You have a secret sauce in your fridge and I’m here to spill the beans about it. Garbanzo beans, that is. It all starts with that humble deli container of hummus (in my case, that would be three different containers of varying flavors). Besides acting as an anytime dip, this snacktime staple can also act as the base for an incredible dressing. Whether it’s store-bought or blitzed at home, with just a few additions, hummus can be relaxed and lightened up into a creamy multipurpose dressing.
Made from mostly pureéd chickpeas and tahini, hummus is decidedly very nutty and buttery. It doesn’t need much on top of its two main ingredients to round out its flavor—often just a little garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. This simple flavor profile means that the dip tastes just as at home with a pile of crudités as it does with a bowl of leafy greens.
I’ve found that almost any hummus, when thinned out with more olive oil along with minced quick-pickled garlic and chopped herbs like dill or parsley, transforms into a dressing that’s rich and nutty yet very fresh. An Any Hummus Dressing coats delicate butter lettuce and cucumber salad with grace, sliced cabbage for a non-dairy (but still creamy) slaw, a rotisserie chicken salad for a super satisfying lunch, or it can even be drizzled over grilled asparagus or salmon for a punchy sauce. You can even use this dressing as a marinade for roasted mushrooms or grilled meats.
A big boon of this dressing besides its ease is its texture. That’s partly thanks to those starchy garbanzo beans (AKA chickpeas) that release their starch into the cooking liquid, which is often also added into the mix when the garbanzo beans are blended, creating a creamy, clingy texture. Even when it’s thinned out, the tahini adds richness and a pronounced nutty flavor. This is great news if you want to make dressing that’s texturally luscious and velvety like a cashmere sweater for your salad greens.
This seems like a good time to tell you that the texture of this hummus dressing is completely adjustable to suit what you’re using it for. You can make your dressing more thick and more luscious by whisking in a bit more hummus––especially nice for a really hearty green like kale.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, we’re calling this Any-Hummus Dressing, so, can you actually use any hummus? I would like to gently steer you towards flavors like classic, roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, spicy, za’atar, even an avocado or a red beet hummus. While I might pull the brakes on a white chocolate or mango hummus, there’s a lot of potential for freedom and creativity here, and I would encourage you to lean into the flavors you want to incorporate into your salad.
