Olive Oil Hummus: The Recipe, and Why the Oil Makes It
Hummus with olive oil is not a variation on hummus; it is how hummus is meant to be. Chickpeas, tahini, lemon and garlic give the base, but the olive oil does two separate jobs: a measured amount blended in makes the dip smooth and rounds off the sharpness, and a raw pour over the top carries the aroma you actually smell when the bowl reaches the table. This page gives you our own recipe in metric and US measures, the ratios we work to, a tahini-free version made with olive oil alone, a short fix-it table, and the plain reasons the choice of oil changes the result — plus what the evidence does and does not say about the health side.
For our own oil, see our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml).
The Short Answer
- Olive oil goes into hummus twice: blended in for texture, and poured raw over the top for flavour. For one 400 g tin of chickpeas we use 60 ml (¼ cup) in the blend and about 15 ml (1 tablespoon) to finish.
- Use extra virgin olive oil. Its flavour is the reason to add it at all, and a refined or "light" oil adds fat without adding taste.
- A milder extra virgin suits the blend; save a fresher, more peppery bottle for the drizzle, where nothing dulls it.
- Hummus can be made with olive oil and no tahini: raise the oil to 90 ml (6 tablespoons) for a lighter, sesame-free dip.
- One tablespoon of olive oil (13.5 g) supplies about 119 kcal on USDA FoodData Central figures, so the oil is the main lever on the calories in a bowl of hummus.
- Homemade hummus should be chilled promptly: the UK Food Standards Agency says eat leftovers within 48 hours, and the USDA allows 3 to 4 days in the fridge.
Olive Oil Hummus: What You Need
This makes about 450 g of hummus, enough for four to six people as a dip. Measurements use 1 tablespoon = 15 ml and 1 teaspoon = 5 ml.
- 1 tin (400 g) chickpeas, drained, about 240 g. In the US, one 15-oz can gives roughly 1½ cups. Keep a little of the liquid.
- 60 g (¼ cup) tahini, stirred well in the jar first
- 45 ml (3 tablespoons) lemon juice, from about one large lemon
- 1 small garlic clove, finely grated or crushed
- 60 ml (¼ cup) extra virgin olive oil for the blend
- 45–75 ml (3–5 tablespoons) ice-cold water
- ½ teaspoon fine salt (about 3 g), plus more to taste
- Optional: ¼ teaspoon ground cumin and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- To finish: 1 tablespoon (15 ml) extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of paprika or sumac, and a little chopped parsley
- Equipment: a food processor (or a powerful blender), a small saucepan and a sieve
Cooking from dried? About 100 g (½ cup) of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and simmered until they crush easily between two fingers, gives roughly the same weight as a drained tin. Very soft chickpeas are the single biggest step towards smooth hummus, so err on the side of overcooking.
Method: Step by Step
The whole thing takes about 20 minutes, most of it hands-off. The order matters more than any single ingredient.
- Soften the garlic in the lemon. Put the grated garlic, lemon juice and salt in a small bowl and leave them for 10 minutes while you do the rest. The acid takes the raw, hot edge off the garlic.
- Warm the chickpeas. Tip the drained chickpeas into a saucepan, cover with water, add the pinch of bicarbonate if using, and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain. Warm, slightly softened chickpeas break down far more smoothly than cold ones straight from the tin.
- Blend the chickpeas on their own first. Process the warm chickpeas for about a minute, until they look like a thick, crumbly paste. Scrape down the sides.
- Add the tahini and the lemon mixture. Pour in the tahini and the garlicky lemon (strain out the garlic if you like it subtle), plus the cumin if using. Blend for another minute.
- Stream in the olive oil. With the motor running, pour the 60 ml of oil in slowly through the feed tube, over about 30 seconds. Adding it gradually lets it disperse evenly through the paste rather than pooling.
- Loosen with ice water. Still running, add the cold water a tablespoon at a time until the hummus turns pale, light and soft enough to fall off a spoon. Let the machine run a full 2–3 minutes in total; hummus is usually under-blended, not over-blended.
- Taste and adjust. More salt if it tastes flat, more lemon if it tastes heavy. It will firm up a little as it cools.
- Finish raw. Spread it in a shallow bowl, make a wide well with the back of a spoon, and pour the tablespoon of olive oil into the well. Add paprika or sumac and parsley.
How Much Olive Oil Goes in Hummus?
Most recipes say "a drizzle", which can mean anything. These are the amounts we work to for one 400 g tin of chickpeas, with the calories the oil alone adds to the whole batch, calculated from USDA figures of 884 kcal per 100 g and 13.5 g per tablespoon.
| Style | Oil in the blend | Oil on top | Tahini | Calories from oil (whole batch) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighter | 30 ml (2 tbsp) | 5 ml (1 tsp) | 60 g (¼ cup) | about 280 kcal |
| Classic (our recipe) | 60 ml (4 tbsp) | 15 ml (1 tbsp) | 60 g (¼ cup) | about 600 kcal |
| No tahini | 90 ml (6 tbsp) | 15 ml (1 tbsp) | none | about 835 kcal |
Split six ways, the classic batch carries about 100 kcal of olive oil per serving. If you cut the oil, add a little more ice water in its place so the texture stays soft; the dip will taste more of tahini and lemon and less of the oil.
Why the Oil Makes the Hummus
It is fair to ask why a dip built on chickpeas and sesame paste depends so much on olive oil. Three kitchen reasons, and one piece of sensory science.
Texture: fat makes the paste feel smooth
Blended chickpeas on their own are starchy and slightly chalky. Oil, streamed into the moving paste, coats the fine particles and gives hummus its soft, rich mouthfeel. Tahini contributes fat too, which is why a hummus without tahini needs more olive oil to feel complete.
Flavour: the blend tames the oil, the drizzle shows it off
Extra virgin olive oil's peppery catch at the back of the throat comes largely from oleocanthal: Beauchamp and colleagues, writing in Nature in 2005, identified the compound and showed it irritates the throat in a way similar to ibuprofen. In hummus that bite tends to soften once the oil is blended in. A 2021 laboratory sensory study by Peyrot des Gachons and colleagues in Scientific Reports found that adding food proteins from egg yolk and whey reduced, and sometimes eliminated, the pungency and bitterness of extra virgin olive oils. Chickpea protein was not tested, so treat this as a likely explanation rather than a proven one, but it matches what cooks notice: oil stirred into a protein-rich food tastes milder than the same oil poured on top. Our page on oleocanthal goes into the compound in more detail.
Aroma: raw oil is the part you smell
The grassy, fruity scent of a good extra virgin oil fades with time, air and heat. Hummus is never cooked, so the finishing pour reaches the table exactly as it left the bottle. That is why the drizzle is not decoration; it is where most of the oil's character lives, and it is the reason to spend your best bottle there.
Balance: oil softens lemon and garlic
If hummus tastes harsh or sour, a spoonful more oil usually rounds it off faster than more salt. Fat carries flavour across the palate and dulls the sharp edges of raw garlic and citrus.
Variation: Hummus Made with Olive Oil, No Tahini
Plenty of readers search for hummus made with olive oil alone, whether because of a sesame allergy, an empty tahini jar or a preference for a lighter dip. It works well, but it is a different dish: brighter, more lemony and more obviously olive-flavoured, without tahini's toasted, nutty depth.
Follow the method above, leave out the tahini, and raise the blending oil from 60 ml to 90 ml (6 tablespoons). Use 45 ml (3 tablespoons) of lemon juice as before, and add ice water more cautiously, starting with 2 tablespoons, because there is less paste to absorb it. A pinch more salt and the cumin help fill the gap tahini leaves. This is where a fresh, characterful extra virgin really earns its place, since there is nothing else to hide behind.
If sesame is the reason, check every other ingredient too. Sesame is one of the nine major food allergens identified by law in the US, according to the FDA, and one of the 14 allergens that must be declared on food in the UK and EU, so shop-bought flatbreads, spice mixes and toppings can contain it.
Choosing the Olive Oil for Hummus
The honest answer is that any genuine extra virgin will make good hummus. What changes the result is matching the oil to its job.
- For the blend, a smooth, mild or medium extra virgin works best. A very bitter, peppery oil can make a big batch taste slightly harsh, and the tahini and chickpeas will mute its aroma anyway.
- For the drizzle, use your freshest, most aromatic bottle. A green, grassy or peppery oil gives contrast against the creamy dip.
- Skip "light" or refined olive oil. It is light in flavour, not in calories, and adds nothing to hummus that the extra virgin does not do better.
- Check freshness. Olive oil does not improve with age. Look for a harvest date, buy a bottle you will finish within a few months of opening, and store it away from light and heat.
For the full set of checks worth making on any bottle, see our guide to choosing a quality olive oil, and our explainer on what extra virgin olive oil actually is.
When Hummus Goes Wrong: Quick Fixes
| Problem | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Grainy texture | Chickpeas not soft enough, or too little blending time | Warm the chickpeas first, then blend for a full 2–3 minutes |
| Too thick or stiff | Not enough liquid; hummus also firms up in the fridge | Blend in ice water a tablespoon at a time |
| Bitter | Stale or very dark tahini, or an old, rancid oil | Add a little lemon and salt; replace tired tahini or oil next time |
| Harsh or burning garlic | Raw garlic used straight in | Rest the garlic in the lemon juice for 10 minutes and strain it |
| Flat or bland | Under-salted | Add salt in small pinches and taste again before adding more lemon |
| Greasy, with oil seeping out | Oil added too fast, or too much for the batch | Blend in a spoonful of ice water; next time stream the oil in slowly |
Serving, Storing and the Nutrition Side
Serving ideas
Hummus is best a little above fridge temperature, so take it out 20 minutes before serving. Beyond warm flatbread and raw vegetables, try it spread under roasted vegetables, as the base of a grain bowl, or topped with warm spiced chickpeas. A spoonful of harissa oil over the finishing olive oil makes an easy spicy version, and if you like the bread-and-oil side of the table, our guide to a good dipping oil sits naturally alongside it.
Storing homemade hummus
- UK: the Food Standards Agency advises keeping your fridge between 0 and 5°C and eating leftovers within 48 hours, or freezing them.
- US: the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service says leftovers can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.
- Everywhere: store it covered, use a clean spoon each time, and add the finishing oil only to the portion you are serving. A thin film of oil on top of stored hummus helps stop the surface drying out.
What the evidence says
On USDA FoodData Central figures, 100 g of boiled chickpeas provide about 164 kcal, 8.9 g of protein and 7.6 g of fibre, and the NHS counts 80 g of pulses such as chickpeas as one of your 5 A Day, though only once a day however many you eat. For the oil, Guasch-Ferré and colleagues (Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2022) followed 60,582 women and 31,801 men in two US cohorts for 28 years: people eating more than half a tablespoon of olive oil a day had a 19% lower risk of death from any cause than those who rarely or never ate it, and replacing 10 g a day of margarine, butter, mayonnaise or dairy fat with olive oil was associated with 8–34% lower risk. This is observational research, which shows association rather than cause, and the authors found no significant difference when olive oil was compared with other vegetable oils combined. Hummus is a good food, not a health treatment; if you have a condition that affects what you eat, a GP or registered dietitian is the right person to ask.
The Objections Worth Answering
"Real hummus is about tahini, not olive oil." Tahini is the backbone of classic hummus, and our main recipe keeps it. But olive oil has always been part of how hummus is served, and the amount and quality of oil is the variable most home cooks leave to chance. Getting it right is the difference between a dip that tastes of chickpeas and one that tastes finished.
"Extra virgin is wasted in a dip." In the blend, a modest, mild extra virgin is plenty, and its flavour does soften. On top, though, the oil is eaten raw and unheated, which is exactly where a good extra virgin shows the most character. Spend on the drizzle, not on the 60 ml that disappears into the paste.
"All that oil makes hummus fattening." Oil is calorie-dense, and the table above shows it plainly: the classic batch carries about 100 kcal of oil per serving. If that matters to you, use the lighter ratio and more ice water. Measuring the oil, rather than pouring freely, is the simplest way to stay in control.
Why Sidr & Stone
Hummus is one of the few everyday foods where olive oil is eaten raw and in plain view, so the oil you finish it with is easy to taste. Sidr & Stone's extra virgin olive oil comes from our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco, where we control every step from tree to bottle. On our product page we describe it as golden-green, with notes of fresh grass and almond and a gentle peppery finish, which is the profile we reach for in the well of a bowl of hummus.
- Single-estate — Sidr & Stone's olive oil comes from our own family-owned farm near Marrakech, Morocco, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — the trees are not irrigated; they take what the season gives.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides are used (not yet certified; certification is in progress).
- Single harvest — a small, limited batch; once it is gone, it is gone until the next harvest.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — to protect flavour, aroma and polyphenols.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, so natural sediment in the bottle is normal.
- 100% natural — a single ingredient, olive oil, with nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — a 500 ml bottle that protects the oil from light.
- 10% of profits to charity — a brand-wide commitment.
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil for hummus — any fresh, genuine extra virgin will make a good bowl, and we would rather you knew that. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest, and that the difference is easiest to taste where it is poured raw. We have not yet published a lab certificate for polyphenols or acidity, so we do not quote figures. For more ways to use a good oil without heat, see our guide to olive oil for eating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you put olive oil in hummus?
Yes, usually twice. Blend about 60 ml (¼ cup) of extra virgin olive oil into a batch made from one 400 g tin of chickpeas for a smooth texture, then pour about a tablespoon over the top to serve. The finishing drizzle carries most of the flavour.
Why do you pour olive oil on top of hummus?
Because raw oil keeps its aroma and peppery character, while oil blended into the dip tastes milder. The drizzle also keeps the surface glossy and stops it drying out at the table.
What is the best olive oil for hummus?
A fresh extra virgin olive oil. Use a smooth, medium oil in the blend and your most aromatic bottle for the drizzle, and avoid refined or "light" olive oil, which adds fat without flavour.
Can you make hummus with olive oil instead of tahini?
Yes. Leave out the tahini, raise the blending oil to 90 ml (6 tablespoons) and add water cautiously. The result is lighter and more lemony, and it suits anyone avoiding sesame, provided the other ingredients are sesame-free too.
Is Sidr & Stone olive oil good for hummus?
Yes, especially as the finishing drizzle. It is a single-estate, unfiltered extra virgin oil, cold-pressed within hours of harvest, and its flavour shows best raw.
How long does homemade hummus last?
Keep it covered in the fridge. The UK Food Standards Agency advises eating leftovers within 48 hours; the USDA allows 3 to 4 days. If in doubt, freeze a portion rather than keep it longer.
Where can I buy Sidr & Stone olive oil?
Our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) is available to pre-order as a limited single-harvest batch from our website, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
Good hummus comes down to a few unglamorous habits: very soft chickpeas, a long blend, ice water for lightness, and garlic tamed in lemon. The olive oil is what turns that into something worth putting in the middle of the table. A measured amount in the blend gives smoothness; a raw pour on top gives the aroma and the gentle bite.
Measure the oil, choose a fresh extra virgin for the finish, and keep leftovers cold and brief. If you have a medical condition that affects what you eat, your GP or a registered dietitian can advise on fats and portions.
Our Cold-Pressed Single-Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Marrakech (500ml) — single-estate, rain-fed and cold-pressed within hours of harvest — is available to pre-order now, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Our extra virgin olive oil is grown organically on our own single-estate farm on the plains outside Marrakech: we control every step from tree to bottle, and no synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. It is not yet certified organic — certification is in progress, and we will publish it as soon as it comes through.
Disclaimer: This article gives an original home recipe and describes general cooking practice, food-safety guidance from the UK Food Standards Agency and USDA, and published research at the time of writing; guidance and findings may change, and readers should check current sources, including their national food safety authority. Hummus contains sesame (tahini); check all ingredients if you have a food allergy. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.