Hummus as salad dressing

February 14, 2011 at 10:13 pm (Mom’s recipes, Salads, Sauce/dressing, unrated)

I was in Austin visiting my family a few weeks ago, and I ate really well all week.  One of the highlights was that my mom made us delicious salads almost every day.  One reason the salad was so delicious is that almost everything in the salad came from my mom’s organic vegetable garden.  (We were there before it snowed and all the plants froze.)  In addition to her homegrown veggies, sometimes my mom would add pieces of hearts of palm, which add a mild pickled taste and silky texture.  For a dressing, my mother served all her salads with a thin version of her homemade hummus.  She adds extra bean cooking liquid to make the hummus thinner than she normally would, and uses it as a salad dressing.  It’s lemony and garlicky, thick and rich tasting, and high in protein.  A brilliant idea!  I bet other bean spreads would make great salad dressings too.