For a few years now, I’ve had a big jar of butter–or lima–beans in my pantry, and, though they are beautiful to look at, I had no idea what to do with them….until today!

As I may have mentioned, James and I usually have a preprandial snack of hummus and vegetables at four PM, and though we never tire of the hummus, I have been thinking that we should shake it up a bit. I also recently realized that chickpeas have a higher fat content and greater caloric density than most other beans–check out the difference between butter beans and chickpeas:

With this in mind, I decided to finally take a whack at that big jar of butter beans, so I cooked them in the Instant Pot and then whipped them into a fine, creamy, buttery hummus.

I was astonished at the amazingly smooth, rich texture, and the taste is divine!

Now, I know I will receive some flack for calling this dip “hummus,” since, as we all know, the word “hummus,” is derived from the Arabic word for “chickpeas,” but I’m flouting logic and calling it “Butter Bean Hummus” because it sounds SO much more appetizing than, say, “Lima Bean Dip.”

Butter Bean Hummus

• 1 cup dried butter (lima) beans (don’t worry about pre-soaking)
• 6(ish) cloves of garlic
• 1-2 heaping TBS tahini
• 6 capfuls of lemon juice
• 1 tsp Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base (if you don’t have this, just add some salt)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika (optional, but gives it a nice smokey flavour)
• 1/2 tsp cayenne (optional, but gives it a bit of heat)
• vegetable broth (you decide how much)
• freshly ground pepper
• salt to taste

Add the dry butter beans to the Instant Pot with four or five cups of water and a little salt. Set for forty minutes. Once the cycle is finished, do a quick release of the Instant Pot, drain them, and run them under cold water until they are cool. Add them to the food processor with the rest of the ingredients and blend.

As I’ve mentioned a thousand times, the trick to good hummus is that you have to blend the hell out of it: you want it SMOOTH, so you need to leave that blender on forever. Once it’s super smooth, check the texture: if you like your hummus thinner (which I do), add a bit more broth until it’s the consistency you like. Then blend it like hell again. Check the seasoning and there you go–Bob’s your uncle!

Though it’s a bit hard to tell from this picture, the butter bean hummus is a bit lighter in colour than regular hummus; it’s also slightly lighter in texture, but the creaminess is what you’ll really notice if you make this lovely dip!

And the song of the day is Gregory Alan Isakov’s “3 AM” because for the past week I’ve been wide awake for hours in the middle of the night. This is likely because I’m not getting enough exercise during the day–we can’t walk outside because the air quality is dangerously bad because of the fires in California and Oregon.