Herb White Bean Spread
This is a creamy delicious spread. It is similar to hummus, but instead of garbanzo beans we use cannellini beans and some herbs. Perfect for spreading on crusty Italian bread or on crackers. Originally served as part of Pasta with Chard.
Ingredients
- 19 ounces canned beans cannellini (drained and rinsed)
- 1 medium lemon
- 1 clove garlic (peeled and smashed)
- salt & pepper
- 1 tablespoon mix of basil, lemon thyme, oregano thyme, chives herbs (cleaned and picked off stems)
- ½ cup divided water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- hot pepper flakes
Instructions
We use our blender tonight to make this spread, but next time we will try our food processor (and then just half the water) since it was a bit of a challenge to get this smooth!
In our blender, we put the cannellini beans. We rinse and pat dry our lemon and then zest it right into the blender with our microplane grater. We then cut the lemon in half and juice it into a measuring cup. We remove the seeds and measure the juice. We add the 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to the blender. Next we add the garlic clove, a little salt and pepper, the herbs (snipping the chives with a scissor), and a little of the water. We put on the cover for the blender, and start blending. We slowly add the rest of the water and stop the machine every so often to jam the beans down. When it is almost all pureed, we add the olive oil and blend until smooth. We taste for seasoning and adjust.
We pour the spread into a flat bowl and top with more salt and pepper, and some red pepper flakes.