Chicken with Hummus is my favorite recipe to prepare on days when I’m at home. It’s one of those very common and easy recipes that are usually considered a comfort food. Chicken with Hummus in particular doesn’t take more than 20 minutes to prepare, which makes it ideal to cook on weekends.

Hummus Chicken

This is a fast, delicious weeknight dinner. Use any flavor of hummus that you prefer, but spicy works well for me. Serve with a side of rice.

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How to Make Hummus Chicken

Use any flavor of hummus that you prefer, but spicy works well. You can make this meal even more fulfilling with a side salad or side of rice.

Read the full recipe after the video.

Recipe Summary

Prep:

10 mins

Cook:

35 mins

Total:

45 mins

Servings:

Yield:

2 servings

Ingredients

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Original recipe yields 2 servingsIngredient Checklist

1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
½ cup prepared hummus
½ lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon paprika

Directions

Instructions Checklist

Step 1Preheat an oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
Step 2Stir green bell pepper and onion together in the bottom of a 9-inch casserole dish. Drizzle olive oil over the vegetables; stir to coat.
Step 3Coat chicken breasts completely with a thin layer of hummus and place atop the vegetables. Drizzle lemon juice over the chicken and dust with paprika.
Step 4Cook chicken breasts in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center and the juices run clear, about 35 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).

3-Ingredient Hummus-Crusted Chicken

Iused to think chicken breasts needed a lot of help (read: brining or marinating) to make them juicy and flavorful. But a tip provided by several Kitchn readers gave me a surprisingly simple answer to my dinnertime dilemma. A swipe of hummus and a sprinkling of smoky seasoning gives ho-hum chicken breasts a tender, golden-brown crust and a moist interior. This recipe is so simple that it left me wondering why I didn’t think of it sooner.

A 3-Ingredient Chicken Dinner

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are notoriously fickle to prepare. Because they’re lean and have little flavor of their own, they often require extra attention when it comes to seasoning and cooking. But this recipe requires nothing of the sort. In fact, you’ll be sending them to the oven in just five minutes.

You’ll start by sprinkling salt and pepper on both sides of the chicken breasts, then spreading on the hummus — you’ll want to cover the top and sides of the chicken in a thin layer to seal in the juices. Sprinkle on the smoked paprika, pop them in the oven to bake, then finish under the broiler to brown and crisp the crust.

The hummus protects the lean chicken breasts from the oven’s intense heat, resulting in baked chicken that’s incredibly juicy beneath a tender crust.

Choose Coarse Hummus

Silky-smooth hummus is preferred for dipping, but when it comes to crusting chicken, you actually want to choose a hummus with a bit of texture. Although you can use whatever brand you have stashed in the fridge, if you’re shopping for this recipe specifically, I’ve found that the Ithaca brand and private-label store brands have a coarser texture.

Super-smooth hummus is made by puréeing chickpeas for an extended amount of time, and often has a larger proportion of oil, tahini, or other liquid. The moisture from these ingredients prevents the hummus from drying into a crust. The bits of chickpeas in coarser hummus toast in the oven, adding texture to the chicken’s coating. If you make hummus from scratch, don’t pulse the chickpeas quite as finely, and hold back on the olive oil.

You can adjust the flavor of this chicken dinner by simply changing the flavor of hummus you use. Make it spicy with a hot pepper variety or keep it cool and fresh with a lemon and dill-flavored hummus.

Hummus-Crusted Chicken

A swipe of hummus and a sprinkling of smoky seasoning gives ho-hum chicken breasts a tender, golden-brown crust and a moist interior.

YIELDServes 4

PREP TIME5 minutes

COOK TIME23 minutesShow Nutrition

INGREDIENTS

Cooking spray
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 2 pounds total)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup hummus
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

INSTRUCTIONS

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 450°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet with cooking spray.
Dry the chicken on all sides with paper towels, then season with the salt and pepper.
Arrange the chicken in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Spread the hummus over each chicken breast (about 1 tablespoon over each), spreading it into a thin layer until each breast is evenly and completely coated. Sprinkle the paprika over the hummus.
Bake until the chicken is cooked through, completely opaque, and registers 165°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 20 minutes.
Turn the oven to broil and broil the chicken until the hummus is dry to the touch and browned, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately.

RECIPE NOTES

Storage: Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

HUMMUS-CRUSTED CHICKEN

This past week while standing around on a photo shoot, my coworkers and I noticed that our conversations somehow kept circling back to food (as often seems to happen!). I was getting ready to go grocery shopping that night, so asked if anyone had any blog-worthy chicken recipes to recommend. My friend, Jen, immediately lit up and told us about this hummus-crusted chicken recipe she had recently tried and loved.

Um, “hummus-crusted”??? Sign me up!

Somehow the idea of using hummus as a sauce in baking had never occurred to me. But as soon as she mentioned it, the recipe moved to the top of my list. So this weekend, I picked up some chicken and my favorite hummus (thought about going homemade, but I was in the mood for quick and easy). And then in order to make it a one-pot meal, I also picked up a bunch of veggies to bake up alongside the chicken. And then in less than 10 minutes of prep time, roughly chopped the veggies and added them and the chicken breasts to a big baking dish, slathered the chicken with hummus and some lemon juices, sprinkled on a little sumac (or you can use smoked paprika), and popped it in the oven. About a half hour later, I learned what “hummus-crusted” is all about.

Pure deliciousness, people.

I took the dish to a friend’s house for dinner on Saturday night, and we couldn’t stop talking about how amazingly flavorful and yummy this dish was! The hummus was the total rockstar of the dish — it indeed developed a light crust on the chicken, and then some of the extra oozed onto the veggies to give them a little extra sauce to go with the light lemony flavor. You could easily add some extra herbs, or balsamic, or even a little white wine to go with this. And of course, you could customize it by using your favorite flavors of hummus. But honestly, I loved the simple version with classic chickpea hummus. And holy moly — you can’t beat a one-pot meal with less than 10 minutes of prep time!

Highly recommend that you give this one a try. Thanks, Jen!!

HUMMUS-CRUSTED CHICKEN

prep time: 10 MINUTES
cook time: 25 MINUTES
total time: 35 MINUTES
yield: 4 SERVINGS 1X

DESCRIPTION

Hummus serves as the perfect sauce in this easy baked chicken dish!