Green Machine: High Protein Green Hummus

Written By Blush Podcast

There are 3 reasons why I love dips.* Well, there are probably a billion reasons why I love dips, but if I had to, I could distill it down to 3 reasons:

  1. Condiments are life. The key to making healthy food feel decadent is having REALLY good dips. In fact, I tend to recommend having THREE condiments in each dish— one thicker, dip style condiment; one thinner, more like a dressing style condiment; and one chunkier, like pesto or chimmichurri style. If you ever feel bored in your meals or don’t feel satisfied, just up your dip game and watch everything change!

  2. Having some dips on hand will make you an easy entertaining queen. I grew up in a culture where if someone steps foot in your home, you offer them food. In fact, I would say 25% of the lunches I had growing up were with the housekeeper, gardener, handyman, or plumber who just happened to be there having lunch with us. One time, when we had just moved to America, the cable guy was over setting up our dial up (yes I’m 6,000 years old), and my mom whipped up a quick lunch and made him eat. He was hella confused, but that man left no crumbs. Now listen, you don’t have to go as hard. But, I do think it’s so classy to always have something to offer a friend, even if they pop over unannounced, and that’s where a dip comes in. All you do is grab a cutting board and a bowl, put the dip in the bowl, slice up some veggies & fruit and arrange them around the bowl, throw on some crackers/nuts/chips/olives and VOILA you have the perfect snack board, your guest will feel like a queen, and you will feel like a homemaker goddess.

  3. They’re the perfect vessel to sneak in really healthy ingredients.

And on that last note…I find dips to be the perfect vehicle for muting food noise because all my dips tend to have 3 of the 4 nutritional elements of eliminating food noise (1. protein, 2. resistant starch and/or fiber, 3. mood-boosting nutrients); and then I pair them with crudites, which brings the fourth element: hydration.

*it’s giving Martin Short’s character in Only Murders in the Building

Is this Green Hummus?

No. It’s not.

Let me backtrack…let’s start here: green chickpeas are fresh chickpeas. They’re not like their own variety or whatever, they’re just fresh, raw, chickpeas, before they are dried.

When I saw them at the Asian grocer, I immediately bought a bunch because I had heard of them, had never seen them, and I knew what I wanted to do with them.

You see, for years I’ve heard of the green hummus at ABCV and how amazing it is. I have actually never eaten there, even though it’s in NYC, but I’ve always known I wanted to recreate it.

Unfortunately, when I was in the kitchen, in the middle of filming, I realized I didn’t have tahini. PLUS—I kinda had a certain craving and was already second guessing the hummus route, so I pulled an audible.

Food Noise Cancellation

As I broke down above, I find that we need four nutritional elements to overcoming food noise:

  1. protein

  2. resistant starch & fiber (I group them together bc they’re close)

  3. mood-boosting nutrients

  4. hydration

Here’s how this dip stacks up:

  • it has 54g of protein as I made it, but it would be even higher if you make the adaptation that I suggest

  • it has 3.2g resistant starch and 28.2g of fiber

  • it has a whole host of mood-boosting nutrients, including tryptophan & tyrosine, magnesium, vitamin B6, folate, iron, and zinc

  • and again, the hydration comes in from the crudites I pair it with!

The Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1.25 cups green chickpeas*

  • 3 cloves garlic

  • 1 cup soy milk (I use Eden Foods soy milk and EMPHATICALLY recommend you do the same)

  • 1/2-1 lemon, peeled**

  • 3 tbsp white miso

  • a handful of thai basil & cilantro***

  • 1 cup pistachios

*if you can’t find green chickpeas, I would recommend doing a combo of green beans, edamame, and regular chickpeas. maybe like 1/2 cup regular chickpeas, then like .4 and .35 cups of each of the remaining. something in that vein should work)

**I used a whole lemon and LOVED it that lemony, but if you don’t like things as lemony, use 1/2

***you can use whatever fresh herbs you want and like. I originally wanted to do fresh basil, but my basil had gone off, so I did this asian flair instead. I think parsley would be nice too.

IMPORTANT: I didn’t have any so I don’t add it, but if you have fresh spinach, add a cup for an extra nutrient boost and to make it more green!

Instructions:

  1. peel your fresh chickpeas. this is honestly the most tedious part.

  2. bring a pot of water to boil & prepare an ice bath

  3. when the water is boiling, put the chickpeas in and set a timer for 3 minutes

  4. after 3 minutes, remove the chickpeas & dunk them in an ice bath to stop the cooking

  5. add chickpeas, pistachios, miso, and soy milk to a high speed blender and blend till smooth

  6. then, add your peeled lemon & fresh herbs and again blend till smooth (we do the 2 step blending to try to prevent curdling because the dip is so high in protein)

  7. serve with lots of crudite & your fav crackers— I ofc use Ella’s Flats!

Links & Brands:

BTW

If you like this type of recipe, I think you would loooooove my Vegan Pate and Spring Pea Guacamole!

When you make this pate, I would dieeeeee of happiness if you would post it and tag me! @hiwaaaaaaaa on IG, @blushpod on tiktok!

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