Avocado Feta Hummus Layered Vegetable Appetizer

Avocado feta hummus is a pretty and protein-rich vegetarian appetizer. Customize your platter with diced vegetable toppings and use pita chips or sliced vegetables as dippers.

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Being an intentionally seasonal eater means I get to eat amazingly delicious foods.  Fresh food--tomatoes, strawberries, even celery--just tastes better and I'm usually willing to wait out the winter months for those fresh tastes.  But if I limited my diet to solely local foods, I'd miss out on bananas, avocados, olives, shrimp, chocolate, salmon, tea . . . lots of stuff!


I compromise, of a sort, and think Kristy's idea of eating 80% local/20% other, as described in her podcast, is a terrific idea.  Every beet we eat is locally grown.  All the kale, as well. Much of the tomatoes and tomato-based products we eat are from my backyard and our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I make enough pesto to last us for the year.  I'm also good with garlic, between roasting my own crop and using the fresh stuff from the farm share.

Avocados are an area where I enjoy breaking out of the local foods mode. After all, no avocado trees grow in my backyard (although I did have a banana tree when we lived in Hawaii)! Several years of resolving to add more avocados to my life [this is a New Year's Resolution more should adopt--it's fun!] means I am happy to report that I've gone beyond guacamole and avocado toast.


As soon as I tried the combination of salty feta and creamy avocado in Maria and Josh's Avocado Feta dip I was hooked. I keep coming back to that combination. I shared an Avocado Feta Lemon Yogurt Dip, and today I've made it into a hummus.

I think this dip--with the green olives, yellow peppers, and red onion--looks like Easter egg colors.  I'm sharing it now just because I thought it would be a nice Easter appetizer, and I like to plan ahead.



I know I've shared a lot of vegetable appetizers--I think snacking on veggies is a cool tip to increase our produce intake. Having vegetable appetizers is a delicious way to feed my family vegetables when there aren't a lot of fresh ones available from our farm share.

For more recipes using avocados, please see my Avocado Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Avocado Feta Hummus
By Kirsten Madaus

Avocado feta hummus is good as a stand alone dip--but it sings when you layer it with fresh & preserved vegetables and additional cheese then scoop it up with fresh veggies and pita chips

Prep time: 00:10
Cook time: 00:00
Total time: 00:10

Yield: about 1½ cups dip

Ingredients:
¾ cup cooked chick peas (about half a can, rinsed and drained)
1 avocado
2 ounces feta cheese
2 to 3 Tablespoons lemon juice + zest if you've got a lemon handy
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 to 2 Tablespoons tahini paste
2 Tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 cloves roasted garlic (here's how I roast and put up my garlic crop)

Optional toppings for Layered Vegetable Appetizer: more crumbled feta cheese, sliced green, purple, or black olives, sliced yellow, red, green or orange peppers, chopped red onions, marinated artichoke hearts, chopped carrots, sliced radishes, chopped broccoli, massaged kale, drizzled olive oil, crushed pita chips--honestly just throw it on there and see how it tastes

Instructions:

If you've got a food processor this is a breeze--combine all ingredients, chick peas through olive oil, in a food processor.

Pulse a few times to get it mixed, then process until smooth, scraping down the sides occasionally.

Other than a food processor, I'd try for a blender, or finely chop everything, using the flat of my knife to mash what I could into a cutting board, then stir it all together in a bowl.

To serve as a layered vegetable appetizer, spread hummus on a plate and top with optional toppings, then drizzle with olive oil and dig in!

Want more ideas for layered vegetable appetizers? Just click on the photo to go to each recipe: