Low Fat Homemade Houmous

I am a total houmous addict, I slather it on everything and will eat it with anything! Some houmous makes me a happy girl until I think about the amount of fat in the smallest serving. I eat mostly vegan and try to be pretty healthy most of the time and keep my fat intake to a minimum so the last few weeks I've been wiz zing up my own homemade houmous without the use of oil and it's been pretty darn good and so easy.

Here are two copy cat recipes I've whipped up to imitate my favourite store bought houmous without the added fat.

Roasted Red pepper

One tin of chickpeas
3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of lemon or lime juice
2 red bell peppers
1 dessert spoon tahini

Start by chopping your red peppers into big chunks and putting them in a roasting dish along with 3 unpeeled cloves of garlic. Roast at about 180 c for 20-20-30 min until the pepper just starts to char. Remove from oven and leave to cool completely. Peel garlic when cooled.

Then in a blender pop all of the ingredients along with a little bit of water, pulse a few times and have a look to gauge how much more water you'll need to get desired consistency. I added a little at a time until I was happy with it, I also added a sprinkling of salt. You can add more or less of the above ingredients to suit your taste, I love roasted garlic so I actually used 4 cloves, but for those of you not attempting to keep all the vampires away can stick with 3.

Beetroot and mint

Now this one is pretty special, I often buy this from the tesco healthy living range but it's honestly so quick and easy to make yourself and has no added oil and is really low in fat because it's made with haricot beans instead of chickpeas which are lower in fat and calories!

3 small ready to eat beets
2 teaspoons of lemon or lime
1 tin of haricot beans
1 dessert spoon of tahini
2 teaspoons of dried mint
Salt to taste

Whack the whole lot in a blender with a little splash of water and whizz it up and within a minute you have fresh healthy houmous!