Chickpea Veggie Salad with Pesto-Hummus Dip

While pesto and hummus combo sounds a bit strange, believe me it works wonders! The creamy texture of hummus and flavour of pesto is just finger licking good.

This dip is one of my favorites of all time. I have used it in almost everything, be it salads, sandwiches, dosa wraps or crackers it just gels well.

Speaking of gelling, I fell in love with hummus when I visited a Greek Restaurant that had newly opened near my place in India and I was fascinated by it's interiors and food menu. Since I had no idea at that time what exactly a mediterranean dish was, I remember ordering a pita bread with hummus platter. The first bite of the pita bread dipped in hummus was just amazing! My words can't express those feelings. Sadly they closed down after few years. So, I tried my hand at creating this amazing dip for the first time with my falafal and hummus recipe and graduated to different varieties of hummus now. This is my take on hummus and I hope you like this recipe and enjoy it as much as I did. Do comment below how you liked it. 😋😋😋

PREP TIME: 30 mins
COOK TIME: 15 mins

for Salad:

• ½ cup soaked chickpea
• ½ cup soaked kidney beans
• handful of iceberg lettuce
• handful of spinach leaves
• 1 tomato
• ½ cup leek
• ½ cup red cabbage
• 1 small beetroot (thin sliced)
• 2 carrot (thin sliced)
• ½ cup corn kennels
• 1 cucumber (peeled and thin sliced)

for Pesto-Hummus:

• 1 cup chickpea
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 spoon tahini sauce (recipe here)
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 spoon lemon juice
• ½ cup parsley leaves
• salt
• 4 spoon olive oil
• 4 spoon warm water

1. Make Pesto-Hummus: Boil the chickpeas with some salt and olive oil in a pressure cooker for 4 whistles. Remove them and strain them. Don't throw the water. This will be used to make the hummus. Now add the boiled chickpea in a blender, add the garlic, tahini sauce, cumin power, lemon juice, olive oil, parsley, salt and give it a blend. Now add warm water and another spoon of olive oil and blend till you get a smooth creamy texture. Remove this in a bowl and drizzle some olive oil, red chilli powder and your pesto-hummus dip is ready!

2. Plate: Take a salad bowl, place the lettuce, spinach, red cabbage, chickpeas, kidney beans, leeks, cucumber, carrots, beetroot, tomato and cucumber. Drizzle some lemon juice and enjoy the salad platter. 😊😊

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