Easy Spicy Pumpkin Hummus (5 Minutes)

This easy spicy pumpkin hummus recipe is an amazing fall appetizer that’s perfect for parties. You only need 5 minutes and a few ingredients to make this tasty and healthy dip. Eat as a healthy snack too!

You might also like this beautiful lemony beet hummus recipe!

This is the last appetizer that I made for my son’s party recently. I’ve been on a pumpkin kick lately and I think it’s simply because I love the look of pumpkins and all the fall colors.

Anyway my family is quite used to eating hummus and my aunt Mimi makes the absolute best. But today I made it with a fun twist and came up with this easy spicy pumpkin hummus. It’s quite easy to make and it was also served in a festive pumpkin. 

Last week I made the pumpkin cheesecake dip with bacon chips pictured below and this week it’s a savory pumpkin hummus. Tis the season right? The sweet cheesecake dip was perfect with the salty bacon chips but you could use pretzel chips as well.

Another reason I’ve been making pumpkin dishes and pumpkin bowls is for pumpkin seeds. I love those things! Below I roasted them with everything bagel spice and they were delicious!

Recipe ingredients I used for this recipe.

The simple ingredients you need to make this hummus recipe is canned pure pumpkin puree, fresh garlic cloves, tahini, canned chickpeas, fresh lemon juice, cayenne pepper, hot sauce and salt.

Canned Pumpkin Puree
You want to make sure you use canned pure pumpkin which naturally has a touch of sweetness and not pumpkin pie filling which has a lot of added sugar and will not taste good in this recipe.

Tahini and Chickpeas
Tahini is simply ground sesame seed paste and a standard ingredient in traditional hummus. You can find it in the international aisle at larger grocery stores. It’s the key to good hummus in my opinion. And I just use regular chickpeas and you can find that just about anywhere. I buy mine at Aldi. Sometimes they are called garbanzo beans. If you can’t find chick peas you can try a white bean like cannellini beans or northern beans.

Fresh Garlic & Lemon
My aunt Mimi make the absolute best homemade hummus and she uses lots of fresh garlic. I feel this too is any important ingredient. You don’t want to substitute with garlic powder. However you could substitute with bottled lemon juice if you don’t have fresh lemon though it is nicer.

Cayenne Pepper & Hot Sauce
For this recipe I added pumpkin, cayenne and hot sauce. The pumpkin added a subtle sweetness and the pinch of cayenne and hot sauce added the heat. It was a delicious combination.

You can use tabasco or Frank’s red hot. And if you want you can substitute hot pepper flakes for the cayenne. You can also eliminate both if you don’t want the heat.

How to make spicy pumpkin hummus.

If you’ve never made a hummus spread from scratch, you should. It’s so much better than store bought hummus and it’s very simple. It’s just a matter of throwing all the ingredients into a food processor and blending everything.

1. Get out the food processor or a high speed blender.
2. First add the fresh garlic and chickpeas (drained first) and blend until the chick peas break down and is well mix with the garlic.
3. Next add everything else and blend for a minute or two until it has a smooth and creamy texture. If you want it a bit thinner or a creamy texture or consistency you can add a bit of water or olive oil. Some people add olive oil on top at the end but I don’t think the strong flavor of an extra virgin olive oil goes so well in this recipe.
4. Taste test and see if it needs more lemon juice, salt or more heat. Adjust accordingly then spoon into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.
5. Serve with fresh raw veggies, pita bread, baked pita chips or crackers. I like the way it looks with fresh colorful vegetables.

Store leftovers in an airtight container Please scroll down to view the printable recipe card.

I personally think tahini which is a ground sesame paste, is key to good hummus. My aunt Mimi would say it’s the garlic. That’s the great thing about hummus, you can doctor it to be any consistency or taste you like.

Serve this in a cute pumpkin bowl.

As you can see from the bowl above, I took off the top and cut it until a large ramekin fit perfectly in the bowl. You might as well make roasted pumpkin seeds when you clean it out.

If you can find the right sized pumpkin and ramekin this is the way to go. The ramekin will fit right in there and it makes it much less messy to clean up.

So keep that in mind when you pick out your pumpkin if you want to use it for a bowl.

So this was a quick one for you. You will see how easy it is to make hummus from scratch and make it festive for this time of year.

Serve this hummus with pita bread, crispy pita chips or a variety of fresh veggies. I personally love cucumbers, peppers and carrots with my hummus. I hope you enjoy the savory flavors of this festive dip!

And you don’t need a party or special occasion to make this. It’s a great snack for those on a healthy diet. I love it with carrot sticks myself and it’s got a healthy dose of fiber and protein.