How do I get chickpeas soft enough for smooth hummus?
Grainy hummus is a chickpea problem, not a blender problem. Cooking them past the point that feels right, and the bicarbonate step that dissolves the skins entirely.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 20 min
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Cook the chickpeas far softer than seems reasonable — they should collapse completely when pressed between finger and thumb — with a half teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in the water. That softens the skins to the point where they break down in the blender instead of staying as grit. This works on tinned chickpeas too: simmer them for ten to twenty minutes with bicarbonate before blending.
Every route to smooth hummus that involves peeling chickpeas one at a time is a workaround for chickpeas that were not cooked soft enough. Cook them properly and the skins disappear on their own.
Step by step
- Soak dried chickpeas overnight, with bicarbonate if you like.Twelve hours in plenty of cold water, with a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda per 250 g if the chickpeas are elderly or the water is hard. They should roughly double in size. Drain and rinse.
- Cook them with bicarbonate of soda and no salt at first.Fresh water, half a teaspoon of bicarbonate per 250 g of dried chickpeas, brought to the boil and simmered. The alkaline water breaks down the pectin in the skins and the cell walls, which is exactly what you want. Skim the foam off the top.
- Cook them well past tender.One to two hours, until a chickpea crushes to paste with no resistance at all between your finger and thumb. A chickpea that is 'cooked' by the standard of a salad is nowhere near soft enough for hummus. This is the step almost everyone stops short on.
- Do the same to tinned chickpeas.Drain, rinse, and simmer in fresh water with a quarter teaspoon of bicarbonate for 10–20 minutes until they collapse. Tinned chickpeas straight from the tin are cooked but not soft enough, and this ten-minute step is the difference between decent and excellent hummus.
- Blend them hot.Hot chickpeas blend far smoother than cold ones, because the starch is still soft and the fat in the tahini emulsifies more readily. Drain, keep some of the cooking water, and get them into the processor while they are steaming.
- Build the emulsion rather than just blending everything.Blend the tahini with lemon juice, garlic and a little iced water first until it turns pale and thick. Then add the hot chickpeas and blend for a full three to five minutes — much longer than feels necessary — loosening with the reserved cooking water until it is silky and pale.
- Season at the end and let it rest.Salt, more lemon, and cumin if you use it. Hummus tightens as it cools and it tastes different after twenty minutes, so make it slightly looser and slightly more lemony than you want it, and taste again before serving.
Tips
- A small blender or food processor working a large batch will never get there. Do it in two batches rather than one overloaded one.
- Do not skip peeling entirely if you are using tinned chickpeas without the extra simmer — in that case, rubbing them in a tea towel and picking the loose skins out genuinely does help.
- Ice-cold water rather than warm water in the tahini stage gives a paler, fluffier result. It is a small effect but a real one.
- Too much bicarbonate makes chickpeas taste soapy and slightly metallic. Half a teaspoon per 250 g dried is plenty.
If it doesn't work
Grainy or gritty texture
Cause: Chickpeas not soft enough, so the skins survived blending — Fix: Return everything to a pan with water and a pinch of bicarbonate, simmer for fifteen minutes and blend again hot.
Stiff and claggy
Cause: Not enough liquid, or blended cold — Fix: Add cooking water or iced water a spoonful at a time while blending. It takes more than you expect.
Bitter
Cause: Old or low-quality tahini, or raw garlic that has gone acrid — Fix: Taste the tahini on its own before using it. Steeping the garlic in the lemon juice for ten minutes and straining it takes the harshness out.
Soapy flavour
Cause: Too much bicarbonate of soda — Fix: Rinse the cooked chickpeas well before blending, and use less next time.
Questions people ask
Does bicarbonate of soda destroy nutrients?
It degrades some B vitamins, thiamine in particular. In the quantities used here, in the context of a whole diet, that is a minor cost against a large improvement in texture and digestibility.
Can I use a pressure cooker?
Yes, and it is excellent for this — soaked chickpeas take about 15–20 minutes at pressure and come out completely collapsed, which is exactly what you want.