Is hummus vegan? What it is made of, and what changes the answer
Hummus is vegan in its classic form. It is cooked chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and salt, and there is nothing from an animal in it. What changes the answer is what goes on top of it or into the tub: butter in some kitchens, minced meat as a topping, dairy in some shop-bought versions. On its own, it is one of the simplest plant foods on any table.
What is hummus made of?
Chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and salt. The chickpeas are soaked and cooked until they are completely soft, then blended with the rest until smooth. That is the opposite of falafel, which starts from raw soaked chickpeas and would fall apart if they were cooked first.
Tahini is a paste of ground sesame seeds. It gives hummus its body and the slightly bitter, nutty taste under the lemon. Without it you have a chickpea purée, which is a perfectly good thing to eat, but it is not what anyone in the Levant would call hummus.
The word itself is simply the Arabic for chickpea. The full name of the dish is hummus bi tahina: chickpeas with tahini.
Is hummus vegan?
Yes, as a recipe. Chickpeas, sesame, lemon, garlic and olive oil all come from plants. The reason people still ask is that hummus is often not served plain:
- Hummus with meat. In much of the Levant, hummus is also eaten with fried minced meat on top. That is a meal built on hummus rather than hummus itself.
- Butter. Some kitchens finish the plate with melted butter or ghee instead of olive oil.
- Shop-bought tubs. Most supermarket hummus is vegan, but flavoured versions can contain dairy. The ingredient list on the tub is the only reliable answer.
- What comes with it. A garlic sauce on a yoghurt base or a yoghurt dressing on the same plate is not hummus, but it is on your fork.
So, as with falafel, the useful question is not whether hummus is vegan but whether the plate is.
Vegan hummus at Nabäti
Our kitchen is vegetarian and every dish can be made vegan. For the hummus you do not need to ask: every hummus plate on our menu carries the filled leaf, which means vegan exactly as it is served.
- Hummus, EUR 7.75. Chickpeas, tahini and lemon, with olive oil and our traditional Jordanian tatbeeleh, a green chilli, lemon and garlic sauce. Served with warm pita.
- Spicy Hummus, EUR 8.00. Our hummus blended with harissa. Served with warm pita.
- Hummus & Falafel, EUR 10.50, EUR 13.50 or EUR 19.25 for 3, 6 or 12 falafel balls. Our signature hummus with crispy falafel on top.
- Msabbaha, EUR 7.75. Warm whole chickpeas with tahini, garlic and lemon, finished with olive oil, parsley, paprika and cumin. The closest relative of hummus on the menu, and the one to order if you know hummus and want something new.
Hummus also goes into the Traditional Falafel and the Makali sandwich as a spread, both vegan as served, into the three fatteh bowls and into every sharing box. The fatteh bowls carry the outlined leaf because their sauce has a yoghurt base: ask for the non-dairy dressing and the bowl is vegan too. How the two leaves work is written out on its own page, and so is the difference between vegan and vegetarian, if that is the question you came with.
Is hummus healthy?
Hummus is chickpeas, tahini and olive oil, so it brings protein and fibre from the chickpeas and fat from the sesame and the oil. That makes it filling, and fairly rich for its size. Whether it is healthy depends, as with most food, on how much of it you eat and what you eat it with.
In the Levant it is one dish among several on the table, eaten with bread, raw vegetables and pickles rather than as the whole meal, and that is a fairly sensible way to eat it. Shop-bought hummus varies a lot in salt and oil, and the label is where to compare one tub with another. We are a kitchen, not a dietitian: if you need advice on what you eat for a health reason, ask one.
Is hummus gluten free?
Hummus itself contains no wheat. The pita it is served with does, which is why our hummus plates list gluten as an allergen: without the pita, they contain no gluten-containing ingredients. Hummus does contain sesame, in the tahini.
Our kitchen handles all of the allergens listed on the menu. Equipment and utensils are shared between dishes, so we cannot guarantee that any dish is completely free of an allergen, even when an ingredient is left out on request. Please tell our staff about any allergy before you order, and they will check the specific dish with the kitchen.
Is hummus halal?
Hummus contains no meat and no alcohol, so by composition there is nothing in it that would not be halal. As with falafel, what people are usually checking is the kitchen around it rather than the recipe.
There is no meat and no fish in our kitchen, we serve no alcoholic drinks and use no alcohol in the cooking, and there is no animal rennet in our halloumi or our yoghurt. That is halal by composition, which is a different thing from certification. We do not hold a halal certificate and we will not tell you that we do.
Where does hummus come from?
Hummus is a Levantine dish, eaten from Jordan and Palestine to Lebanon and Syria, and more than one country will tell you it is theirs. Chickpeas and sesame have been grown and eaten in the region for thousands of years, which is part of why nobody has settled the argument.
We cook the Jordanian way, from family cooking in Amman. In Jordan, hummus is a breakfast as much as a lunch, eaten with foul, falafel, pickles and fresh bread, and the tatbeeleh on ours is the Jordanian touch.
Hummus, msabbaha, baba ghanouj and muhammara are four different things
They sit next to each other on our menu and they are easy to mix up:
- Hummus is smooth: cooked chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon and garlic.
- Msabbaha is close to the same ingredients left whole: warm chickpeas in tahini, garlic and lemon.
- Baba ghanouj has no chickpeas at all. It is roasted aubergine blended with tahini, garlic and lemon.
- Muhammara is roasted red pepper and walnut with pomegranate molasses. It contains nuts.
All four are vegan as served here. If a word on our menu is new to you, five of them are explained on their own page.
Where to eat hummus in Rotterdam
Nabäti Eatery is on Keizerstraat 168 in Rotterdam Centrum, about five minutes on foot from Rotterdam Blaak and a short walk from the Markthal. The kitchen is vegetarian and Jordanian, and hummus is somewhere on the plate in most of what we cook. The short version of what we serve, and where, is on our page about falafel in Rotterdam.
The rest of our vegan options in Rotterdam are marked the same way across the menu.
Before you order
If you are sharing, order one hummus and one other dip, so there is a second flavour going round, and add falafel. If you want it hot, ask for the Spicy Hummus or add harissa. If you are feeding a whole table, the sharing boxes have already done that sum for you.
See the full menu, dish by dish, or come to Keizerstraat 168 in Rotterdam Centrum and let someone at the counter talk you through it.
Frequently asked questions
Is hummus vegan?
Yes, in its classic form: chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and salt. It stops being vegan when it is topped with meat or butter, or when a shop-bought version has dairy added. Every hummus plate at Nabäti is vegan as served.
What is hummus made of?
Cooked chickpeas blended with tahini, which is a paste of ground sesame seeds, and lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and salt. The name is the Arabic word for chickpea.
Is hummus healthy?
It brings protein and fibre from the chickpeas and fat from the tahini and the olive oil, so it is filling and fairly rich. How healthy it is depends on how much you eat and what you eat it with, and shop-bought versions vary in salt and oil.
Is hummus gluten free?
Hummus itself contains no wheat, but it is usually served with pita, which does. It contains sesame. Tell the kitchen about any allergy before you order.
Is hummus halal?
It contains no meat and no alcohol, so by composition there is nothing in it that would not be halal. Nabäti is halal by composition and does not hold a halal certificate.
Where can you eat vegan hummus in Rotterdam?
At Nabäti Eatery, Keizerstraat 168 in Rotterdam Centrum, about five minutes from Blaak. Hummus, Spicy Hummus, Hummus & Falafel and Msabbaha are all vegan as served.
