Why You Should Wait To Add Olive Oil To Hummus

Making your own homemade hummus comes with several advantages: you can dress it up with your favorite flavors, get the texture smooth and fluffy — as it should be — and save yourself some money. But, making hummus at home isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Most of the time, and especially when you're first getting into the homemade hummus game, you miss out on some essential steps that cause your hummus to fall flat.

There are a few reasons why your at-home hummus isn't living up to the one you've been ordering from your go-to Mediterranean/Middle Eastern fusion spot. While you may never unlock their secrets, there are a couple of different steps you can take to level up the hummus you make at home. But, if you're already using aquafaba and letting your hummus sit overnight, you might want to try holding off on adding the olive oil to your recipe until you serve it.

The topic of hummus and how it should be prepared has long been a topic of interest — even by the greats like Yotam Ottolenghi (via The Happy Foodie), whose cookbook dedicated eight pages to its recipe (via Serious Eats). The truth is that there isn't one way to prepare hummus; methods and preparations vary from person to person (via Serious Eats). But, there is a simple trick to ensuring your hummus doesn't come out bitter — and, according to eHow, all it comes down to is balancing the flavors and waiting to add the olive oil until the very end.

In those eight pages of Ottolenghi's hummus recipe, olive oil isn't mentioned until the end when it's used as a topping (via Serious Eats). EHow justifies this, explaining that when olive oil is mixed with tahini, the food processor's blades heat up and react with the oil to produce a bitter flavor. Instead, you should manually stir in the olive oil right before serving. Serious Eats also suggests creating a dip in the center of your hummus and drizzling it with the best olive oil you can get your hands on, along with a squeeze of fresh lemon — hummus heaven.