What is Ireland’s best brand of humous?
For this week’s Shopping Trolley hotline, Simon Tierney tries out three local brands of the Middle Eastern dip.
On The Hard Shoulder this week he outlined the five key ingredients involved in making humous.
These are chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic and olive oil.
Mr Tierney explained that humous directly translates in Arabic to chickpeas, which is the most vital ingredient.
The first brand to go under his microscope this week was Tesco’s Eastmans Humous, the cheapest option, which costs 85c for 200g.
Lidl’s Moroccan Style Humous was next, costing €1.39 for 200g.
It was followed by Dunnes Stores branded Beetroot Humous, coming in at €2.25 for 170g.
The word houmous (or 'hummus if you're a Yank) is Arabic for 'chickpea', perhaps unsurprisingly.
I'll be bringing 3 different types to the till in this evening's Shopping Trolley Hotline with @kierancuddihy on @TheHardShoulder at 5.30pm. pic.twitter.com/w3ja3p3gc0
— Simon Tierney (@tierneysimon) December 6, 2023
“When you're comparing humous the first thing you will need to do is check out the tahini content and the humous content,” said Mr Tierney.
He said tahini was the most expensive ingredient in the dish, which explained some of the earlier price points.
“You can see why Dunne’s product is 165% more expensive than the others as it has double the amount of tahini in it, said Mr Tierney.
“It has a 12% tahini content, while the Lidl product has just 6%.”
Taste Test
During the taste test, Mr Tierney noted that the Tesco product had more corn flour than the others.
“It’s also a little bit more acidic than the other two. Now some people like a lemony, acidic humous, but I like a smoother one,” he said.
The ‘middle-priced’ product, Lidl’s Moroccan Style Humous was described as “gorgeous” by Mr Tierney.
However, he chose the purple/raspberry-coloured Beetroot Humous from Dunnes Stores as his favourite brand.
Meanwhile, Lidl’s Moroccan-style product was favoured by host Kieran Cuddihy as the best humous brand.
Listen back now:
