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This shocking pink beet hummus is a colorful healthy snack recipe! Serve it with veggie sticks and pita bread for dipping.
You’re supposed to eat the rainbow, right? So why not go for this beet hummus? It’s a shocking pink dip made of roasted beets. The beets bring loads of nutrients and the beautiful pink color: and a lightly sweet flavor to the dip too. It’s beautiful and eye catching as a party appetizer, and totally kid friendly. (Just watch out — it stains!) So what are you waiting for? Let’s get cooking.
Related: Romantic Dinner Ideas
How to make beet hummus
Here, the beets impart a taste to this beet hummus that’s not too beet-y at all, just a slight sweetness that amps up the creamy savoriness of this pink dip. To make the beet hummus, you’ll of course have to cook up some beets! The best ways to cook beets are:
- Instant Pot beets: Cooking beets in the Instant Pot is quick and simple: it takes only 30 minutes! If you’ve got a pressure cooker, go to Instant Pot Beets.
- Roasting beets: Roasted beets are seriously tasty. Wrap them each in aluminum foil and roasted at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on the size, the beets will take about 50 to 60 minutes to roast, so plan your timing accordingly. Go to Oven Roasted Beets.
- Boiling beets: You also can boil beets on the stovetop! It’s also a quick method. Go to How to Boil Beets.
Cooking the beets is the most time consuming part of this recipe. After that, it’s all down hill! Simply process the beets in a food processor with the standard hummus ingredients: chickpeas, garlic, tahini, olive oil, and salt.
How to serve beet hummus
With this beet hummus, there are lots of fun ways to serve it! Here are some ideas:
- Pita bread or pita chips
- Crackers
- Veggie sticks: carrots, celery, or kohlrabi (more below!)
Sometimes we like to serve this beet hummus with…kohlrabi! Kohlrabi is a wintery vegetable we picked up at our local farmer’s market, peeled and cut into relish sticks, which is my favorite way to eat it. It tastes a bit like a broccoli stem, but it’s refreshingly good. We find the flavor of some veggies overpower dips (hello, broccoli & cauliflower), but the neutral taste of kohlrabi makes it a great carrier for the hummus. Move over carrots! Kohlrabi may be the new carrot stick.
Valentine’s Day, beet hummus, and love
We created this beet dip in honor of Valentine’s Day, the celebration of love and heart-shaped things and red roses and cupids. But what about celebrating a more universal love? After our podcast episode with celebrity chef Carla Hall, I keep thinking about her words about unity and connection through food:
“Food is the one place we allow people to be different. We don’t say to another culture, ‘Why can’t your food be like mine?’ We do that to people everyday: ‘You don’t look like me. Your nose isn’t like mine. Your hair isn’t like mine. Your skin color isn’t like mine. Your sexual orientation isn’t like mine. Your religion isn’t like mine. So I don’t like you’. But I don’t think we do that with food.”
At this, I was silently fist pumping at this point in the interview! Alex and I too dream of a long table where people of every status and color can sit in friendship, no matter our differences.
Maybe that’s why we love food so much. Because food is a connector to people, where differences can be celebrated instead of feared. What we love more than anything is experiencing the transcendence of differences through the simple act of breaking bread together. (And maybe adding a little beet hummus, too.)
Looking for healthy snack recipes?
Outside of this beet hummus recipe, here are a few more healthy snacks:
- Homemade Granola Bars
- Go-To Trail Mix
- Cinnamon Yogurt Fruit Dip
- Hummus without Tahini
- Hummus and Veggie Roll Ups
- Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese
- Garlic Herb White Bean Dip
- Very Verde Cilantro Dip
- Famous Tomato Dip
- Spiced Crispy Chickpeas
- Easy Mango Salsa
- Classic Homemade Hummus
- Instant Pot Hummus
- Creamy Labneh Dip
- Glowing Green Hummus
This beet hummus recipe is…
Vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, and plant-based.
Creamy Beet Hummus
This shocking pink beet hummus is a colorful healthy snack recipe! Serve it with veggie sticks and pita bread for dipping.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 ½ cups (12 ounces) 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Blended
- Cuisine: Lebanese
Ingredients
- 1 cooked medium beet*
- 1 medium garlic clove
- 1 15-ounce can chickpeas (1 ½ cups cooked)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- ¼ cup tahini
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon cumin (optional)
- Cilantro, to garnish (we also garnished with finely chopped cashews)
Instructions
- Cook the beet (it’s easiest to use a leftover cooked beet!): Go to Oven Roasted Beet, Instant Pot Beets, or How to Boil Beets.
- Peel the garlic. Drain the chickpeas into a liquid measuring cup. Juice the lemon.
- Add the garlic to the bowl of a food processor and process until finely chopped. Add beet (cut into quarters), chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, kosher salt, and 3 tablespoons aquafaba (water from the chickpea can). Puree for 30 seconds, then scrape down the bowl. Taste. If necessary, add 1 to 2 tablespoons aquafaba. Puree for 1 to 2 minutes to come to a creamy consistency. Store refrigerated for 7 to 10 days.
- Top the hummus with cilantro leaves. Serve with veggies, pita bread, or crackers (like these homemade crackers!) Stores 1 week refrigerated.
Notes
**Recipe timing is for beet hummus only (doesn’t include beet cook time).
Last updated: September 2019
How big a beet? A weight or cups when pureed would be helpful. Beets can vary a LOT in size.
We’ve clarified the recipe to say medium beet! Since you’re blending it into the hummus in this case, exact size doesn’t really matter: a small or large beet works too! It mostly adds color — though it does add a hint of sweetness too!
Can anyone suggest how long this would stay good in the refrigerator if I wanted to make extra and store it?
Great question! This stores for 1 week refrigerated. Thank you!
Try washing the beet greens, remove the stems. Leave wet. Lay one leaf down on wax paper. Sprinkle with a dusting of flour salt and pepper. Add another leaf just about an inch inside the first leaf. More flour salt and pepper. Repeat until you have 5-6 leaves. Sprinkle with water. Roll up and cut into sprials. Fry in olive oil until slightly brown. Enjoy. Tastes terrific!
Wow! that’s………….very magenta!
I didn’t see the beets mentioned in the “what to do” section; I’m assuming you put them into the processor with everything else?
Yes! Updated — good catch!
I think that’s why having dinner together is so powerful and so revered in many cultures- that we open up honestly to each other while we are nourished. It’s hard to share a meal with someone and walk away hating them.
As for this hummus, I’m a recovering beet hater and intrigued by what you said about the beets imparting only a sweetness. I’ve never loved raw veggies with dip, because I think most veggies served with dip are much better cooked (hello, raw broccoli and carrots) but I’ll happily try kohlrabi soon.
YES! I couldn’t agree more :) And, this hummus was definitely not beet-y — I didn’t used to love beets either, but I think you could handle this one. Let us know if you try kohlrabi and what you think!
Can this be frozen for later use? We have gotten a lot of beets from our garden this summer.
We haven’t tried it but I think it would freeze OK.
This is the prettiest hummus I’ve ever seen and such a fun and healthy way to celebrate Valentine’s Day!
Thank you so much, Ellie!
Love it! I’m really into eating raw kohlrabi right now! SO crunchy!
Same here! It’s very satisfying and the taste is subtle enough that I find it’s perfect with many dips. Kohlrabi for the win!
The color of this hummus is beautiful! Im sure the taste is even better!
Yes, isn’t it vibrant? We couldn’t get over it!