about 1 minute. Taste, and blend in a pinch or two of cayenne pepper if you’d like your hummus to taste spicy. Enjoy as is, or garnish it with a drizzle of olive oil, a light sprinkle of cayenne pepper or sesame seeds. This hummus will keep well in the refrigerator for about 1 week.
Notes
Adapted from My New Roots and Whole Family Fare.
*Spice level: The recipe originally was quite spicy, calling for 1 ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (start with less, season to taste) and ½ teaspoon smoked paprika. My current jar of cayenne is so spicy that I could not tolerate the full amount and found it quite spicy at ¼ teaspoon. I also found that smoked paprika muddied the sweet potato flavor, so I omitted it. If your hummus tastes too spicy at first, just refrigerate it for a day and try it again—it should be just right!
2024 recipe adjustments: After retesting the recipe, I made the spice edits mentioned above, increased the tahini from 3 tablespoons to ⅓ cup for thicker hummus, omitted the olive oil, restructured the blending process and incorporated water, and increased the salt for more overall flavor.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Find it online: https://sooka.info/spicy-sweet-potato-hummus/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E