Pesto, Tzatziki, and Hummus: Three Easy and Delicious Do-It-Yourself Recipes

What do pesto, tzatziki and hummus all have in common? For one, they are all used as dips and spreads. They all have unique, strong, and memorable flavors. And they all taste much better when consumed at the restaurant than they do when bought from the grocery store.

That last similarity has always particularly bothered me. When I go out to a Mediterranean restaurant, it’s not too difficult to find excellent hummus and tzatziki. When I go out for Italian, I can easily track down a pasta dish topped with delicious, in-house pesto. But I’ve never been able to replicate these flavors when I pick out brands at the grocery store – and, of course, I want to be able to enjoy them while sitting in my kitchen, without needing to dress nicely, don my emerald engagement ring, and force my husband to spend money on me out on the town.

Fortunately, I have recently discovered some good news: these three dishes can be made at home and can easily replicate restaurant quality. Now before those of you non-cooks give up and zone out, let me say that you don’t need any sort of culinary expertise to make delicious pesto, tzatziki, and hummus. All you need is a blender or an immersion mixer and a few ingredients.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

For pesto, you need fresh or frozen spinach, parmesan cheese, olive oil, and walnuts. You can add pine nuts and arugula for added flavor.

For tzatziki, you need grated cucumber shavings (use a cheese grater to grate a full cucumber into a bowl), plain or vanilla yogurt, and a lot of garlic. Some people may also want to add salt.

For hummus, you need canned chick peas, plain yogurt, lemon, olive oil, and salt. Cumin powder and garlic are optional added ingredients.

Once you have all your ingredients assembled in a bowl, you then need only to pour the contents into a blender and blend everything until it is consistent. You can then serve the dish as a dip or spread. All three of pesto, tzatziki, and hummus make for an excellent – and delicious – snack. Enjoy!