Tahini isn’t just a background ingredient in hummus—it’s a key component that contributes to both flavor and texture. I tested different ratios of tahini to chickpeas to understand its impact, and discovered that the brand can be just as important as the ratio. Once you find a tahini you love, you can fine-tune it to make your ideal hummus every time.
In her book Open Sesame, Rachel Belle claims that truly great hummus needs an “ungodly” amount of tahini. That line stuck with me. What does “ungodly” mean? And is there such a thing as too much tahini in hummus? With a spoon, scale, and food processor in hand, I set out to find out.
Most hummus recipes focus heavily on how to handle the chickpeas: Should you cook them from dry or pop open a can? Should you add baking soda? Peel off the skins? Kenji goes into great detail on these answers in his hummus recipe, and I agree with him—all his tips are fantastic! I’ve also written about my trick for softening canned chickpeas for silkier hummus. But for this experiment on how to make the creamiest, richest hummus, I wanted to ignore the chickpeas as much as possible and focus entirely on the tahini instead.
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
For my testing, I weighed out exactly 100 grams of drained canned chickpeas. I chose canned because they’re consistent—no risk of undercooked beans or variable texture from batch to batch, unlike homemade. Then, I made four versions of hummus, each with a different tahini ratio by weight: 10%, 25%, 50%, and 100%. Yes, I knew the 100% (meaning, equal parts) tahini version would be absurd, but I wanted to push the boundary. Everything else in the four batches of hummus—the salt, lemon juice, water, and blending time—was kept constant. Here’s what I learned from my experiment.
The Testing Results
The Color Shift
At low tahini levels—10 to 25 percent—the hummus stayed golden-yellow, closer in color to the natural hue of chickpeas. As I increased the tahini percentage, that sunny tone faded into a softer beige and almost ivory at the highest levels. The change wasn’t just aesthetic; it was a clue. Color doesn’t automatically mean “better,” but it can be an indicator of the hummus’s tahini content, revealing something about its flavor and texture. A yellow hummus usually signals a chickpea-forward, lighter taste and texture. A pale beige one usually means that your hummus is tahini-forward and richer.
So if you’re scanning a mezze spread or deciding which brand or recipe to try, look at the color: beige means silky and sesame-rich, yellow means light and legume-forward. It’s an easy, visual shorthand for guessing how a hummus will taste before you even dip in.
Serious Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
The Texture
To ensure that the pureeing itself wasn’t a contributing factor in my tests, I ran the food processor for the same amount of time each round. What I found was that the more tahini in the batch, the smoother the hummus felt on my tongue. Canned chickpeas with skins are never perfectly silky—you always get a little grit—but tahini manages to change that more and more as the quantity goes up.
That makes sense once you examine what tahini actually is: approximately 53% fat, 21% carbohydrates, and 17% protein. When blended, those fat and protein molecules disperse evenly through the hummus, forming a stable emulsion that gives it body and creaminess. It’s the same chemistry that makes emulsified sauces and dressings luxuriously smooth, rather than oily or separated.
Serious Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
This makes tahini a master of disguise—it softens the rough edges of canned chickpeas and hides their coarse texture. If you’re short on time and don’t want to cook or peel chickpeas, you can absolutely “cheat” your way to a smoother hummus just by adding a little more tahini.
At the extreme end, a 1:1 ratio of chickpeas to tahini produced hummus so thick it clung to my spoon like spackle—I could flip it upside down and it wouldn’t budge. It was decadent, but maybe too much of a good thing. Of course, that’s easily adjusted with water. The beauty of tahini-rich hummus is that it can retain its creaminess even when more liquid is added; the sesame’s natural emulsifiers keep it creamy, regardless of how much you loosen it. Lower-tahini batches, on the other hand, were softer and scoopable, but they tended to slide right off the spoon.
There’s no single “right” texture for hummus—just the one you like best. The trick is knowing how to steer it. Once you understand that the tahini ratio controls both the silkiness and density, you can dial in your ideal hummus texture every time, whether you want something fluffy and light or dense and rich enough to hold its shape on the spoon.
Serious Eats / Swetha Sivakumar
The Differences in Taste
Texture wasn’t the only thing that changed as the tahini climbed; the flavor did, too.
At 10%, the hummus tasted thin and a little bland, with the chickpeas dominating and lacking much sesame depth. Bumping it up to 25% added a gentle nuttiness that rounded out the flavor and gave it that familiar warmth. At 50%, the tahini took charge—creamy, rich, and slightly bitter in a way that felt balanced and luxurious. And at 100%, I’ll be honest, this didn’t register as hummus to me anymore. It was tahini with a hint of chickpea.
For me, the sweet spot in flavor landed between 25% and 50%, where the texture was velvety and the flavor full but not overwhelming. Of course, like texture, taste is entirely a matter of personal preference. Some people want a light, chickpea-forward dip; others want a tahini bomb you can practically spread like frosting. Once you understand how tahini shifts the balance, you can adjust the ratio to make hummus that suits your palate perfectly.
Why the Type of Tahini You Use Matters
After testing ratios, I realized that another significant variable is that not all tahini is created equal. During this process, I lined up four different brands of tahini and roped in my husband and my reluctant daughter for a blind taste test. Every jar listed the same single ingredient—sesame seeds—but the flavors were wildly different.
It’s no wonder that many Middle Eastern cooks are fiercely loyal to their favorite brands. It’s the same way I refuse to compromise when buying garam masala: The quality and processing can significantly impact the flavor, shifting from smooth and nutty to harsh and bitter, and you can taste that difference in every bite of hummus.
So why is there such variety if it’s all “just sesame”? It comes down to three things:
- Seed origin: Ethiopian Humera seeds are the gold standard, prized for their rich, complex flavor.
- Roast level: Light roasts yield a delicate, sweet tahini; darker roasts introduce a more pronounced bitterness.
- Grinding method: Traditional stone grinding maintains low temperatures, preserving delicate oils and producing a silky paste. High-speed, high-heat grinding can scorch the seeds, leaving a harsh edge or gritty sediment.
Our household favorite was Al-Wadi, which was smooth, mild, and balanced with almost no bitterness. However, there are countless small-batch and single-origin tahinis available, crafted with the same care as olive oil or chocolate. Once you find one you love and use consistently, you can fine-tune the amount of tahini with confidence to get your ideal hummus flavor and texture every time.
Conclusion
If you’ve always thought great hummus was all about the chickpeas, think again. Tahini isn’t just a background player—it’s an ingredient that largely determines how your hummus looks, feels, and tastes. A little extra can smooth out the grit of canned chickpeas, create a creamier emulsion, and shift the flavor from mild and legume-y to rich and nutty.
But the secret isn’t only in how much tahini you use, it’s also in which one. Just as with olive oil or chocolate, quality and processing make all the difference. Once you find a tahini you love and understand how it behaves, you can confidently tweak the ratio to hit your personal sweet spot of texture and taste.
So whether you prefer your hummus airy and chickpea-forward or lush and sesame-heavy, you’re in control.
