I hate that there isn’t any sort of reduced fat hummus at my grocery store. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that it even exists.

Well, that’s just plain stupid. I realize that chickpeas + olive oil = a hummus that’s made of “good fat.” But good fat is still fat! If you have too much of it, which let’s face it…isn’t hard to do, it turns into blubber.

So I looked into it. And yes, you can make reduced fat hummus. Hummus can’t be fat free because it’s main ingredient is chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans. They naturally have 2 grams of fat per half cup serving. So there’s nothing you can do about that. But you don’t need to add more fat to produce a scrumptious hummus.

Case in point.

A couple of notes to keep in mind:

If you eat this with chips (and yes, that includes pita chips), you’re adding calories, carbs, and fat, so be careful. I’d recommend eating this with carrot chips (literally just carrots cut in the shape of potato chips), or slices of sweet pepper. You can also add hummus to a sandwich instead of mayo.

This recipe is not low in sodium. I tried to take that route, but then I realized that the sea salt really makes this. If you’re not supposed to have a lot of salt in your diet, make sure you pay attention to your serving size. The good news is that there’s no cholesterol.

Yields: 8 servings of ¼ cup each
Cook time: none

Ingredients:

1 (16oz) can reduced sodium garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1 oz canned roasted red pepper
6 fresh garlic cloves
3 Tbsp skim milk
½ tsp sea salt

Blend all the ingredients together in a blender or food processor until fairly smooth.

Nutrition Information:
Nutrition Disclaimer: I am not a certified nutritionist…these are just the calculations I’m pretty sure are close to correct. I use BodyMedia to generate my information.

Calories: 55
Fat: 0.9g
Saturated Fat: 0g
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 322.7mg
Carbohydrates: 10.9g
Dietary Fiber: 2.4g
Sugar: 0.5g
Protein: 3g

Dietary Exchange:  ½ Starch, ½ Meat
Jenny Craig:  You could easily count this as 2 limited frees.
Weight Watchers: 2 Points (using calculatorcat.com).