Beetroot hummus stands out for its bright pink colour. As a hummus, it is of course made with chickpeas, but beets play a significant role and, obviously, leave their colourful mark. The presence of the beets is not only noticed visually, as the flavour of this hummus is very beety. Famous for its sweet taste, beetroot turns this pink dip into the sweetest hummus you can make. Ideally, you want to pair it up with something intense, and I’ve got something in mind…

During the summer, on a creative swing during one of my grocery hauls, I picked up a package of baked beetroots. I never buy those. I never really buy beets, never feel tempted to try baking them myself, but there was something about that package of ready to eat baked beets that made me think I could actually try my hand at these! Wrong. I set them aside and neglected them for a long time. Luckily, the package was vacuum sealed and had a shelf life of a few months. Or, should I say unfortunately the shelflife of those beetroots was that long, as that never prompted me to find something to do with them.

So when the expiry date finally approached I felt kinda cornered. Now I had to find something to do with them beets. I found inspiration in a magazine: beetroot hummus! A couple of days later a friend came to visit, and she is a sucker for hummus. I swear she could eat hummus every day. (And that’s kind of what we ended up doing when she was here, but that’s another story.) So we made red beet hummus. This one.

Beetroot hummus recipe

• 2 medium-large beets
• 250 g canned chickpeas
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• sprinkle of salt and pepper

Chop the beets and add them to a bowl. Drain the chickpeas and add them to the beet pieces. Mince the garlic clove and add that to the bowl, as well as the tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Blend with a hand blender until smooth, making sure not to leave behind whole pieces of garlic (it’s not fun to find these). Taste the hummus and adjust the salt accordingly. Beets are sweet, and the lemon juice alone might not be enough to contrast their specific sweetness. I always end up sprinkling some extra salt because I always find it a little too sweet after the first salt addition.

I like to eat this hummus with warm pita bread and a side of goat cheese. Goat cheese possesses an intense flavour that pairs up wonderfully with this sweet dip. A bowl of this beetroot dip served with triangles of warm bread and goat cheese slices is a winner among starters. Once we actually made it as finger food to go with wine. There was a bowl of this wonderful pink dip and aside another bowl of avocado hummus (told ya I spend a week eating hummus). Colourful and tasty, both variations of the same recipe yet unique in their flavours, they seriously rocked the dinner.

In conclusion, shame to me for never getting to use those baked beets before. I loved this pink dip, and I could have made it so many times while I just kept neglecting the poor beets. At least now that I know how easy to wrap up this delicious dip is, I feel more motivated. I will buy another package of ready to eat beetroots. I will find the inspiration to make this again. Soonish. Thank goodness for long shelf life!