This year, Australia experienced it's biggest oversupply of carrots in 25 years. Carrots have been everywhere and they have been cheap! So naturally, they have featured heavily in our kitchen.

This recipe for spiced roast carrot hummus is my all-time favourite way to enjoy hummus. You can check out my other versions here: Roasted Pumpkin Hummus, Roasted Beetroot Hummus and Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus.

You can make this hummus with canned chickpeas, or soak and cook dry chickpeas. When I make it with freshly cooked chickpeas I like to serve it warm with dinner instead of pumpkin or sweet potato mash. And because we are using chickpeas that have been cooked and then cooled, this recipe is an excellent source of Resistant Starch. You can read more about the benefits here and here!

Ingredients

400g cooked (or canned) chickpeas
6 carrots
Juice of two lemons
2 generous tablespoons tahini
1 clove garlic (or more if you love garlic as much as I do!)
1 tablespoon olive oil*
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon mixed spice (Mixed Spice is usually made of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. If you don't have Mixed Spice, 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground ginger is fine)
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder or flakes
1 teaspoon maple syrup or honey**
Salt and pepper to taste
OPTIONAL: 1-2 teaspoons of grated fresh ginger

Method

If you are making this completely from scratch, well firstly strut around like the domestic goddess you are! Strut right on over to your pantry, grab 1 1/2 cups of chick peas, place them in a bowl. Cover with water and leave to soak overnight. If you feel like some more strutting, then strut over to your bowl of soaking chickpeas and change the soaking water once or twice.

When your chickpeas have soaked for long enough, cook for an hour. Check your chickpeas are cooked through, drain and leave to cool.

While you are cooking your chickpeas, wash your carrots, cut the tops off them, arrange a baking tray and cook at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.

Place all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth, pausing a few times to scrape down the sides.

TIP: Make sure you taste your hummus while you are processing it, and add in extra spices, garlic, tahini, honey or lemon juice until your tastebuds are singing!!

Once the hummus has reached your desired consistency, serve and enjoy!

* you can add more or less olive oil depending on the consistency you desire.

** This is optional, and some would say completely unnecessary, but trust me ok? Adding that teeny tiny amount does something magical, and once you've tried it this way I promise you will never go back to boring old non-honey-or-maple-syrup hummus.